Wednesday, March 18, 2020 // The Statement
6B

I 

was in fifth-grade music class when 
I discovered my first pimple. It 
didn’t hurt, there was just a small 

raised bump on my cheek. I turned to 
one of my friends and asked if there was 
something on my face.

She examined it. “Looks like a zit,” she 

said. “Want me to pop it?”

I recoiled. “Can’t I just wipe it off?” I 

rubbed my palm on my cheek.

She laughed. “It’s stuck to your face. 

You can’t wipe it off.” The bell rang and 
I walked out of the room, horrified, 
imagining a foreign object growing 
through my skin.

When I got home, I examined it in the 

mirror. It was a slightly-red bump, hardly 
noticeable. I didn’t know what she meant 
by “popping” it, though I remembered 
hearing someone being told to pop a zit 
in an episode of “The Suite Life of Zack 
and Cody.” I squeezed it until it became 
angry, red and definitely noticeable. But 
not a pop.

In truth, I didn’t really know what acne 

was supposed to look like — I’d rarely seen 
it in the media, only when mentioned as 
a joke or partially airbrushed away from 
actors’ faces on Disney Channel. My 
parents didn’t have it, and neither did my 
cousins or my brother. I went home and 
told my mom, who bought me a face wash 
with salicylic acid in it. The pimple went 
away within a few days.

As the acne began invading my face 

more often, the face wash stopped 
working. I resorted to YouTube to give 
me resources for how to treat it myself. 
Toothpaste, olive oil, aluminum foil, 
baking soda, honey and lemon seemed 
to do the trick for other people, but only 
aggravated my acne-prone and dry skin. I 
wished I could just pop my pimples and be 
done with them, but they felt deeper, like 
they had sprouted from within my pores 
and I had to dig them out by the roots.

Acne had created an anxious cycle 

for me: My acne caused anxiety, which 
caused me to pick and squeeze at it to get 
rid of it, which only made my skin worse. 
The stress caused me to break out more, 
too. 

A couple years later, I started seeing a 

dermatologist and found out that I had 
cystic acne, which happens when hair 
follicles plug with oil and dead skin cells. 
The doctor told me I was producing more 
of this oil due to a hormone imbalance. 
Since there was no whitehead to pop, they 
would poke my face with a needle and let 
the acne drain every couple of months, 
leaving me bleeding and red when I left. 

I sat quietly in the car as my mom drove 
me home, dreading the next day when 
I had to go to school with scabs forming 
over my red bumps. I felt the pain in every 
pore.

I 
tried 
buying 
over-the-counter 

products, using a customizable skin 
regimen and then switching to creams 
prescribed by my dermatologist. After 
none of these worked, I finally began 
taking an antibiotic that made me more 

sensitive to sun rays. While the acne 
cleared up slightly, taking it during 
the summer left me with months-long 
sunburns. I couldn’t run cross country 
without frying my shoulders, and my 
Spanish teacher frequently asked if I’d 
just gone on a vacation because of my 
frequently-burned nose.

I didn’t know if people were looking at 

me because of my acne or my sunburns 
— it felt like this new kind of redness 
brought more attention than a bad acne 
flare. I stopped taking the antibiotic and 
switched to a combined birth control pill, 
which would help balance my hormones 
and hopefully get rid of my acne once and 
for all. And though the new pill helped 
with the acne, it made the anxiety and 

depression worse, a struggle between the 
internal and external.

Through the years, my mental health 

suffered greatly as I watched my face fill 
with unwanted red dots. Every time I left 
the house, I felt like everyone was staring 
at it, and eventually, I grew my hair out so 
it covered my cheeks. I didn’t make eye 
contact when I talked to people. When I 
would pose for photos next to my friends 
I made sure they had the flash off, and I 

angled my body so the spots would be 
concealed.

The thing about acne is that it has the 

potential to permeate the rest of your 
life. It’s a badge of anxiety worn on your 
face, and you never know what would 
have been different if you didn’t have it. 
Would I have performed better in that job 
interview? Would I have had more friends 
growing up? Is it harder to socialize with 
people because I’m afraid people don’t 
actually like me?

Acne is the most common skin condition 

in the United States, affecting up to 85 
percent of people between the ages of 12 
and 24 — so why is there so much shame 
attached to it? Maybe it’s because there 
are certain beauty standards that we 

see in the media, and celebrities must be 
“ready for their close up” with flawless 
skin. Maybe it’s because people think it’s 
gross and have internalized the idea that 
people with acne have bad hygiene: I’ve 
been told many times to wash my face 
more, though, in my experience, those 
with acne are often the ones taking the 
best care of their skin. They know how 
much work it takes to avoid a flare-up.

Having acne has taken an immense 

toll on my mental health, and I’m 
not the only one; the emerging field 
of 
psychodermatology 
reveals 
the 

connection between skin health and 
mental 
health. 
Psychophysiological 

disorders such as eczema, psoriasis, acne 
and hives are common “skin disorders 
that are worsened or, in some cases, 
brought on by emotional stress,” and 
“certain emotional states can lead to 
increased inflammation in the body.” This 
ultimately can lead to a cycle of mental 
health negatively impacting the skin.

After going off of birth control for 

mental health reasons, my acne came 
back — and it began to scar. Though the 
bumps themselves came and went, I was 
left with permanent imprints on my face, 
a visible reminder of my invisible mental 
struggles.

I began wearing makeup nearly every 

day to cover up my scars, which only 
plugged my pores more. It was a temporary 
fix, a band-aid for the days when I couldn’t 
handle the anxiety of going outside with a 
face full of acne. But it became a crutch, 
something I had to rely on, because 
underneath the foundation my pimples 
started getting worse. It added another 
aspect to the cycle: Makeup gave me more 
acne, which gave me more anxiety, which 
caused more acne and more makeup. I 
only stopped when I reached the bottom 
of my mental health barrel last winter, 
and instead of honing my makeup skills, 
I switched to working on my self-esteem.

I have gone through plenty of chemical 

peels 
and 
new 
dermatologists 
and 

prescription pills and expensive topicals 
to know that the best way to heal acne 
is to work on your mind first. Adding 
stress and makeup to the cycle just hurts 
your confidence, when healing comes 
from treating your skin gently, as well as 
yourself. Over the last 10 years of dealing 
with acne, I know my mind and body 
have a stronger connection than they 
did before. I am gentler with myself, in 
my skincare routine and in my self-talk, 
and know that being OK with myself will 
always translate into my skin.

A physical sign of anxiety

BY HANNAH BRAUER, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SCHOTT

