Friday, January 19, 2007

The Emotional Effects of Acne

Many of us know what acne is and maybe we know someone that has acne, unfortunately there’s a lot more that goes on beneath the surface than just a bad case of “spots”. The emotional damage of acne can be disastrous to any person’s confidence no matter how you think that they can handle it.

It appears that one of the major emotional effects of acne is self loathing. It’s not hard to understand how hard it is to cope with acne when we live in an age that is hooked on the way people look, how clear their skin is, how slim they look…we are cosmetically crazy about ourselves.

When you suffer with acne it doesn’t matter where you go, whether it’s a huge social event or just the day to day appearances that you need to make in life, like trips to the shop, even when you try to hide your appearance with your hair or makeup you still know…you still see yourself in the mirror. This is a common situation for acne sufferers the world over. This is the nightmare that acne sufferers suffer from, it’s often dismissed from colleagues or friends as over sensitivity, but its more about how you feel than how you look.

Over time acne treatments have changed and so have some of the techniques to prevent acne appearing, however when people are asked how acne makes them feel there is a set of answers that seem to remain the same no matter what changes, and that is that it makes them feel ugly, depressed, angry, dirty. These answers are the same through the sex’s ages and countries.

Sure there is plenty being done for the cosmetic side of things but compared to the amount that is being done for the trauma of acne it is pathetic in comparison. The worst of the scarring from acne is emotional.

In 1948 there was a statement made that sounded something like this…

There is not any one condition which causes more mental trauma, more maladjustment between parents and children, more insecurity and feelings of inferiority in greater sums of suffering than acne.

The emotional effects that we have discussed should never be dismissed as just vanity, acne vulgaris is a serious problem that hurts in inconceivable proportions. One of the best things that you can do as a friend, parent, colleague or what ever is just to sit and listen quietly and let them know that how they feel is important to you. Lend not a judging ear……

BeatDownAcne.com is a free resource I created after living with acne for 8 years. There's a step by step guide showing exactly how I was able to cure my acne using over the counter treatments. If you want to get in touch with me you can stop by my acne blog and leave a comment.

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