on My Face

a connect-the-dots drawing on my face

KAROLINA KOCIMSKA

Acne fucking sucks. Being 21 with acne is not where I imagined myself as a teenager. I tried to find comfort in the hope that I would grow out of it, that my hormones would settle, and that my skin would look like an adult’s. Well, I have been a proper adult for 3 years and my skin still sucks.

Coming to uni in my first year was especially hard because wherever I looked most people seemed to have skin that was clear and settled. In high school acne was just a fact of life for everyone except a lucky few. I felt somewhat normal even when red cystic dots would pop up on my face every night. It was definitely a shock to the system, moving into a college and sitting in classes and seeing so much nice skin. My skin got really bad a few weeks into first year and I saw the GP about it. I shared my insecurity and distress and he reassuringly said, “everyone is just on medication, that’s all”. I started taking the pill, antibiotics, and using a topical cream. My skin stabilised and after one and a half years on the pill I thought I’d come off it and see what happens.

Everything was okay until I moved back to Canberra after a year of living back home. After two months the inconvenient red dots started popping up again. My skin care routine was impeccable. I was drinking water, sleeping, and eating my 2 and 5 every day. I tried several different creams and antibiotics. Nothing worked. No matter how hard I tried every morning I would wake up with a red ‘connect the dots’ drawn across my face.

Knowing that I would have to leave the house and go sit in Marie Reay while looking like a 15-year-old really made it hard to get out of bed. While getting dressed in the morning I would look at myself in the mirror and just feel any sense of selfconfidence I had left seep out from my body, leaving me empty. I wanted to hide. Experiencing such a significant and prolonged acne breakout, especially after having relatively nice skin for over a year, has been incredibly difficult.

The state of my skin was leaving me debilitated. I would skip the gym, reschedule coffees, and sit in the removed corners of Chifley Library in hopes of not being seen. Every time I looked at or spoke with someone I could feel my skin burning with the anxiety that all they were noticing was the acne. Why is my physical appearance bothering me so much? Why am I putting so much emphasis on looking like a proper full adult?

I have just turned 21, and the word ‘woman’ is not something that comes to mind when I think of myself. I’ve had people call me a woman, but I haven’t felt well described by the term. ‘Girl’ also feels wrong. I am in this liminal mental space where I know I’m no longer a girl, but I don’t see myself as a convincing woman. Am I simply a young woman? What does that even mean? How can I be a woman when I have the face of a 15-year-old? The acne just exacerbates these unsettled thoughts about my identity.

I feel like I won’t be taken seriously as a university student, at work, or just out in the world. It feels as if the acne delegitimizes me as a person, one that can’t even sort her skin out. Proper full adults don’t have acne, Meghan Markle doesn’t have acne, and neither do most people walking down Uni Ave. Rationally, I know this is not the case and that acne is a very common skin condition that people of all ages experience. My friends repeat these words to me for comfort and I know what they are saying is true, but all I want when I wake up every morning is clear skin. I don’t want to have my mood ruined to the point of tears because of some red dots on my face. It brings me great discomfort knowing that something like my skin - which my friends remind me “doesn’t really matter” - can have such an effect on my self-confidence. I thought I was past insecurities and that I was comfortable enough in myself that my appearance was in a perpetual state of being a non-issue. Apparently not.

Acne has made me question some ideas that I didn’t even realise I held. Why do I only feel worthy of love and affection when I ‘look good’? I almost told the person I’d been seeing to resume dating me in a few months when my skin had cleared up. I’ve been confronted with the knowledge that, without realising, I have put so much of my self-worth into my physical appearance. Which I remember specifically not wanting to do. I’ve had “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” repeated to me and by me since I was a kid but it turns out all I’ve been doing is continuously judging myself.

If I deprived myself of experiences whenever I felt my appearance wasn’t up to scratch, I would very rarely leave the house. I know this. Rationally I can see this. But it takes several minutes of repeating this to myself before I can head out the front door.

I guess I’m 21, an adult woman, with acne. Typing this out now is uncomfortable, but good news is that I haven’t skipped the gym or any social events recently. All I can really do is accept my skin and deny it the power to derail my life. After all, perfect skin is not a prerequisite for life.