Acne Leave Scars On More Than Just Your Face

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Ten years ago, if you were to ask me to open up about my deepest insecurity, I would have stared at you incredulously—because my deepest insecurity was clearly mapped across my face in angry red clusters. My battle with acne began at 14, and would go on to drastically threaten my emotional well-being for the next 12 years of my life.

SEPTEMBER 2006

Summer break is over. Just met school friends. We all seem to have come back with one thing in common: Pimples!

At that age, I knew I only had puberty to blame for my acne and it never bothered me, mostly because my friends were in the same hormonal boat. Sadly, just a year later I was steering all by myself. That’s when the stray comments about my skin turned into a steady flow. Sometimes I think it wasn’t even the facial bumps that traumatised me, but people’s reaction to them. It’s funny how everyone seemed to suddenly have attained a PhD in dermatology—people I didn’t know would find it appropriate to send me home remedies and recommend doctors, completely unsolicited. From eating raw bitter gourd to applying sea salt, I thought I had heard everything. Then my friend’s mother recommended dabbing my acne with cow’s urine. Gross.

JULY 2007

I am now officially that girl with the terrible acne; it feels like it's become my identity