this talk: is about the mental strain of struggling with acne - with Ella Gorton
‘Acne isn’t life threatening, but it can threaten your life’. A quote I read once in an article that will stick with me forever. I’ve always been a happy go lucky person, I was brought up by my mum and dad alongside my older sister; typically the ‘perfect’ upbringing if you’d like. The attitude which I was raised with was more of an ‘it could be worse, things don’t last forever, keeping going it’s not the end of the world’ and I’ve never been more thankful to have this type of attitude towards life; that was until I was 21 and my battle with acne had just begun!
I’d always had the odd spot, just like anyone else and I knew that spots were normal but I had the perception that anyone who had acne was dirty and that you reach a certain age and they just disappeared. Skip nearly 6 years and let me assure you that acne does not discriminate against age! I’m nearly 27 now and the amount of clients and followers, as well as myself, that are within a specific age bracket suffering with their skin is phenomenal.
I’ll start at the beginning and my background with skin before my own story; I left school and trained as a beauty therapist before then progressing as a makeup artist which was a career I had always strived for (even before it was cool!). I had a background in skin so why, when it came to my own experience, was it such a battle? I was in a pretty good position to surely handle this? Fast forward 3 years from finishing makeup school at 18 to being on a girls holiday at 21, I came home to the biggest boils on my face which I initially put down to applying an oil based sunscreen on my face which had clogged my pores. After weeks had passed and the spots hadn’t settled my mum pushed me to speak to our family GP, something which I dismissed for a long time before finally accepting I needed help. From time and experience I now know that doctors have a protocol to follow when treating acne; different antibiotics and topical creams, even the contraceptive pill are prescribed, to exhaust all avenues before being able to be referred to an NHS dermatologist.
In hindsight and something I will now always do, is speak to a specialist from day 1; this is the advice I will give to anyone in order to nip the problem in the bud, save time and also for the sake of your mental health! After countless trips back and forward, months passing by I had literally exhausted all the avenues and was at a place with my skin where I thought I was okay. After no creams and no antibiotics for 6 months my acne came back with a vengeance. All this time I have no skincare routine too, I knew nothing about my body, about diet, about hormones or about what was right and wrong. I was at an all time low.
The strain that having acne has; waking up every morning looking at your refection in the mirror, having no hope, not wanting to wear makeup but feeling the need to every day to cover up, catching your reflection throughout the day, comparing yourself to other people and thinking about their skin instead of listening to what they’re actually saying, walking around with a crick in your neck from always looking down from being to embarrassed to look up. The list is endless. I was a makeup artist, I was embarrassed to work, I hated wearing makeup which I was so passionate about, I loved the gym but some days I couldn’t even face going, not only because I wanted to cover my face but because sometimes the sweat hurt the spots! I lay awake at night for hours not being able to fall asleep on my back; something I had to learn to do as if I slept on the sides of my face I would wake up with burst spots and blood stained pillows. The advice people used to give me in hope to help was aggressively dismissed as I was sick of the false promises of products. My skincare background was useless, I was no wiser to how to help myself. In desperation I used to attack my skin with all sort of products to strip it even Dettol but I was never consistent! My skin used to rule my life. If I had a good skin day I felt positive and hopeful only to be disappointed the next when I would wake up to new breakouts.
Behind closed doors I was broken, the happy go lucky Ella who was always positive, smiling, and the one to lift everyone up had slipped into a very dark place. My parents knew my moods and for them it was so frustrating too; who wants to see their own child suffer like I was? Not only was I suffering with my skin, I was suffering on a much deeper level . I used to sit in my bedroom wishing for clear skin but the voice in the back of my head would always be the old Ella ‘There’s worse out there Ella, people are suffering and dying, you’re so lucky, it’s only spots’ This is why the quote from the beginning is so meaningful to me, yes acne isn’t life threatening, to my knowledge no one died from having spots but the mental strain it puts on you, breaking down daily a once happy personality can threaten your life.
I never saw a way out other than my last option of the controversial drug Roaccutane. This medication has been linked to depression and if that meant feeling worse than I did then it was a no from me. After much mediation and knowing I had my family for support and to monitor me throughout the process I accepted Roaccutane. It changed my life! I documented my journey daily on Instagram as a form of diary to keep me motivated and surprisingly enough as soon as I saw the improvements my mood lifted. I didn’t just wake up one morning and was happy again, but just like slipping into the dark hole from having bad skin, day by day I became me again. My own experience pushed me to help more people; if I felt so alone then so must most people going through what I did. I now make it my mission to spread my story in the hope to help at least one person see the light at the end of the tunnel and to know that things do get better! Funnily enough I actually met my boyfriend through my instagram profile and now my business has done a 180 back to skin rather than makeup. It’s only now that I see what once burdened me has now shaped my whole life and for that I actually thank acne! Something I never thought I would hear myself ever say.
You can find Ella on:
Instagram
And listen to her podcast on:
Apple Music