Acne. The dreaded, disgusting, disease almost every teenager goes through. Except I was just on the brink of my teenage years when I first started struggling with it. 

I remember being the only one in my grade that had started to get pimples. First it started off small, but progressively escalated. Quickly. I remember kids saying  things like, "I can play connect the dots with your face," "Ew, what is that?" And " pizza face." These were the things my peers have said about me in 6th grade. During seventh grade it had gotten better. Kudos to almost every drug store product I could find on the store shelves. High school hit and once again, back to square one. I felt so ugly,  gross, too embarrassed to the point that I would not want to leave my house. Even my friends were embarrassed to be around and associated with me. No one understood. "Just wash your face," they would say, as if I haven't been doing that. "You have the worst acne I've ever seen," my so called friend told me. After countless of medications prescribed, visits with my dermatologist, and nights and days spent crying, nothing seemed to work. I was left with one last resort, accutane.

This severe drug changed me. After coming off a great cross country and indoor track season, I was ready for outdoor track. I was at a great place physically and mentally. First meet of the season I hit a personal best. Then, I got approved to start forward with my accutane journey. I showed up to practice everyday, did what was asked and gave my 110% on workouts. I never improved a single time the rest of the season. Instead, I stayed stagnant. It was frustrating to say the least, but at the time I didn't think too much into it and what could have possibly been the reason. Cross country training started early July and I could tell I was not at the same place physically I would normally start back up at. My time at the first race of the season was my worst compared to where I started off any year prior. But hey, just getting back into the swing of things right? That was not the case. Came more practices, workouts, meets, and months of being on accutane I found myself struggling to hit my previous years times by a vast amount, my body severely fatigued and joint pain. Again, I was terribly frustrated. Seeing people pass and beat me that  have never before was tough mentally. I was training almost everyday since the first of July for me to have the worst season of my athletic career. I finally pieced it together, and came to the conclusion that accutane is the reason for this. It was the only possible explanation that made sense. 

My journey with acne defines who I am. In a way, It has taught me so much that is influential to my everyday life. Patience is key. Being patient means staying strong while enduring struggles and setbacks. It helps to recognize that achieving success requires time and hard work. Beauty comes from within. Not only about others, but myself too.