My Skin Story: Was I My Own Worst Enemy?
Part 1 - Learning to listen
Like most women, I hate pimples. I loathed having one every once in a while, but overall, it never caused me too many issues. Let me preface this by saying that even as a kid, I had never had many pimples growing up. In my teenage years, I had nearly perfect skin – what I thought was related to genetics. Having worked as a model in my youth from 16 to 22 years old, I was always very aware of this superficial aspect of how people viewed your face and how important it was to have clean hair and clear skin. This had residual effects on me later.
As a young adult, I was put on hormonal birth control pills quite early, as most of us are, without thinking twice. While this stabilized my hormones at a young age (or so I thought), I later found out it could have had some negative consequences on my hormones' ability to self-regulate. I had been on the pill for ten years before changing to a Copper IUD and then further hormonal birth control IUD. Going through my ups and downs on both, I eventually took it out and am working to balance my hormones naturally and letting my cycle stabilize on its own.
The story really begins, though, around 28 years old, a few years ago. It was post-COVID, and I was taking a difficult standardized finance exam and having problems focusing, studying, and believing in myself. I felt the material was accessible and a passing grade was attainable yet, for some reason, I could feel I was so afraid of failure that I would not give myself the benefit of the doubt.
When I did well on practice quizzes before the exam, I felt like that material must have "gone easy on me," and when I failed a quiz or practice, I was extremely hard on myself, hating on myself and my effort, and negatively criticizing myself, calling myself "dumb" and "ridiculous" for even trying. This constant emotional rollercoaster I was on over 8 months was an experience that made me extremely stressed and nearly burned me out. Over this period, I simultaneously had started to break out but with really unusual cystic acne, all over my jawline and cheeks. I had no idea where this had come from. At its worst point, I could not look at myself in the mirror without breaking out into tears. I was a girl who never wore makeup and never cared for looking "done up," now felt I had to hide my face, my true self and what was happening to me inside and out. I felt I was living a double life, pretending on the outside to be okay while on the inside feeling worn down, broken, and unhealthy. I tried all sorts of methods from facials to creams to dermatologists. Yet, nothing would solve the problem... and I only became meaner and meaner to myself as time went on and my skin wouldn’t heal.
I reached out to my gynaecologist and asked to get my hormonal IUD taken out. I thought it had something to do with the hormones in the IUD for months but had never been taken seriously when I mentioned it. Both my gynaecologist and other doctors said that there should not be any link to this kind of acne. They offered to put me on another type of birth control if I wanted with a lighter dose of progesterone. This was not what I had wanted, so I kept thinking my body would listen to me and that the problem would go away on its own so I kept waiting it out to see if it got better. Until finally, it felt impossible not to act. I got my birth control out... (continued in the next article.)
