by Ali Coyne

Created on: May 11, 2009   Last Updated: May 12, 2009

My skin is landscaped, it appears to me. My forehead-near my bangs and countless hair products-used to look like a carpet of hills, sometimes mountains, and weeds. Now, the occasional Dandy Lion pops up now and then. My temples always seemed to have at least one or two stalactites forming on them, and my chin would have one clogged pore that would take up the entire area with one gigantic boulder. Sometimes, it would be all over my face-cheeks, noes, under the nose, everywhere. Sometimes, the bumps would disappear and only leave the red marks that I thought would go away before another break out, but I was wrong. I looked in the mirror one day and thought to myself, "Well, now I know how the term 'pizza face' was coined..." I hated it so much that I actually went to a doctor. I-the stubborn, awkward, "I-know-better-than-any-doctor" teenager-went to a dermatologist.

For a while, it was working. She put me on antibiotics that were so big when I swallowed the pills they would get caught in my throat. Back to square one for a different antibiotic that seemed to be perfect for me-for a while. Then I went back and washed my face so she could see it, and I asked her, "Can't you give me anything else? I mean, it was better for about four or five months, and the scars started going away, and everything..." She looked at my desperate 16 year old face again and said that she would try another thing: birth control. I was there without my mother, I was a big girl, sex was the last thing on my mind. How was I going to get a boyfriend with skin like this, anyway? She explained all the risks, and the do's and don'ts associated with it, and I agreed to give it a try. I read the little book that went with it, and I was ready to go. My mother asked me what she said, and I told her. Needless to say, neither of my parents were too keen on the idea, but for totally different reasons. Dad didn't want my heart to go haywire, and Mom didn't want her little girl to have sex.

Whatever.

I took that and the antibiotic together, and my skin was perfect! The scars started to go away, there weren't anymore hills or mountains or Dandy Lions; just one big lush lawn any retiree would kill to have in front of his house. When I got out of high school, I knew I wouldn't be able to pay for any prescriptions anymore, so I decided to try something topical and less expensive. My skin went crazy again. I've just gotten it to a point where I can call it skin, and I'm not afraid to touch it anymore.

So the question I find myself asking at this very moment in time is, "Is acne, and its scars, really a mark of character?" I don't think it's a mark of character as much as I think it's the one thing that united me with my peers all throughout high school. Without it, I just wouldn't have been the norm. I was already far out of my league being in the theatre and having only about 6 really good, true friends I could count on. If I didn't have acne, it just would have pushed me over the edge into the label of "freak". I guess for that reason, I'm thankful for it allowing me to somewhat blend into the crowd; but on the other hand, I could have been much happier without it. In some ways, it is a mark of character or right of passage in that it's something that most teenagers go through it, but that's the only thing that ever kept me from having a screaming fit about it.

And to the youth who may read this, don't worry about it. It'll go away in good time. It's not the end of the world, and people aren't looking down on you for it. It's just one of those stupid teenager-y things you have to deal with.

Learn more about this author, Ali Coyne.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.