The 3 Lessons Having Severe Cystic Acne In my 20s Taught Me

I think we can all agree that having acne as an adult can be a pretty traumatic experience.

And what makes this experience particularly difficult is not just the bumps on your face, but also the devastating mental health challenges that come with it.

In the summer of 2014, when I could no longer recognize the reflection of myself in the mirror, I started to hide from the world.

I was deeply embarrassed about the pores on my face being inflamed with cystic acne. My confidence took a nosedive and I started to cancel all of my plans with friends. I took a leave from work and covered up all the mirrors in my house.

I put my entire life on hold because I didn’t know how I could possibly do normal life things when THIS is how I looked like.

My mental and emotional health were at rock bottom, and it was truly one of the most challenging periods of my life.

It took years of healing, both externally and internally, but thankfully I have now come out of it on the other side.

Here are 3 invaluable lessons that having severe cystic acne in my 20s taught me.

If you’re someone who’s struggling with acne right now, I hope these lessons can teach you something about yourself and how you can take care of yourself just a little bit better when it feels like everything is out of your control.

Lesson 1: What you choose to focus on multiplies.

Have you ever noticed that once you start to go down a negative spiral of thoughts, it becomes harder and harder to come out of it?

Whenever I looked in the mirror, all I could see were my imperfections — the big pores, the red bumps, the scars, the whiteheads, the blackheads, and the angry pimples that were covering up my entire face.

I was hyper focused on everything that was “wrong” with my face. So much so that I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror anymore because I hated myself so much.

I ended up covering up all the mirrors in the house.

But of course this happened.

Do you know why?

Because there’s a part in our brain called the RAS that finds more evidence of what we already believe in.

My belief was “I look disgusting.”

So every single day, I would find more and more evidence to support this belief by only focusing on the things about my face that I considered to be “disgusting”.

Here is another example of the RAS doing its thing.

Let’s say you believe that you’re unattractive and undesirable.

You’re going to go out in the world and look for evidence to support that belief.

Someone you’re interested in didn’t respond to your text for 5 hours? Your mind will immediately go to, “See? I just got ghosted by this person. I’m undesirable.”

Whatever belief you have, the RAS will look for more evidence of.

Whether it’s a belief about your skin, your desirability, your partner, boss, neighbor, or anything in the world, ask yourself:

What are the beliefs I have about _____ right now?

And do I like the evidence that my brain is continuing to gather and show me?

If the answer is no, be intentional about redirecting and gathering evidence of the opposite.

What are 3 pieces of evidence (no matter how small) you can gather to support the opposite belief that you are desirable?

Focus on the things you want to multiply and see more of.

Lesson 2: People aren’t thinking about you as much as you think they’re thinking about you.

One of the biggest reasons why I hid from the world when my acne was really bad was because I was worried about what other people were going to think of me. (Including strangers I’ve never even met and will likely never see again for the rest of my life!)

‘What are these people at the grocery store going to think about me and my skin? I can’t possible go grocery shopping like this.’

And I would stop myself.

But you see, people really aren’t paying that much attention to you.

They’re busy being in their own heads.

I’m sure you’ve heard the quote “Don’t worry about what other people are thinking of you. They’re too busy worrying about what you are thinking about them.”

And it’s true.

Recently, I had a huge zit on my face (yes, I still get them sometimes) and it was all I could see in the mirror. It was so big and so obvious that it felt like the whole world was just starting at it.

When I met up with my friends, I said to them “Ugh, you guys. Look at this huge pimple on my face.”

And they said to me, “Oh my gosh, we didn’t even notice. When did you get that?”

The same thing happened with my partner.

I said to him “Look at this pimple on my face. It’s so big.”

And his response was, “Oh? I didn’t even notice it until now!”

We spend so much of our time and energy focusing on our flaws and imperfections. Sometimes it’s all we see in ourselves.

Yet, the people around us don’t even notice or pay attention to them.

So don’t let what you THINK other people are thinking about you stop you from living your life.

And even if they did care, so what?

Lesson 3: Just because it’s taking time doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

When you’re dealing with acne, you want your skin to clear up like yesterday.

But the truth is, dealing with acne is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a slow burn. There are no quick fixes and no miracle products. (Although sometimes we desperately hope that this one acne cream that an influencer raved about would finally be the thing that magically clears our skin.)

And the same is true for many other areas of our lives too.

Whether it’s weight loss, a career transition, finding a new partner, or starting a new business, it’s so easy to quickly jump to the conclusion of “It’s not working” when you don’t see tangible results right away.

We as humans crave immediate gratification.

But that’s not how the world works.

In the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, there’s a graph that completely blew my mind.

The graph illustrates how focusing on 1% improvements every single day will yield a 38x improvement in one year.

It’s an incredibly powerful visualization that shows baby steps are still progress.

For you to reach the peak of the mountain, you gotta start by focusing on the step that’s right in front of you.

Even if that means you have to delay the gratification for now.

Sometimes it takes longer than we anticipated or hoped for to get there.

But it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

So breathe.

Focus on what you do have control over and take the baby step.

Because it’s these seemingly insignificant baby steps that eventually lead you to your destination.