HEALTH

There are very few things that can make us feel more self-conscious than a pimple.

It becomes a constant thought in the back of your mind—so much so that you become paranoid that any time someone looks at you for a little too long in the hallway, they’re looking at your acne. You think: Is my makeup covering up my pimple? Are people staring at it? How gross does it actually look?

I struggled with acne in middle school. Stubborn pimples were always smattered across my nose, cheeks and forehead—sometimes, they would all crop up in a *single* night. I would go to sleep with clear skin and wake up covered in acne—talk about the opposite of "beauty sleep."

It frustrated me to no end, especially when I went to school and it seemed like no one else had the same problem. My mom told me all the time it really wasn’t that bad, but I couldn’t listen to her advice. She always said she saw many kids my age and older with even worse acne, and that it wasn't a big deal at all.

But the problem was that it *felt* like a big deal to me. Acne can make you forget how beautiful you are, since every time you look in the mirror your eyes are drawn to the imperfections. That's what was happening to me. 

So I started wearing cover-up to school in an effort to hide the problem. Sure, no one else could see the acne, but day after day of caking my face with makeup didn't do great things for my skin. My breakouts only worsened, which made me use even more foundation to get rid of their appearance.

I was so self-conscious about my acne that I never spoke to my friends about it; I even wore cover-up when I was sleeping over someone’s house to ensure no one but me would ever see it. Until one night at a slumber party, my bestie came back into her room after washing her face and started complaining about her break-out. Suddenly everyone in the room was talking about their own stuggles with acne.

And I jumped in too.

I realized then that most people were having the same issues I was. They were all covering up their acne with makeup, so everyone seemed to think no one else had any problems with breakouts. But once we started talking about it, my whole world opened up. Eventually, I stopped covering up my pimples when I went to school and, as time went on, I stopped getting the breakouts.

They say that stress causes acne, but acne also causes stress. It becomes a cycle from which it’s hard to escape. But when the stress and the pimples crop up, we have to remind ourselves that everyone breaks out sometimes and that acne is temporary.

And, most importantly, we're beautiful no matter state our skin is in.

Do you struggle with acne, too? Tell us about it in the comments.

We want to hear from you! Send us your weirdest body questions here (seriously, we'll answer anything!) and it just might get featured.

by Amy Garcia | 10/29/2016