Being judged for something you can't control is one of the hardest forms of bullying, and it's certainly one of the most common.
Taylor Hintgen struggled with acne from a young age until later in high school. She discusses her struggle to find her beauty from a situation she couldn't control.
As I sit here, I wonder what it would be like to not have scars or acne on my face.
I scroll though social media and I am envious of those who appear to have flawless skin. I have always felt the need to hide my face with my hair, thinking that it will cover my flaws.
In the 5th grade I started to have breakouts and I didn’t understand why I was getting all of these bumps on my face and no one else was. I started to use makeup to cover up these flaws and insecurities. In middle school the acne continued to flare and it looked like I always had a rash on my face.
This is when I started to develop back acne and I didn’t think it was bad until a friend asked me what was wrong with my back and I responded with “oh, it’s just a rash” but she continued to say it was acne. Later within these middle school years I had yet another friend tell me they were glad that they didn’t have an oily-pimpled covered face, like me.
I would have never thought that someone, especially a friend, would say they were glad they weren’t like me because of my skin and this was the start of my confidence slowly draining.
Between middle and high school there were many different things I tried to help clear my skin, but nothing worked. I tired acne medication like pills and creams, blue light methods, microdermabrasion’s but nothing was working and then started to think it’s never going to get better.
High school seemed to be no different. I’d walk the halls comparing myself to others, sitting in class making sure my hair was down so that it covered my face. Then it happened again, a very close friend of mine said “at least I don’t have bumps on my face” and it crushed me.
I tried so hard to look in the mirror and tell myself I was beautiful but never could.
Acne is mean, but when someone you know and in my case, friends, family, and strangers comment on how bad my acne is, that was mean too. I know people don’t always realize how much such words could affect a person but those words are something that have always stuck with me and really changed the way I looked at myself.
Being told 100 times that you are beautiful can all be diminished by one negative comment about your skin. My family did always tell me I am beautiful, and I appreciated it, but is something that I never saw in myself.
Acne affects everyone in different ways, it can be debilitating for some, it was for me. I never felt that I was beautiful, I didn’t make new friends a lot because I always worried about them only noticing what was on my face, and I didn’t try new experiences because I was so self-conscious.
Now, by no means did I have severe acne but I did have moderate acne and it consumed me. I needed and wanted my skin to be clear so that I could be confident. Recently, I had an opportunity to try a medication that was supposed to clear my skin of all acne. Over a span of six months I watched my face get increasingly worse but then slowly begin to clear and now I have been off this medication for a month and I have gotten one pimple since.
This experience has made me gain a lot of love for myself, I am becoming more comfortable and confident in my own skin.
I think that there is this stigma that comes with acne that we who have acne don’t know how to take care of ourselves when in reality acne just happens. I still look at social media and occasional compare my skin to others but then catch myself and realize we all have flaws, we all have insecurities but they aren’t what define us.
Each of us is different and beautiful in our own ways and I think it’s important for people to know that. We need to be kinder to ourselves, our imperfections are what make us beautiful.
