My Acne Story

Today I am sharing with you my acne story. My hope is that my story resonates with you in some way and helps you to feel less alone while dealing with acne. Based on my own unique acne journey, I can relate to you through all the ups and downs when dealing with acne. See the end of this article to see before and after photos of my skin. These before photos were taken when my skin was at an all time low. 

I have dealt with acne as a teenager and as an adult on and off for about 10 years. I understand the emotional burden it feels to have acne pimples, cysts and scarring. Having acne caused me to hide myself from the world and from social situations when my acne flared up. I would want to wait until my acne improved before going on dates or making plans with friends. I felt like I would be judged and not be seen as good enough if others saw my skin with acne. I have dealt with the self-deprecating thoughts and insecurities around having acne so visibly for everyone to see on my skin. I have felt ugly looking at myself in the mirror and seeing my acne. I have lacked confidence in myself and would mentally beat myself up for not having perfect skin.

I have experienced the “poor-me” victim mentality when I would have acne all over my face. I just did not understand why my acne would not clear up and why I had to be dealing with this skin condition. I would not want to look at myself in the mirror. Looking in the mirror I would hyper focus on my acne breakouts and therefore this would lead to more negative thoughts about myself. I would also feel stressed about how my skin looked in the mirror and this would lead me to start stress picking at my skin in desperation, anger, and frustration. My thought process was that if I picked at my skin it would make my acne go away and heal faster. It felt like when I picked at my skin it was an active way for me to try and have control over the situation. This however would usually only lead to scarring, worsening of my skin and slower healing time for my skin.

I started experiencing acne as a teenager around the age of 16. During this period of time there were obvious hormonal changes going on for me. I experienced acne along my T-zone area (forehead, nose, and chin) the areas of the face where there is more oil production. At this point in my life, I was a typical awkward and not very confident teenager. I was going through development, noticing a lot of pressure to fit in and wanting to be liked. I did not want to be seen or heard and wanted to be in the shadows. The risk of being seen as a teenager could show up as the fear of being judged by your peers. Having acne on my face was another major reason for not wanting to be seen and judged by others.  

My mom bought me the acne skin care product proactive to try using to clear up my skin. This benzyl peroxide product really did the trick and cleared up my skin for a whole month, which felt amazing. Especially since I was able to experience clear skin just in time for my grade 12 prom. Unfortunately, because benzyl peroxide can really dry out the skin and disrupt the skin barrier, my acne came back a month later. When your skin is overly dry, it causes your oil glands to produce more oil to try and compensate for the dryness your skin is experiencing and therefore this can lead to more acne breakouts.

I started to experience back acne and I was going to be starting my first year of university, so I went to my medical doctor (MD) for help. I was given the option of going on the birth control pill (BCP) or trying Accutane. My MD scared the shit out of me to go on Accutane the way she delivered the side effects of this medication. I did not want to go on Accutane based on the side effects that can happen to the body when on this medication. If you are not supposed to be on this medication when pregnant due to the fetal defects that can occur to a growing baby, then why would I want to experience the harsh side effects of this drug on my body. As a side note, in university one of my friends went on Accutane three times for healing her acne and it obviously kept coming back. This is clearly a sign that there are other internal imbalances at play. Especially when the Accutane drug is just supressing the symptom of acne for a snapshot in time. You may achieve clear skin at first but then acne can still come raging back once the drug is discontinued. Accutane is a band aid fix for healing and treating acne. Given the options and limited knowledge at the time on how my body and hormones worked naturally, I decided to go on the birth control pill for my acne at 17.

I was prescribed Diane-35 for my acne and was on this pill for 7 years. For the most part, the BCP kept my skin and back acne clear. I would still experience the odd breakouts on my skin in university depending on whether I stayed up too late, drank too much alcohol, ate too much greasy food after the bar, and how much stress I was experiencing in university. The birth control pill Diane-35 was actually banded from use in Europe as there were serious side effects found with this medication such as blood clots and even some cases of death. My MD kept writing prescriptions for the pill, and I kept taking it because it was helping to manage my acne. I was not aware that typically you should only be on Diane-35 until your acne improves, about 3-6 menstrual cycles or 3-6 months. I did not know this information until after I stopped the pill 7 years later…. crazy. The pill can also be a band aid approach to healing acne. The pill ends up only addressing the symptoms of acne and not addressing the underlying root causes of acne. I really learned this lesson with the birth control pill when I finally decided to go off the pill during my first year of naturopathic medicine school.

At this time in my naturopathic program, I was still naïve about what would happen to my skin post stopping the birth control pill. I did not expect my acne to come raging back and worse than my skin was before I had first gone on the pill at the age of 17. My hormones became so messed up because I was pumping my body with synthetic hormones for 7 years and my body was not always needing to produce my own natural hormones. In retrospect, it was not the best time to go off the pill as I did not properly support my body from all the nutrient depletions caused by the pill. I also did not support my detoxification systems, hormones and gut health at the time. This caused my skin to flare up with large cystic acne along my jawline. I was dealing with major rebounds of testosterone after stopping the pill – as the BCP was suppressing my natural testosterone hormone. Having high amounts of testosterone in the body post stopping the pill, can trigger more acne breakouts, especially triggering cystic acne along the jawline.

Throughout my naturopathic medical program, I kept dealing with acne breakouts on and off. It was difficult during this time to get my skin fully under control and from not flaring up. My acne breakouts where linked to a large amount of stress by having 8-10 courses at a time in a semester. I became burnt out and my cortisol (my stress hormone) become out of whack messing up my other hormones too (thyroid and female hormones). My burn out symptoms included feeling exhausted, not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, low mood, and brain fog. My gut was also still experiencing inflammation because of some of my lifestyle habits to cope with stress like eating sugar. Even though I did my best to eat healthy most of the time, my sweet tooth and socializing with friends on weekends, involving alcohol, did not help my gut health.

When I was in my fourth year of naturopathic school as an intern, my skin was still breaking out. It caused me to feel like a fraud at times when I was helping others with their health, but I was not able to prevent having cystic acne and breakouts. I used to struggle with a perfectionist mindset. That mindset definitely did not help me to be loving, compassion and kind towards myself for my skin condition.  

After graduating from my four-year naturopathic program, I still had one last hurdle – passing my board exams. For some reason, I felt the need to be constantly achieving. When I was studying for board exams, I also started running and training for half marathons at the same time (talk about over doing it into full burn out mode!). What I thought was taking care of myself, being healthy and exercising, I was doing the total opposite. Internally my body kept signalling to me that something was imbalanced and off internally, but I was not yet listening. I was at a placed of being so frustrated with my skin, but I was still not able to implement all of the steps and changes I needed to get my skin back on track to heal. Even when I knew how to heal my body, exams and other things took priority over my own self-care and healing. It is very difficult to heal the skin when increased stress levels depress the immune system and slows down the healing process of the skin. When one hormone is out of balance, it acts like a cascade effect to bring all other hormones out of balance as well. All of the hormones are following a leader into disharmony.

While I was not able to fully heal my body internally yet, I was spending a lot of money trying to find the best skincare products for my acne-prone skin. It was frustrating trying to find a skincare product that would work for my skin and to trust the brands that their product would work on my acne-prone skin. A lot of brands market their products towards acne-prone skin but they can actually end up making your skin worse, which has unfortunately happened to me so many times. One product in particular that was recommended to me for acne, actually ended up causing big nodules on my skin as it was majorly clogging my pores. It would make me fearful of trying new products and makeup brands that could potentially cause me to break out. There was also the fear of spending money on expensive skin care products that you would end up having to throw away in the trash. I was also trying various products that were stripping the natural oils on my skin and drying out my skin too much. This just continued the vicious acne breakout cycle. Many skin care products can damage your skin barrier and leave you vulnerable to acne breakouts. Skin care products can be a quick fix solution that may work in the short-term, but the internal imbalances still need to be addressed. After lots of research, money and experimenting, I finally have found natural skin care products and makeup that leave my skin glowing and do not cause me to breakout!

Once I became a Naturopathic Doctor, finishing school and exams forever! I finally was able to place more of my energy and attention on healing my skin. I’ve been able to address food sensitivities, inflammation, insulin dysregulation, gut imbalances, hormonal imbalances, and major stress hormone imbalances in my body. It makes so much sense to me now reflecting back on my acne journey why my skin kept flaring up on me so much. I also completed many functional medicine tests on myself to investigate what was really happening in my body: hormones testing (female hormones, thyroid, stress hormones) genetic testing, gut health and microbiome testing etc.  

I used naturopathic medicine tools and natural healing to slowly work towards mending my body back into balance and achieve clear skin. Mindset has been a major component for me in healing my skin, to become more compassionate, loving and kind towards myself. I allowed myself to let go of the ridged mindset that I had to be perfect.

While having acne in the past, I have had a negative mindset around my skin. I am now able to see the silver lining for my acne and give gratitude for my acne journey. My acne has taught me to accept myself fully, even the parts of myself that I felt where not lovable or acceptable (like my skin). My skin has also taught me to stop the self-deprecating thoughts that I was not beautiful or lovable with acne. I acknowledged that my acne helped to keep me safe. My acne helped me to hide from getting out there in the world to achieve what I wanted in my career and relationships. There is a lot of fear to put yourself out there, but I am no longer letting those beliefs hold me back in my life.  

My skin has sent me messages and nudges to start paying attention to my mindset and my internal health. I became aware of my mindless eating of sugar and chocolate to ease emotions or to deal with my stress. This mindless behaviour continued to produce more inflammation in my body, which showed up on my skin as acne. I learned to pay attention to my habits and how to retrain my mind for infusing new healthy habits into my life. My skin has helped me pay attention to my health and to learn how to slow down and heal. I learned how to heal by moving into gentle exercises like walking and yoga, and I gave up the high intensity exercises that were constantly burning me out. I learned how to give my body nourishing foods it needed to heal, and the more I nourished my body with the right kinds of foods, the more I made my gut, hormones and mental health happy.

You do not have to live with these mindset limitations.

You do not have to remain stuck in your old stories of how it feels to live with acne.

You do not need to carry on living in limitations because of your skin.

You can use your acne as a learning opportunity for whatever unique situation that may be in your life.

Because of my acne journey, this has really inspired me to help others dealing with acne. I want to provide women with the education and knowledge about how their body and mind works. With this knowledge, women can take action to heal their bodies naturally from the inside out. I have made it my mission to help as many women as possible, so that you do not have to suffer with acne for as long as I had to. You can become the CEO of your own health.

After struggling to feel confident in my own skin for years and feeling like I had tried everything to heal my acne, I finally developed a plan to put all the pieces together for optimizing my skin health. Check out my 8-Week Clear Skin Alchemy Program to learn more on how my program can help you heal your acne. It is my genuine wish that you find deep healing within the Clear Skin Alchemy Program.

Remember to be loving and kind to yourself.

The key to a beautiful life is all in your mindset.