I Basically Hid in My Dorm Room Senior Year Because of My Acne

From Seventeen

To the guy in Whole Foods who told me I should try Proactiv: Thanks for your advice. To my dear friend who asked if I was warm because my entire face was bright red: No, it's just my acne. To the girl in my history class who said my chin looked like it really hurt: It really, really did.

Yep, I'm a senior in college, and I was "supposed" to grow out of my bad skin years ago. But I didn't.

I remember staring at my 8-year-old self, two inches from a mirror in a hotel room during a family vacation to Montreal. A red bump had appeared overnight on the bridge of my nose, and I had no idea what it was. It was my first blemish, but it most certainly wouldn't be my last.

I've dealt with mild to moderate breakouts since the beginning of high school, and I was always embarrassed about the fact that I had to go to a dermatologist to fix it. I felt like I was the only one in my entire school who had to seek professional help for something as dumb as acne! But I didn't truly freak out until the summer I turned 17: I was a camp counselor at the same camp I went to when I was little, and working there was my dream job. I loved my group of fourth grade girls! But one day, my favorite camper asked me why I always had mosquito bites all over my face. I had literally never gotten a mosquito bite on my face and knew immediately she was asking about my acne. I brushed it off... but died inside. I remember thinking that if a 9-year-old was onto my bad skin, then so was everyone my age.

After that, I insisted on getting more aggressive acne medicine: Whenever I went to the derm, they'd ask me to rank how good or bad my skin was that day. Even if I thought it was a really good day, I'd tell them it was a bad one, hoping they'd prescribe me stronger creams for my face.

I first started taking pills and not just using creams to help clear my skin during my freshman year of college. My roommate and I were super close, so she noticed when I randomly started taking medicine and asked if I was sick, or if she could do anything to help. I didn't want to admit that I was going to ridiculous lengths to clear my skin because it felt like such a first world problem. I felt guilty and embarrassed, so I hid it from her. I told her I had a sore throat, but I'm pretty sure she knew I wasn't telling the truth. You just don't take pills for a sore throat for five months.

Luckily, after years of trial and error, it seemed like I was finally on the right combination of medicines by sophomore year of college. My skin was under control, and I was confident that I had gotten past the unfortunate years of stressing about my face. My skin was clear enough that I didn't even think about my acne on a daily or weekly basis anymore. At least, I didn't until just before I started senior year of college.

I worked full-time at an internship in the spring, so I hadn't actually been on campus with my friends for more than six months. I missed school so much, and I couldn't wait to go to football games, start new classes and work as one of the managing editors of our university's newspaper. But one week last August, I noticed that my forehead was getting super bumpy. At first, I thought it was just a reaction to sunscreen or something. But after a week or two, things only got worse. Instead of whiteheads, I was getting awful bumps I could feel coming on a few days in advance. It felt like there were tiny bruises all over my face that would never go away. My mom suggested I get a facial, but I had to walk out of it half-way through because the weird oils burned my skin and the massage felt like I was getting punched in the face.

Forget football games and classes - all I could think about once I got back on campus was how I looked! Before, I never thought much about makeup, but now I refused to leave my dorm room without a layer of something on. One day, my friend was describing this guy in her chemistry class, and she said he always looked "really dirty because he had greasy hair and acne." My heart sunk. Did she think I was really dirty, too? I half-smiled at my friend and nodded, but apparently I'm a sucky liar because she immediately started to backtrack. She apologized like crazy before telling me that she didn't even think of me as having bad skin; she just thought of me as her friend. It was nice to she didn't see me as some weirdo with a diseased face, but her comments reaffirmed my fears that strangers might.

I started opting out of plans because I didn't want anyone to see my skin - I even skipped a special senior event with all of my friends because of my face. Finally, I confided in my besties that I wasn't feeling stellar. That's when they started making a conscious effort to tell me when people asked why I was skipping out on plans, that people missed me. It made me feel good to know people noticed when I was gone.

They also assured me that no one else noticed my skin as much as I did: My best friend studies psychology, and she told me about this phenomenon called the "spotlight effect," which is when you feel like everyone else notices exactly what you're doing and judges you for it. But in fact, the only one who pays so much attention to the small details of the way you look and how you act is you. Learning that actually helped my mood - knowing there was some sort of science to the way I was feeling made me feel way less crazy.

I still went through most of the fall feeling like crap about my face, until one night, I got a Facebook notification telling me I should change my profile picture because I hadn't done so for months. I started scrolling through my page to find something new and soon realized there just weren't any recent pics to choose from. I had avoided Snapchat and Instagram for three whole months because of my face, and I was suddenly so sad that I didn't have many photos to remember my final Fall Quarter by. I hadn't even taken a cheesy "first day of school" pic like I always did! It felt like there was a hole where the last three months should be. Staring at my screen made me feel like I was ruining my last year in college, and I had to make a change.

So I made improving my perspective on my skin my New Year's Resolution. I wasn't going to let a face full of acne erase my senior year of college! No matter how bad my face looked, I resolved to go out and enjoy everything I love about school. It was an uphill battle sometimes, though. Once, I considered bailing on a trip my friends and I had planned to the Museum of Contemporary Art - I knew everyone would just want to take photos for Insta, and I dreaded it. But I remembered my New Year's Resolution and decided to go. Ironically enough, the pic I posted that day is my most-liked ever.

Sure, there are still days I wake up frustrated with my face, but I'm committed to not letting my skin ruin the little I have left of my senior year with my best friends. Sure, I may not have perfect skin, but honestly, there are worse problems to have, like not having any recent photos to change my profile photo. Good thing I've crossed that one off.

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