Laura Chinn - Acne

I was ten years old when I discovered my face. Its not like I didnt know what a face was; I had just never once thought about my own face. Much like not being aware of your stomach until it hurts, I wasnt aware of my face until there was something suddenly wrong with it. A small, white ball popped out of my right cheek and then, like magic, I realized I had a face. I stared at that little ball in the mirror and thought about my face for the first time and have not been able to stop thinking about my face since.

At that moment, I had no clue how much that little zit was going to change my life. I didnt realize it was a pus-filled canary warning me that a shitstorm of acne was on its way. My self-esteem was about to be ravaged. My identity was about to be transformed from a confident, plucky kid to an anxious, insecure adult. If you have never suffered the wrath of acne, you may think that this sounds a little extreme. Its a nonfatal disease after all, and if you have always had clear skin, its almost impossible to understand what it really feels like to live with Cutibacterium acnes bacteria attacking your face all day and night.

It was as if some unseen force was making me wear a raw, red, swollen mask. The mask felt ugly and terrifying and people stared at it with disgust or, even worse, with pity. I didnt know how the mask got on my face, but I knew I couldnt take it off. After genocide, nuclear war, famine, slavery, and child abuse, acne is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a person. Okay, fine, maybe cancer is worse, and probably a bunch of other stuff, but acne is challenging, really challenging, and if you havent lived through it then honestly, go fuck yourself.

Some people only have to wear that tragic acne mask for a few years, and then they get to rejoin society and rebuild their self-worth. I, however, have had to wear the mask for most of my life. I have had some form of acne from mild to Freddy Krueger for over twenty years, and I have the scars to prove it. Oddly enough, my childhood was filled with so many heartbreaking events that my obsession with the whole acne thing seems wildly vain and ridiculous in comparison. But thats how psychologically impactful this skin disease is. Out of all the other tragedies of my childhood, the acne was the loudest and most obnoxious. It was constantly screaming at me, You look different than everyone! You should kill yourself because of that!

But as painful as this skin disease is, it ultimately saved my life. My winning combination of cystic acne and above-average narcissism forced me to seek help from doctors, dermatologists, psychologists, healers, hypnotherapists, inner child specialists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, Reiki masters, angel channels, and shamans. My numerous attempts to cure the skin condition made me look deeper and learn more about myself than I ever would have cared to otherwise. That first little white bastard that introduced me to the concept of hating myself was foreshadowing intense suffering and inevitable growth and transformation, but all I could do was stare at it in the mirror, like a goddamn moron.

After I questioned what was suddenly sprouting on my cheek, my mom explained that it was toxins coming out of my skin. This terrified me because although I didnt have a super firm grasp on what toxins were, I knew my parents were always desperately trying to avoid them. Our family was an organic, free-range, humanely sourced kind of family. The kind of family who uses plant-based cleaners that arent strong enough to actually degrease anything so every pot and pan has a sort of waxy sheen on it forever. My parents were hippies and didnt do anything according to the status quo. Im pretty sure my father still wakes up every morning, checks in on what the entire world is doing, and then does the opposite.

Our diet was always fluctuating. Sometimes we were raw vegans, meaning we only ate vegetables that were never heated over 118 degrees. Sometimes we were Indian-tarians, meaning my dad tried Indian food once and liked it so much that he paid the Indian woman who owned the 7-Eleven around the corner to come over and teach my mom to cook Indian food, and my dutiful mother cooked it for us every day for months. We were always following the rules of some new kick of my dads, and that kick was never the American standard.

Currently, my dad is on a raw meat diet: raw chicken, raw beef, and the occasional raw goat testicle. Yes, my father has eaten the raw balls of a goat. He started this diet after he read a book written by a guy named Aajonus Vonderplanitzk, whose real name is John.

Aajonus claimed that raw meat and raw dairy are the healthiest things you can eat and apparently that was different enough from conventional thinking to have my dad fully convinced. If I went to my dads house right now, he would sit in front of me and eat what he calls raw chicken curry, which is exactly what it sounds like. He would slurp up little, slimy chunks of raw bird while attempting to convince me to switch to his rawsome lifestyle.

Growing up, whenever I asked my parents why we were eating a room temperature vegan loaf or dal makhani instead of hot dogs and Bagel Bites like my friends, I was told my friends parents were sheep who blindly followed the SAD (standard American diet) and their food was full of toxins. Okay, but here I was watching toxins pop out of my face? Where were these mysterious facial toxins coming from? I was eating clean food and using clean detergents and soaps. I was taking my vitamin supplements every day and drinking my calcium-magnesium powder every night. I was eating my moms home-ground, organic, non-GMO grains. And I wasnt doing anything insane like taking a shower without a chlorine filter, or brushing my teeth with fluoridated toothpaste, or eating store-bought mayonnaise.