Tuesday 19 January 2016

#SpeakUp | Living With Acne And How To Deal with it

#SpeakUp Living With Acne And How To Deal with it spots cream advice teenagers
Acne, Spots, Zits whatever you care to call them, they are a universal problem that affects one hell of a lot of young people. For some, it isn't really that much of an issue for others it follows them right through their early adulthood and maybe even into the rest of their life's! For some, they are pretty manageable, easy to treat and don't really cause that much harm in contrary to some which manifest themselves as angry, painful or large spots, which cause misery and disheartenment. I have suffered from acne from the age of about eleven, on and off now for seven years! That's a very long time indeed! It is definitely a topic that is close to my heart but something that I also think is extremely prominent in lots of other young people's lives which is not spoken up about enough! I, therefore, was sure I wanted it to be the first topic of my #SpeakUp series!





I am just going to start off with my story and personal battle, just so you have a bit of background information. In my year six photo, the last year of primary school my face is nice and clear! A year later, however, I am now in year seven and I have quite a few spots mainly on my cheeks! I remember, going to Tesco and Superdrug tirelessly to keep buying new over the counter face washes, spot creams and treatments. None of which worked! My mum was pretty quick at taking me to the doctors in which I was prescribed this stick thing, which had a mesh top. After trying this for a few months, it was pretty obvious I was going to need something stronger! I am pretty sure he gave me another cream at this point but I can't quite remember! However, what happened next was going to change my skin for the better. I was given a cream called benzoyl peroxide. This cream comes in different percentages for different strengths! At first, I was given 2.5% which funny enough didn't help too much! I then went back and got 5% alongside this I was given actual physical pills to take. Now, at this stage in my life, I really couldn't swallow pills so I can't really comment of the effectiveness of them! However, the gel really worked! Alongside, a good skincare routine my skin was on the up! For once I was actually quite happy with my skin until around mid last year they stopped my prescription! At first, I was okay with that but then after a while my skin started to get pretty poor again! As I couldn't live without my beloved benzoyl peroxide, I kept buying it from Boots at £10 a pot, which isn't cheap! But the worst happened! My skin stopped reacting to it! It didn't work and made no difference whatsoever! My skin is now worst than ever. One of my goals this year is to go to the doctors about it but I just physically can't go alone so its pretty hard to find the time!

Although my acne is now worse than ever, I don't think it affects me emotionally as much as it did! When I was younger I never wore makeup so if it was there, it was there! Thankfully, I was never tormented or bullied because of it, but I am fully aware that is not the same for everyone! However, it is inevitable that you, I included are going to experience some hateful passing comments! Maybe they are jokey or not even directed at you - but they can hurt nonetheless! I now wear makeup, so I know that I can just cover it all up and its fine! However, when I was younger I never wore foundation or powder etc. So I kind of just went with it! I often put my hair over my face to try and hide a really big spot if I had one! As I have got older the way in which my spots manifest themselves has changed! I used to get one big spot, which often drew attention to my face and I hated it! Especially if the were on the edge of my lip or middle of the nose! Yes! I have had that and yes! It's pretty awkward! However now it's more of rash down both of my cheeks made up of small under the skin spots and scars, and it looks terrible!

Living With Acne And How To Deal with it spots advice help teenagers support

The main reason why I wanted to do this post as part of my #SpeakUp series and community on my blog is because I believe that acne is often a looked over topic and is normally jokingly made fun of but actually can cause serious turmoil for some! If you have acne, you are not alone and you are definitely not ugly! Acne does not define who you are. It does not dictate what you do and who you interact with. If people can't see past the acne then they are obviously not true friends to be around. There are people out there that will help you although this is Something I am trying to work on! Don't be ashamed of who you are! Jump in those pictures and be confident in your skin! Trust me, it's only a tiny part of who you are and you should definitely not worry tirelessly over it although I know how hard it can be! It's simply caused by chemicals and hormones and although good skincare helps, don't ever listen to people that call you dirty or pizza face, the are just small minded idiots!

That concludes the first blog post in the #SpeakUp series! The chat regarding this topic will be taking place on twitter, between 8 pm and 9 pm using #SpeakUp! We will just be talking, asking some questions around the topic acne and trying to speak up about the issue!

As always, my email is open ( thriftyvintagefashionbusiness@mail.com ) for anyone who wants to write a guest blog post on my blog for the series/ community! Just email me the topic you are interested in writing about and we can take if from there!

This is an incredibly nerve-wracking thing for me to do! So I hope you all get behind it and I will see you in the chat on Thursday! Next week's #SpeakUp post topic will be on Fears and failure!

Have you ever suffered from acne?! How do you deal with it?

Thank you for reading, as always x 
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