My Journey With God and Acne: A Personal Testimony (Part One)

 

I know what I’m about to say may sound crazy, but here it is: Acne, rather than ruining, actually saved my life. Some of you might be thinking I found some underlying, life-threatening disease that was responsible for my breakouts or that maybe I was forced to improve my diet to eliminate my zits, but I’m actually not talking about my physical life. Instead, I’m referring to my spiritual life. In order to fully understand what I’m talking about, let me start telling you my story from the beginning. It was the summer of ’09 and I had just graduated from high school. All throughout my high school years, my source of pride was my academic standing; in fact, I had achieved straight A’s in every class I had taken in high school. But now that those years were over, I realized that I would be going to a huge college where I would be just one in 25,000. Since I was so accustomed to being recognized for my book smarts at my high school, I realize now that the prospect of being a nobody played right into the self-esteem issues I had dealt with all my life. To go from being someone everyone knew to knowing nobody in a campus more than 90 times as crowded as my former one was nothing short of devastating for me. Since I couldn’t be known as the smart kid anymore, I made the decision to find a new way to feel good about myself and stand out despite knowing nobody. I decided I would try to improve my physical appearance, which was something I never really bothered with in high school since my studies took up most of my time. I figured working on my physical appearance could be my new hobby. So that summer, I ate a lot less, worked out like crazy and tanned (which at that time cleared my skin beautifully). When the summer was over, I looked like a totally different person. With this newfound confidence, I started contemplating dating, which I had never had the confidence to do before. Before long, thoughts of losing my virginity came to mind, until it was all that I could think about. I realize now that the real reason I desired sex (besides the whole biological part) was because I was looking to be wanted by someone else. As I said earlier, I’ve always had self-esteem issues, and I was looking at sex as the ultimate source of acceptance and approval, which I so longed for and which drove me to such extreme lengths to lose weight and improve my skin. In my false sense of reasoning, I believed that the more sex I had, the more worthy and valuable I was. When I finally arrived on campus that fall, these insecurities were greatly compounded because of the many attractive people who surrounded me. My resolve to lose even more weight and have even better skin grew. Throughout that semester, I never asked anyone out because I believed I still wasn’t thin enough or my skin was clear enough. However, I continued to work out and tan, and things that semester continued to go successfully. But it was in the spring of 2010 that my trouble with acne really began. Since it was around February, the sun wasn’t out much and I could no longer tan as much as I had been. This meant that my acne returned in full force. To say this was devastating is an understatement. My confidence that I had found during that previous summer vanished and depression set in. Suddenly, an overwhelming determination came over me to find the reason for my acne. I found this site called acne.org, which literally has thousands and thousands of posts containing information on possible reasons for your acne and reviews of different skin products. For most people, this site is an absolute blessing, but for me it was a curse. I would spend hours going through reviews of acne products and discussions on what approaches people have had success with in curing their acne. This put my overly analytical mind into overdrive. It became an obsession of mine to do research at that site. However, despite trying tons of different face washes, crèmes, lotions, diets, supplements, etc. for over seven months, nothing completely got rid of my breakouts. My entire life revolved around getting rid of my acne and each new breakout brought me into a deeper state of despair. Throughout the summer of 2010, I was in a constant state of depression. Then towards the start of my second year in college, I thought of an idea that I will regret for my entire life. I decided to see a psychic and ask them what the cause of my acne was. Stay tuned for the rest of my story!