Acne.

It’s something that almost all of us have had to deal with before, whether it is the occasional white head or a stubborn cyst.

While it is something that most people have to deal with, at the very least, once in their lifetime, it is still something that people get self-conscious about, myself included.

In our culture, we are so focused on looks and trying to live up to the people that we see as celebrities that we often feel bad about ourselves for things that we cannot control.

Oh, but some would argue that acne is in fact something that you can control.

But the reality is that while you can do your best to tame it and lessen it, if you truly struggle with acne there is no real way to have your skin clear without putting down some money for treatments.

I have heard people say that people that have acne are ‘dirty’ and ‘don’t clean their face’.

That is quite the opposite of the truth. We wash our faces morning and night and we try very hard to keep dirty things away from our face.

The truth is that people who suffer from acne can have it for so many different reasons. Your diet can affect it, your genetics, your lifestyle, your hormones, and how much water you drink.

Some of these we can adjust, such as drinking water and eating fewer oily foods, but that just isn’t enough sometimes.

I hit puberty early, in 6^th grade to be exact, and from then on my face was always plagued by little painful red dots. I felt very self-conscious about this since not many girls had gotten puberty yet and I felt like the only one who was walking around with ugly dots on my face.

Then, some other girls started to break out too as I got older but none seemed to quite as bad as me. So, when I discovered makeup, I was thrilled that I could hide at least part of the imperfections that popped up on my face.

I waited and waited for my face to get better and it never seemed to. I mean, some days were definitely better than others, but for the most part, it was still bad.

I had tried it all. The home remedies, the pills, the creams, the washes, and everything else that I could possibly think of. Nothing seemed to work and my self-esteem was blown out the window more and more every day.

I would get comments like “pizza face” thrown my way and with every day I just had to tell my self it wasn’t permanent. I’ve heard all the jokes, from just about everyone. Friends, peers, my brother, and everyone else, they all seemed to notice and make fun of what I was so self-conscious about already.

I figured out that my acne was caused by the imbalance in my body from my hormones and eventually did find a topical product that seemed to work for me. My acne is far from being gone, but I do not suffer from breakouts as badly as I used too.

I still am self-conscious about it, but I have learned that it is a part of me and who I am, so I should not be ashamed of it.

I used to wear heavy caked on makeup every day in middle school and in high school to cover my face up. My greatest fear was going to school with my face not made up.

Then I got to college and I realized that none of that mattered anymore. The people who I called my friends liked me regardless of whether I was wearing makeup or not. So, I eventually got comfortable enough to start going out without my mask of makeup on.

Don’t get me wrong, it still bothers me and sometimes it makes me want to have a breakdown but I don’t let it control me anymore.

I have scars on my face from all the acne in the past, and, as much as I wish they would just disappear, they don’t. When I look at them, though, it is a reminder of how much worse my acne used to be and to embrace who I am so I can live my life to its fullest.

So, to everyone else out there who suffers from acne, just know that it does get better over time and that you decide how some stupid little dots on your face affect you.

You can let acne hold you back or you can embrace that it is apart of who you are and love yourself.