With the Lights On

I got acne when I turned 13. At first, I was kind of proud about it... you know, the excitement of finally growing up.

That didn't last long.

Within weeks, relatives and friends started asking me
what had happened to my face.
I found it absurd... we were taught that this was normal. And yet, no one seemed to treat it that way.

Then came the 'remedies.'

Even on a simple walk downstairs, I'd run into aunties, uncles, and grandmas handing out kitchen recipes for 'how to fix my skin'

I was at a baby shower in my neighbourhood when I was around 14, one of the aunties called me over and said, "Why do you eat so much junk food? It's of no use, isn't it?"
I instantly knew what she was getting at.
It made me angry... because at 14, I think I deserve to enjoy my life before worrying about whether I'm "eating clean."

What made it more painful was that my mother wasn't exactly different. She'd look at my face, frown, and say,

"Oh my God, what has happened to your face?"

She restricted me from eating chocolates, dairy, and anything she thought could feed my acne.

She took me to every kind of treatment... clinics, doctors, you name it. Creams, ointments, syrups, pills, whatever the doctors prescribed.

Most of them worked temporarily. Others didn't work at all, or made things worse.

At school, a bunch of guys started calling me "pimple face." 

All of this happening together gave me a complex. 

Every time a new pimple showed up, I felt like everyone was watching me... noticing how bad my skin was, how deep my scars were, how big this new one had gotten.

I shrank.

Exactly at the age when I was supposed to be growing.

Then came the boom of social media skincare.

I tried not to fall for any of it, but it still made my complex worse.

The perfect people, the perfect skin, the rice for glass skin routines, the products they recommended, the results they promised. I couldn't trust any of it...

but I couldn't stop comparing my skin to theirs either.

By college, I had spent years hearing that clear skin was something I was supposed to achieve. It wasn't just social media saying it anymore.

A professor teaching grooming ethics told us, "Acne is a disease, a disorder. You can't just let a disorder sit there... you're supposed to treat it medically."

I was personally offended.

Not just because it was said in a classroom full of people... but because someone in a position of authority was reinforcing the exact shame I had spent years trying to shake.

It wasn't a medical consultation.

It was a grooming class.

And yet, there it was... my face, framed as a disorder to be corrected.

Around that same time, a friend told me acne suited me. Another friend immediately disagreed...

"acne cannot suit anyone."

I remember thinking, why not? Why are we so convinced that it can't?

I started visiting a new dermatologist around that time. Her medicines actually worked, but her treatment seemed endless.

Every visit, a new prescription.

Every prescription, a medicine no pharmacy had in stock.

Every month, the same cycle... visit, medicate, clear up, stop, break out, repeat.

I visited her for about three to four years.

In January this year, I was supposed to go back... but I just didn't.

And by summer, my skin was back to where it always was.

I watched the Michael Jackson biography recently. I found out that he suffered from acne too. As a 16-year-old, he was approached by a fan at an airport who asked, "Ooh, what happened?" referring to his facial acne.

He shared that memory to describe how devastatingly insecure he felt as a teenager. 

He said that, during those years, he would wash his face in the dark and refused to look at himself in the mirror because he hated what he saw.

A pop star that famous.

That loved.

And he was going through something just like me... maybe the problem was never our skin.

That's when something shifted.

Why do I really have to fix my skin? Why can't this just be accepted as part of me? My father had it. My aunts had it. It's just my turn. I don't have to be ashamed of something natural.

So a few days ago, when my mother asked me to visit the dermat again, I said, "Why? If I'm made this way, if my family had it too, then why am I supposed to erase it like it's something shameful?"

"But it's gotten worse than ever!" she said.

"So be it," I told her. "I'm not going to need medications to feel pretty and accepted. This is me. And I'm going to let my skin heal whenever it wants. I won't force it anymore."

That's when I started embracing my skin. Just as it is.

Finally. After seven long years.

I washed my face with the lights on.