Body Image: My Story – The Good, the Bad, and, of course, the Ugly (pt. 2)

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Part of me didn’t want to write part 2 of this series. There are a lot of feelings wrapped up in writing it. Part of me didn’t want to revisit those feelings. Part of me is worried about being judged or made fun of. Maybe you’ll find me extremely shallow and superficial, or perhaps you’ll notice all those flaws that just you didn’t see before.

I know some of these fears are irrational – but despite that, I am still anxious about posting this. I think there is value to doing it – for me as well as for others. In the past, it has been healing for me to write about hard issues, and it has also been healing to share them publicly as well. So, here we go…

This post is dedicated to my struggle with acne – and the scars, both physical and emotional, that it has left me with. 

It all started around junior high – such glorious times, eh? I remember being somewhere around 5th grade when I got my first pimple. It wasn’t a huge deal. It felt more like a right-of-passage to becoming a woman. A few years of some spots here and there, no big deal. 

Unfortunately, it became a much bigger deal. As the years went on, it just got worse and worse. In high school my face was completely covered with acne, hardly a clear inch of skin to be seen. Perhaps it was not really that bad, but in my memories it is. I don’t have many pictures to confirm or deny this either – during those years I avoided pictures like the plague. Thank goodness selfies didn’t exist back then!

To my dismay, almost everything I tried made no difference to my skin. You name it I probably tried it. 

Proactive? Yes – and it burned so bad that I had to stop using it!

Over the counter medicines? – Salicylic acid (check!), benzoyl peroxide (check!)… made no difference. 

Prescribed antibiotics? – those tetracyclines did nothing for my skin.

Birth control (the pill)? – yep, started on it during high school and it also made no difference. 

The waiting was always the hardest. You’d go to the dermatologist and they’d be like, “well, let’s try this (insert whatever new medicine you like) now. Come back and see me in 2 weeks.” So then you’d wait the 2 weeks, hoping and praying that this would FINALLY be the miracle-working medicine you’d been hoping for… and 2 weeks later the doctor would be wracking her brain again to think of what else to try. 

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Things I Never Would Have Done…

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Today marks Dean and my 9th wedding anniversary – happy June 5th everyone!

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9 years of marriage is weird – maybe because it’s so close to 10 years, which seems like a long time. Or to rephrase, it seems like the amount of time people older than me would be married, except here I am… older than I feel. 

When we got married, I remember trying to imagine what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with this man. What would things be like 5 years down the road? 10 years? 50 years?

I can tell you that so far, it has brought a lot of things that I would never have guessed or imagined. I am not the same person I was 9 years ago, and neither is Dean. And together, we are helping change each other into different people. Mostly (I think) for the better!

I started thinking about things I never would have done or tried if I hadn’t married Dean and have compiled a short list below. I am grateful for the experiences we have had together – for the new things Dean has encouraged (and sometimes prodded) me to try. Dean has helped me expand my perspectives and even enjoy things I never would have thought to do so on my own. 

Just for Fun  

I love being married to someone who loves having fun and isn’t “too cool” to do something with me! Here are some of our fun adventures:

  • The “Thing” – so this one time we drove my car all the way from Phoenix to Arkansas and we kept seeing billboard after billboard for the “Thing”… so we decided to stop in and see it. As expected, it was WAY overhyped and pretty lame, but we have some great memories and pictures.
  • 25th Anniversary showing of “Hook” – Dean knows I love the movie Hook, and so for my 29th birthday he took me to Austin to see it in the theater. They even had a few of the actors there to talk about the movie afterwards including Rufio (so cool!)

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Body Image: My Story – The Good, the Bad, and, of course, the Ugly (pt. 1)

Erica2 Comments

Can you remember when you first realized that what you looked like mattered? Or when you first became aware that people are quick to judge someone based on how they look? How old were you? When was the first time you ever felt self-conscious about your physical appearance?

I say “when” and not “if” because I think this is something everyone has gone through or struggles with at one time or another. Or perhaps all the time.

I would say it happened for me around 6th or 7th grade, you know, the junior high years. Weren’t those just the best?

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Here’s an awkward junior high picture of me when I was in 7th grade and visited Japan.

One of my first memories of starting to question if I was pretty enough happened while I was with my best friend from school at the time. We were in my room and I told her that I thought I could be considered attractive – and she burst out laughing, like, fall over on the floor laughing. This was my BEST friend mind you…

Another time at school, we had taken school pictures and our photos were getting passed back to us. I got mine in the envelope that has the clear plastic on it so you can see the photo underneath. And the girl sitting behind me yelled, “oh my gosh, RETAKE!,” while pointing at my picture. And you know what, I did get retakes. All because one person had made fun of how I looked.

I’m sure you all have stories from your childhood like this that you could share. It’s so sad for me to think about because I know how much it hurt at the time. And I was so young, maybe 10 or 11. My son is almost 2 years old, so how many more years does he have before he experiences something like this? How long can I protect him from the false idea that appearance matters? And not only that it matters, but that it’s what gives a person value?

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