Acne Makes Us Do Crazy Things
by Anne Helen Petersen
A few weeks ago, I was reading all about the crazy things that Accutane did to people’s bodies. I read about faces flaking off, poopy pants, and the creepy surveillance of sexual habits. I read about deformed babies and weird drug testing and generalized anxiety about putting very, very strong drugs seemingly intended for large barn animals put into our bodies.
But I read all of this, and I was like oh man, that’s nothing. I would endure all of that AND MORE. I would have a baby and dry socket post-wisdom-teeth extraction and a tooth abscess and shingles if you could promise me that the rest of my life would be blemish-free. Because I’ve had acne since I was 12, I’ve been on every drug, I’ve tried every treatment, I’ve felt every shade of shame. I have spent thousands of dollars and so much anguished mirror-time simply trying to get rid of innocuous red things on my face.
Acne creates a very ambiguous yet intensely powerful sort of hysteria. It’s because acne appears on our faces, obviously, that we get so concerned about it (if acne just hung out in my belly button, would we have an entirely different situation?). It also (irrationally) signifies all sorts of bad and dirty things: Acne means you don’t care for your skin, it means you’re poor, it means you masturbate (seriously, this was a huge thing in the not-so-distant past — priests used to beat boys and girls with pimples because it was such an obvious manifestation of their private orgasming).
But why, Acne? Why do You make us do crazy shit? Why can’t we just treat you the way that we treat, oh, athlete’s foot? Or dry elbows? Why do you make us form pacts with the acne gods, wrap ourselves in sleeping bags for the duration of a sleepover, or buy things with Jessica Simpson’s name on them? Why, for example, did I think it was a really, really fucking good idea to take a BRILLO PAD, a disgusting and hurty BRILLO PAD, and use it to exfoliate all the very small but ever-present dots on my forehead? What made me think that pushing really hard on the volcano on my face would somehow make said volcano go away? Or what about time when I put toothpaste all over my forehead — like a thick, plaster-like layer of toothpaste — for months? How did you convince me that was a good idea, Acne? Are you just laughing at us?
There are no answers. There is only shame, and its close and very crazy cousin, hysteria. Hairpin has tried to help. So has every other doctor, friend, confidante, and magazine. It’s all for naught. Some people will be in toxic relationship with acne for the rest of their lives, so, let’s be honest here, instead of writing about what we’ve tried, let’s just try to get some perspective.
So for your personal amusement, catharsis, and perhaps just to show anyone in your life who is deep in the throes of acne paralysis, whatever their age or gender, here are the Best in Show: Acne Hysteria Division. You are obviously encouraged to not only share your own hysteria in the comments, but attempt to theorize the myriad reasons why acne makes us behave the way we do.
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I would try to never stand in the sun in high school so my pimples didn’t cast shadows.
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In high school, I got frustrated enough that I made my mom take me to the dermatologist, despite her firm stance that I would “grow out of it.” (Moms! Don’t you remember that when you are 15, the future is Tuesday?) The doc put me on antibiotics. This being my first time taking any kind of prescription medication, I took the instructions to “take with food three times a day” verrryyyy seriously… as a golden opportunity for drama. Picture walking down the hall, screeching to a halt at the water fountain, pulling half a bagel and a bottle of whatever overpriced Northwest flavored water from my North Face backpack and sighing, “Hold ON guys, I have to take my PILLS.”
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I had a zit on my lower back (what? I work out) that was so so so painful. Like, make you want to google renal failure because it hurt so bad and was near my kidney and there’s no way one zit could cause this much pain. I took a couple Motrin; it was the first time I’d had to take a painkiller for a zit, for sure. Unfortunately, my chair at work was one of those fancy lumbar support chairs, so I had to perch on the edge and sit up really straight, but it threw the ergonomics off, which in turn THREW MY BACK OUT. More Motrin. Insult to injury.
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I took the one-two punch called “Nature’s Cure” which I totally bought just because of the cute boy on the front of the package. It’s called “The Inside Outside Female Acne Cure” and is totally messed up. I get the cream, but what is in the pill. No seriously, WHAT IS IN THE PILL?
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A friend from Ecuador told me that lychees would make all my zits go away. I went to the corner market, bought 30 lychees, and juiced them by hand. THIS TOOK TWO HOURS. I then put the weird juice in a spray bottle and sprayed my chin EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES. On the minute. I had a timer.
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My friend in Laos told me that if I sprayed perfume on a zit, it would die. Mostly my face just reeked.
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I had a few pimples in the butt/lower back region, but didn’t think much of it. But then a boy at the beach asked “Do you have butt rot?” very loudly, in front of everyone I knew. I went home and applied concealer to my ass for the next month.
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Zits would mainly appear on my jawline because of my facial hair (another far more involved story). This is where I got into playing with make-up and trying to cover up my zits. Since I was in theater and show choir, I had ample excuse to wear make-up and often painted my face in a similarly garish manner for school. I took to drawing moles on my face as if they’d magically appeared. I’d also try and hide the jawline zits by holding my chin with my hand. I was so preoccupied with looking and seeming smart that this seemed doubly beneficial — “hide” my zits while furrowing my brow and nodding while holding my chin like an intellectual.
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I had a traumatic 7th grade and at some point decided it was probably a result of my acne. So, the summer before 8th grade I decided I was going to beat the beast and convinced my mom I needed to see a dermatologist who prescribed some pill and Retin-A. And after I got through the initial bright red skin peeling off my face….great news! Blackheads: gone! Zits: gone! The only drawback? Slightly terrible stomach aches for a few hours every day after taking the pill. I decided this was worth the trouble and carried on with my life. Who needed to eat when they had clear skin? It should probably be noted that I obviously did need to eat, as I was one of those awkwardly bony middle-schoolers.
Fast forward about three weeks, my mom and aunt decide to take the kids on a road trip to Montana from Seattle to visit Glacier Park. About eight hours into the 10 hour trip my stomachache mixed with car sickness and became a big. problem. I was sweating profusely. We stop at a rest stop where I proceed to vomit for a good two hours.
At this point my mom decides this can’t be good and takes me to the nearest hospital in the middle of nowhere Montana. When I get there the doctors quickly decide that based on my age, this must be appendicitis. I don’t tell them about my acne medication because I hadn’t told my mom about the stomachaches in fear she would make me stop taking the pills. They get as far as putting the IV in my hand and test for appendicitis multiple times before believing the test and not performing surgery … I would have had unnecessary major surgery for my skin. AND IT GETS BETTER. My aunt is an overly friendly born-again Christian type, and during my hospital stay she made friends with a nice couple. The woman was in the hospital for something and had been telling my aunt about their lovely “ranch” all afternoon. My aunt loved the sound of it, so when the hospital demanded we stay close by in case my appendix flared up, she jumped at the opportunity to stay at this lovely “ranch.” As we arrived it became VERY CLEAR that the language used by the woman to describe the place had been generous and we (my mother, aunt, three girls ages 13, 11, and 7, along with a five-year-old boy) had just agreed to stay the night in a run-down unfinished cabin with a strange man we met at the hospital two hours previously. THANK YOU, ACNE.
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My mom was so used to my skin (and hers when she was a girl) being so bad, that when my best friend got her first zit (on her gorgeous olive skin), my mom couldn’t contain her surprise and made an inordinately big deal about it. We were used to being extremely open about our zits, but my friend was so embarrassed and traumatized that we went to the Limited Too and bought her an apology dress (sunflower print, of course).
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One of my most prized possessions is the surgical-grade extractor my dermatologist gave me so I could take care of business between extraction appointments. They sell janky Revlon versions at the drugstore, but this thing is perfectly designed: stainless steel, an end for blackheads, an end for larger cystic fuckers. I’ve had it for 18 years and panic when it gets misplaced (my boyfriend knows to put it back in its designated drawer or else I will freak out). Not ashamed that I have a sentimental attachment to my zit picker and plan on handing it down to my sure-to-be acne-ridden daughter someday).
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When I was in between courses of Accutane, I would go every few weeks to my dermatologist and get chemical peels. Chemical peels entail having an UNBEARABLY ITCHY solution smeared all over your face and lying still, without scratching, for what seemed like forever (but was maybe only 20–30 minutes? I tried to block it out).
I would just lay there, itching so badly, with my mom by my side to swat my hands away, thinking about how the acids were burning away my zits. Afterward, my face would be so red and raw I couldn’t go back to class, so my mom would take me for a milkshake (drive-thru, of course).
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After a visit to the dermatologist, I was prescribed some form of medication that would solve my acne problems forever. I would tell you the name of it, but I can’t actually remember because that particular medication didn’t solve a thing and over the years, I consumed copious amounts of drugs and used prescribed facial creams that were so toxic THEY HAD TO BE REFRIGERATED (just like mayonnaise!). Differen, Benzoyl Peroxide, Benzaclin, Erythromycin, Tetracycline, Minocycline, Doxycycline…the list could fill this entire blog post. And they all worked. Temporarily. Just long enough for my acne to genetically mutate itself like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle into something bigger, stronger, and uglier than any wimpy acne medication would ever be able to destroy.
Fast forward 15 years, through Accutane and many additional years of anguish and date-less proms. Here I am as a 30-year-old, and I still have acne. Thankfully, my acne has matured along with me and I no longer get those big, nasty zits that make you want to cover your head with a paper bag. Instead, I get small pimples that like to stay for weeks on end and then morph into a scar that stays for a least a year. My acne is so faithful that it never wants to leave me. I am destined to a life filled with white sheets, duvets, and towels because my skin is so toxic from all the acne drugs I have consumed that it bleaches anything of color if I sleep on it or dry myself with it. I thought my acne was the mutant, but did it actually turn me into one?
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In the sixth grade, I picked at a zit on my cheek between classes and it swelled into a half-dollar sized red splotch. Of course this was right before I had to give a presentation on The Rats of Nimh, so I slapped together some paper bag puppets as a visual, with the idea that I could hold them up in front of my face. The teacher took photos of the presentations, and despite my clever ruse, you can still see the zit behind my Mrs. Frisby puppet.
Anne Helen Petersen probably could have written her dissertation on acne. Instead, she wrote it on celebrity gossip. Find her other writing here.
Photo by Tsha, via Shutterstock