Tag: Acne

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

The year I turned sixteen was, for lack of a more poetic descriptor, a bit of a garbage heap.

My parents split up.

My Nana died.

I spent the entirety of my grade ten year trying to eat as little as I could, and exercising as much as possible.

The acne on my forehead, chest, and back mutated from a small community garden patch, into a GMO-modified super crop. Equal parts horrified and embarrassed, I spent as much time spackling concealer onto my shoulders as I did my face. (Thankfully, for my birthday I was gifted a prescription for Accutane, and therefore also a new lease on my teenage dermatological life.)

I had braces and was in total denial about my (very real) need for glasses. I can never be sure I didn’t cause permanent damage to my eyes, what with the amount of squinting I performed every day at school.

I had extensive surgery which saw the breaking of both of my jaws and the reconstruction of my mouth. The end result was a complete restructuring of my facial composition and profile – although this never became apparent until approximately three months post-breakage, what with the amount of swelling that I had to live down.

During this time, I ate so much instant oatmeal I couldn’t even look at Quaker package for almost six years post-recovery.

That summer, I enrolled myself in Camp Potlatch’s “Leadership in Training” course, the completion of which would certify me to work as a camp counsellor.

Unfortunately, my Nana died two days before I was to start the camp and I missed the first three days as I had to fly down to Nova Scotia for her funeral and wake.

I remember feeling so utterly discombobulated flying back home by myself. I was jet-lagged and flu-ridden from the back-to-back, cross-country plane rides and the ensuing whirlwind of familial gatherings, churches and burials.

I was also livid that my parents still expected me to attend the camp. I hadn’t even had the chance to properly grieve, and here I was flying right back home, packing up my bags and pretending like nothing had happened.

I’ll never forget the car ride to the camp’s boat launch just outside of Squamish – my entire body seething with teenage rage, hurt, and indignation.

Any time my dad said anything I just ignored him while screaming, “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP” inside my head.

Unfortunately, once I arrive at the camp things didn’t get much better.

My first three hours were spent in the frigid waters of Howe Sound, learning how to right a capsized canoe.

I also somehow lost my retainers (negating much of my happiness from having just gotten my braces off in the first place!) and then almost fainted, as I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that I was very hungry and hadn’t consumed anything since leaving Halifax the day before.

I was also subjected to the advances of the world’s worst flirter – a seventeen year-old boy named Christian, who was my partner in our canoe-training exercise.

Christian was about six foot four, weighed approximately one hundred and fifty pounds, and had a shock of white-blond hair that stood a good six inches straight up from his head.

He liked to sing to me, in particular the lyrics from Dennis Leary’s seminal work “I’m An Asshole.”

As you can imagine, I was immediately smitten.

Walking up from the waterfront, soaked from head to foot, lugging the front end of our very wet, and very heavy canoe, I felt the first prickle of a tear in my eye.

Trying my best to air on the side of positivity, I whispered to myself that “there was no way this could get any worse.”

And then it started to rain.

I immediately began to plot my escape: I would tell the director that my mourning was too great! I would “accidentally” break a limb!

No doubt reacting to my increasingly pallid complexion and demoralized demeanor, my counsellor Julie came up to me, put her arms around my shoulders and gave them a squeeze.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get warmed up.”

As we walked up to the showers, she and Amanda (another counsellor in-training) let me know how happy they were to have another girl in their ranks.

“I really, realy didn’t want it to be just me and five guys,” smiled Amanda.

Looking quickly back at Christian and his rag-tag group of compatriots, I silently agreed. I too wouldn’t have wanted Amanda to weather the incoming storm on her own.

As we walked into the washroom, and I saw both Julie and Amanda begin to undress, I felt a wave of panic rise inside of me.

I didn’t want to get naked in front of these two strangers.

I didn’t want anyone to see my body.

For a second I was completely paralyzed, unable to even breathe.

But then I saw how completely unmoved both of them were by the scenario; how completely at ease they were in their skin.

And in that moment, I wanted this more than anything I had ever wanted anything before. More than I wanted my parents to get back together, more than I wanted my Nana to be alive, more than I wanted clear skin, and skinny legs.

I just wanted to be warm, and bare, and happy.

So I took off my clothes and under the stream of the second shower from the left, I felt some of that happiness and strength.

And in that moment I forgot about my retainers. About my parents. About death, and acne, and my body.

I just felt the water warm me – all of me.

The following three weeks were impacting, and transforming, and utterly brilliant. That time spent in the bush canoeing, hiking, kayaking, building fires, cooking camp food, swimming, fending off Christian’s advances, and sleeping under the stars was exactly what I needed to get over the trauma and drama of being sixteen years-old.

At least for a little while.

(Along, of course, with Accutane.)

It’s clear as day

Okay people.

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Today I want to talk zits.

Pimples.

Acne.

THE WORKS.

Between grades seven to ten I had a pretty bad case of the pizza face (to use the most unappealing and totally grotesque descriptor that could possibly come to mind). To make matters worse, when I started grade nine, I realized that my blemishes had also begun to migrate to other areas of my body, such as my shoulders, back, and chest.

Being the tank-top connoisseur that I was, not to mention a girl already tormented with braces and glasses, this dispersion, to me, was pushing the boundary of general decency.

I mean, with how much dermatological baggage should a fourteen year old girl be saddled?

Good grief.

So I tried a number of different brands and products in a bid to rid myself from this dastardly affliction, with most of my efforts being, of course, in vein.

I spent my a large percentage of my (minimal) disposable income on topical acne gels, Biore facial strips, and medicated face and body washes just to try and keep those little (and sometimes not so little) red dots at bay.

But nothing ever really worked and I was miserable.

What little else remained of my money was spent on heavy duty foundation and thick translucent powder (powder that I used to “set” said foundation.)

[Ed. note to any teenage readers: THIS IS NEVER A GOOD THING TO DO.]

Waking up every morning and counting the number of zits on my face, hoping against hope that there would be less than the day before, I, like any good overdramatic fifteen year old, was at the point where I began to believe that this would be my life FOREVER.

That was until November of grade ten rolled around and my mother set me up with a prescription for Acutane.

Now, say what you want about this product (and I know there is a ton of legitimate negative literature out there on the subject) but for me, this medication was a godsend.

Sure, my lips were dryer than the Sahara desert the entire time I took those big white pills, but seeing how well (and how fast) my skin cleared up, I would have agreed to a lifetime of chapped smoochers in exchange for the miracle work it had performed on not only my face – but all my other “problem” areas.

Thinking back, I cannot help but smile when thinking about the summer before entering grade eleven.

I got my braces taken off, got new “cool” specs (and by cool I mean the big, black frames I still wear today. I was rocking my nerd glasses way before anyone thought to make them into a trend!), and my skin had completely cleared up.

I remember going to a party at a boy’s house (a boy that would eventually become my first boyfriend) in August and him telling me how great I looked.

I was on top of the world.

Flash forward over the past ten years, and well, during this time I have had both fantastic skin, and not so fantastic skin.

The short and simple answer as to why this disparity exists is this:

I have (and have had) fantastic skin when I have been healthy.

I had not so fantastic skin when I was sick.

Take me at my word kids: nothing mucks up your skin faster than being bulimic.

After particularly awful episodes I would break out horribly, and in awkward places at that – all along my jaw line, across my hairline, and next to my temples (just to name a few.)

And then what do you know, I was back at the drug store procuring that foundation and powder, contemplating whether or not another round of medication was worth the hassel.

In the end, I am happy to report that in its stead, I took the necessary steps to improve my health, and since this time have been back to a non-caked-on-concealer complexion.

However.

The skin on the rest of my body remains as sensitive as a sensitive thing, and seeing as though my skin is pretty much translucent and easily scarred, I have to be very careful about the kind of body washes and soaps that I use in the cleaning process, and about never buying bras that dig into my skin, and about using lightweight workout clothes.

Because if I don’t I’ll most likely get some sweet skin decoration going on – decoration that will lurk around for quite awhile, due to said aforementioned easy scarring.

But honestly, at this point in my life I don’t really care either way.

I don’t have the energy to waste on these matters.

Sure, sometimes this sensitivity grinds my gears, but when it comes down to it – a zit or two on my shoulder will never, ever be something that stops me from doing anything I actually want to do.

And why should it?

It’s funny.

I can still remember a conversation that I had with one of my best friends when we were but thirteen years old.

She asked me: “Would you rather have perfect skin, or always be skinny, for the rest of your life?”

With my body issues beating my skin issues in the race for most damaging control over my life, I easily answered “Skinny.”

I so badly wish I could go back and help that young girl know that the right answer is neither of those two options.

But the again, hey – she ended up finding her way there eventually.