Coping with acne - Make up

I hated having acne. I needed some coping skills, tips and/or methods on how to deal with my acne and with kids' reactions to my having acne.

My first coping method wasn't an option: that is, wearing makeup to hide the acne. I remember wanting to wear make up at an early age. I don't know if that was because I just wanted to look older, because I wanted to look like my mom or the women on the TV, or because I wanted to hide my acne. All of those reasons to me were good enough reasons to wear make up but my mom thought otherwise. (:-)

My mom was trying to protect me from looking older than my age. She didn't want me dependent on makeup. She wanted people to recognize me when my make up was off. Now quite frankly I didn't think any of those reasons were good enough but my mom thought otherwise. (:-)

So my mom limited me as a young teenager to just wearing lip gloss. I was not allowed to wear other makeup products until I turned 16. Boy, was I glad when I turned 16!

When I did start wearing foundation, it was still difficult for me to find a foundation that matched my skin complexion. Plus, the makeup only covered up the scarring. It did not, and could not, hide the bumps. While makeup helped some, it was not the best coping method I could use to relieve the anxieties of having acne. My mom was right: I did become dependent on makeup. But if you keep reading: you will see why that dependency actually fueled more problems.


Thedy B

Acne as a teen

As a young girl, I was so looking forward to "growing up." I couldn't wait until I fully developed and looked like the other girls. Well I did grow up. But I didn't like what started happening to my body as I did grow. For one, I was typically one of the tallest girls in the classroom. So I was constantly teased for being tall. And because I was tall, I couldn't hide in the background so that people couldn't see me. Secondly, I didn't develop proportionately. And three: When the kids saw and noticed me, they, like everyone else, saw my skin.

I don't remember when I saw my first pimple. The color of my skin is light brown so pimples show up fairly prominently. In the winter when I don't tan as much, my skin is even lighter. So the acne was even more visible. As the acne grew from one bump to multiple bumps, from just one spot on my face to covering my face, I began to have self-esteem, self-image, and self-loathing issues. As you'll see in my upcoming blogs, I tried all kinds of things as a teenager to help me cope with having acne. A few non-conventional methods of coping with acne actually helped. Some typical ways did not help me cope with having acne. Keep reading for more details.

Thedy B

Advice for parents of teenagers with acne

If you have a teenager that is suffering from acne, I'd suggest helping them cope with this problem by:

1. First, if your teenager starts worrying about a pimple, acknowledge that having a pimple is a problem. Don't make the situation larger than it is but also don't minimize it and make them feel as if it's nothing. As a teenager, their looks are major on the priority list. You want to help them? Help them find self-esteem by finding additional sources of where they can place their self-esteem besides their looks. Yet acknowledge that their looks are important.

2. Help them find better ways to cope with having acne than the ways that I've been mentioning in previous posts.