Written by @myacnepage
· By Jamika Martin
Dealing With: Emma Taylor
Hello, my name is Emma from the Instagram @myacnepage, before we get started I’ll tell you a little bit about me - I developed acne at the age of 10, I am now 15 so it’s been a long ride and it’s not over yet.
“I used to look in the mirror and try to imagine what i would look like without acne”
Dealing with acne is very much a struggle. Acne can drag you down and make you feel extremely self conscious. If any of you reading this have acne, I'm sure you can relate to this.
The definition of acne is "a skin condition, characterized by red pimples on the skin". Acne gives others a reason to judge us. It gives people (like me) with acne a reason to think less of yourself, to feel low and to push your confidence down and down and down.
Dealing with acne for 5 years has gotten easier. Not super easy, but enough to scrape through. Enough to push myself and know that acne doesn’t define me. Having acne isn’t enough to make me any less of the person I once was when I didn’t have acne.
After starting my Instagram page I realized the amount of people that have acne. For so long, I just assumed it wasn’t something many people had because at my school there was hardly anyone with breakouts, and mine always seemed more prominent. I realized that there is a whole community out there - offering support, and sharing their own personal experiences with acne. I can’t tell you how amazing this felt to me. This community is one of the main reasons I am able to get through having acne and still have fun.
I would like to make one thing clear: acne doesn’t have one root cause. Many people will try to tell you throughout your acne battle that it’s because of "this" or "that", but everyone's acne is different and comes for different reasons.
Normalizing acne is something I am extremely passionate about, I believe that acne is prejudiced by so many people and to be frank I am not happy at all about this.
ACNE IS NORMAL!
I have 5 steps that I think everyone should follow to help normalize acne:
- You prejudge someone (because everyone does this, we can’t help it)
- You realize they have acne.
- You take 5 seconds to pause and just think
- You put yourself in their shoes and imagine how you would feel
- Acne becomes normalized
I believe that this is all it takes and that with these simple steps we can begin to normalize acne. We can work together to help others feel good, support their stories about dealing with acne, and start to spread the word about normalizing acne.