Beauty Diary | Your Life Isn't the Same as Anybody Else's

Once again exams and graduate school stress have gotten in the way of me updating the blog. This post is unlike my other blog content but I've been unhappy about this topic for a while and I wanted to write a diary-type post. Long story short, taking care of my skin has caused a lot of complications for me in my life. When I was a teenager my parents would tell me that this condition would go away because it was due to puberty, but my 18th birthday passed. My 19th birthday passed. My 20th birthday passed. My 21st birthday passed. My skin was still blotchy and awful. By this time I started to suspect that my skin troubles were not from puberty but from some underlying condition that no amount of topical treatments could help. I was right. It was only until my early 20's did I find out that my skin issues were largely caused by having PCOS (ovarian cysts) that mess up my hormones. Hormonal acne is much more difficult to treat than other types of acne.

It's upsetting to me because my friends have such naturally great skin and they don't seem to work as hard as I do to take care of my skin. Unlike them, I have low-grade inflammation (so my skin stays redder longer, in terms of post acne inflammation / hyperpigmentation). I've started a new diet that seems to be helping this, more on this topic later! For many acne sufferers, this story is familiar - you go through countless products, desperately trying to find something that works, and nothing ever seems to help you with your problems.

Having acne does a lot of harm to your self-esteem especially as a young person. I know that for me when I was growing up, I always felt so ugly and in many ways hated myself because these blotches kept appearing on my skin. I would compare myself to other girls with great skin and feel horrible. Being a minority in America didn't help either - European beauty ideals remain the predominant social concept of what is "beautiful". In other words, in addition to bad skin, I would feel ugly because of my ethnicity. Essentially I was getting upset over two things I could not control in a very formative period of my life. (Very complicated topic, will perhaps expand on another time, this is a condensed version of my thoughts on the matter).

I've made my peace with the realities of being Asian-American, and that is one of the reasons I started this blog - to help other Asian women feel ok in their skin. I also started it to create a community with women in general who suffer from PCOS related acne. My skin has been scarred from my acne-ridden days and I am just tired of having to wear foundation when I go out. Foundation can't cover the pitted groves from the past damage I inflicted upon myself and I feel so self conscious when I turn around and my face hits certain angles of light - my facial dents look so much more magnified. At home dermarolling has helped SO SO much because my skin used to, in my opinion, looked vaguely like ground beef. I've escalated to rolling with 2.0 MM + needles, but that level of dermarolling is difficult to do because longer needles mean longer down times (2+ weeks) and given my personal life (needing to attend school), I have been unable to do many sessions in the last year.

When I look at my scars I think to myself - this isn't fair and I wish someone understood what it was like to be in my shoes with this terribly annoying hormonal condition. My family doesn't really understand - sometimes I think they think it's all in my head. Managing the skin-related effects of this chronic condition just adds more work to my already tough workload. Sometimes I wish someone could understand how hard I work for all aspects of my life - school, my skin, my other medical issues. But I tell myself, stop wishing your skin were like your friend's or because your life isn't going to be the same as anybody else's and you need to move on. Moving on is really the only option after all.