All throughout my teenage years, I would get the periodic pimple or a couple of them on my face. But there weren't always pimples on my face, they just kind of came and went. Normal teenage stuff. Then, at 19, I started getting cystic acne, which I still deal with to this day, I turned 22 less than a week ago, and I still have breakouts all the time. It's not as bad as it was during its peak, but I still have to deal with scars from pimples/cysts from 2+ years ago. My mother and I went through tons of skincare creams and facewashes but almost none of them work, even though they were expensive as hell, probably because they were "organic" treatments. Nonetheless, we eventually found one product that worked, Banish, and even though that's also expensive and organic - it works, for the most part, and that's good enough for me. Gets rid of pimples really fast, but they also have this scar cream that doesn't really do anything. I use a face wash and two creams twice a day as well as the occasional microneedle and face mask. Lately, my skin's been better than it's ever been - there are just pimples that show up in the frequent spots, the acne scars I've gotta deal with, and one particularly stubborn cyst. Oddly enough, I never really got acne on my body - until last year. I'd love to try Accutane since I've heard it's a miracle anti-acne product, but that shit is legit hundreds of dollars per bottle, plus you have to get frequent blood tests because apparently Accutane can fuck up your liver, and we humans unfortunately only have one of those. Not sure how good Accutane works against scars, though, but it seems to stop acne for good. My acne is far and above one of my biggest insecurities, and it feels like such a brutal and unfulfilling battle thanks to scars and breakouts.
