This post is an add-on to last week’s post about my general anxiety and panic attacks. Read that first or this one won’t make much sense!
So last week I talked about how I’ve been dealing with general anxiety this year and even a few panic attacks.
This is all new to me, but I shared about how I found this guy’s website to be incredibly helpful. His explanations about what’s really going on when you have anxiety and worries, and his advice about phobias and “anxiety humour” made a HUGE difference for me.
After reading and implementing his info, I pretty much immediately saw a huge relief in my anxiety. And now it’s not like I never get anxious thoughts, but they go quickly and I don’t feel controlled by it anymore.
Anyway – while my general anxiety these days is more about scary “what ifs” like death and illness and crippling accidents rather than acne, I saw a lot of parallels between my general anxiety and the usual experience of acne anxiety (which I’ve certainly had my share of!)
This also means that a lot of the advice about how to solve general anxiety and panic attacks can also work to make your life dealing with acne a lot better.
So first of all:
It All Begins With A Thought
Anxiety of any sort starts with a thought, which in turn leads to an emotion that feels scary and yucky and nasty and awful.
Most of that can’t really be helped too much.
You can definitely get adept at changing your focus away from the thought onto the present moment or away to a humorous “anxiety song“.
But for the most part, you can’t really help that thought popping into your head in the first place.
What you can do though is change how you react to those thoughts and emotions. It’s the reactions and actions that end up elevating that stress and creating that crippling box of anxiety around yourself.
Here’s The Deal with Acne & Anxiety…
So in regard to acne … here’s what usually happens:
You get a pimple. Or you think you will.
And most of the worry that comes along with it is in terms of the big ol “what ifs”.
The biggest “what if” is mostly “what will people think?” and the endless iterations of it, like “will I be loved and accepted if I look like this?” “will my boyfriend or girlfriend look away in disgust?” or “can I accept myself like this?” etc etc.
While the anxiety may not come to you in so many words, above is generally the root of the acne anxiety.
So What Do You Do?
In response to these thoughts and anxieties, most people start taking action to make those nasty feelings go away, or at least try to avoid them.
There are a million ways in which we react to this acne anxiety and make it go away… I’ve written about this several times on the blog already.
- You avoid people and cancel work and plans when you break out
- You check the mirror obsessively
- You get absolutely addicted to your skin care or diet or supplement routine and tremble in fear if you miss even one tiny step in the routine
- You constantly try new products
- You pick, pop, and squeeze your skin into oblivion trying to get the gunk out of it
After writing the advice in my last post and having seen first hand with my own anxiety that it is totally legit and totally works, I can say this again:
The more you “do” in response to acne… the more behaviours and actions you take in order to make it go away, the worse the anxiety gets. Each action might give you a very temporary relief, but it creates a larger snowball of anxiety around you.
In order to make your life with acne feel a lot better, and get away from it absolutely controlling you, you need to face your fears.
And in a lot of ways when it comes to acne, “facing your fears” means just chilling. NOT taking action. Focusing on your life as if you were a person who doesn’t have acne.
Which means when you want to cancel plans, don’t. When you want to look in the mirror even though you just did, resist. If it looks like you have to stay overnight somewhere without your skin care stuff, just roll with it. And so on.
Here’s a Hug, Because This Ain’t Easy
This is going to be hard. The temptation will be incredibly strong to freak out and take action on that fear and anxiety.
However, the more you do in response to the fear, the more you are training your nervous system to freak out and fear acne. (just like those people who have unreasonable phobias of dogs and spiders … you essentially have an acne phobia!)
Which means that when you do get a pimple, you’ve trained yourself to feel like it’s the most soul crushing, terrifying experience. And no matter how much you to try talk yourself out of feeling that way, it doesn’t work.
The only way to remedy that is to re-train your nervous system with action – or should I say, lack thereof.
The more you just hang out with the feelings and don’t act on them (as incredibly unpleasant as this is), the more you will show your nervous system that acne isn’t THAT big a deal.
And eventually it won’t feel so bad.
Don’t get me wrong – acne will never feel good. You’re never going to go “oh yay, a zit”. But when it happens, you’ll see that you can just get on with life. It won’t cause the same awful, nasty, soul crushing emotions that it does now.
And it will feel better because you no longer have that extra anxiety that you were actually CREATING by doing all those actions (like avoiding plans, picking, controlling your diet with an iron fist etc etc).
How Do I Get Rid of Acne if I Can’t Act On Getting Rid of It?
I know this seems like a contradiction. If you’re telling me that I shouldn’t act on my anxiety about acne… but if I don’t… how do I get rid of acne?
Well I think there’s a difference between thoughtful, contemplative action and the typical action that usually happens in the moment as a direct response to the anxious emotions (usually caused by a fresh spot showing up).
Acne is something that we don’t like and it’s fine to try and get rid of it. But it’s better to make your decisions about that when you aren’t at the height of emotion.
Making your decisions in that state is what leads to things like switching your skin care routine far too much, which can end up making things worse.
It also, like we said, trains your nervous system to fear acne.
So if you’re contemplating trying something new, or switching something up in your routine, I say give it a week or two and see how you feel then. If you still want to make changes, go for it.
*Here’s a hug. Be strong.*
16 Responses
Love this post, Tracy! Acne and anxiety can be a very vicious cycle…I know because I’ve been there. When my acne was at it worst, my anxiety would be sky high…which in turn made my acne flare up even more. Now that everything is under control, if I do get a breakout, I say to myself “No big deal. It will clear up quickly.” And it does. For the most part, I try not to do anything extra for it. Unless I’ve been straying too far from my way of eating, in which case I’ll try to rein things in a little bit. And if I feel my anxiety creeping back (usually when I have not been getting enough sleep) I just recognize it for what it is. I focus on breathing from the diaphragm, and know that I’ll get through it.
Great advice Elizabeth, thanks!
This is such a great post, I can really relate to experiencing these emotions at the moment. Thanks for all the helpful advice, I’m definitely going to try putting it into practice!
Do it, it’s a tough thing to do, but these steps really work!
Great post!
I can relate to this. I had years very bad fear of flying (in airplane). Then once I decided/said to myself: I allow myself feel as much fear as I can. I allow myself to have a full panic and possibly look ridiculous. This is amazingly simple, and it works! I think this allowing…really helps to release the emotions. You know what they say, “what you resist, persists”.
And a little joke now, we are used to joke with friends, they world needs a new human right: the right to be ugly! I mean, really. The magazines etc. are full of pictures of flawless women…but really, it’s not wrong, illegal or forbidden, to have acne and imperfect skin days. Just last week a had a big pimple on my chin and then I thought…who cares? I don’t! 🙂 And then it went quickly away. Of course, I don’t like pimples and they don’t feel nice (this one was even little bit painful), but obsessing about it won’t change anything, so here we go…I agree with everything you wrote! 🙂
Hi TT! Yeah it’s true, there’s WAY too much pressure to look flawless – in magazines, TV, everything is so airbrushed and it’s not what real people look like. It definitely contributes to this acne phobia, or weight phobia, or whatever else can end up consuming a person’s mind with fear. But we don’t have to let it, we can retrain our minds
I really don’t know what to do! i have a combination and sensitive skin (it’s oily in the T-zone, and my nose is oily but in the last few months is peeling, and normal to dry in the other areas),I used coconut oil, but after a month I saw that I had some clogged pores on my face. So i changed to almond oil, i started to use it before less than a week, and my skin is more terrible than what he was before i started. I really dont know what to do, now i have more clogged pores and bumps on my face and little pimples, and i just sitting and crying, please help me!! what oil should i use instead of?? What do you think that i need to do ? because i’m really freaking out and dno’t know what to do! 🙁 I’ll really really appriciate if you will answer me! 🙂
Hi Maria – well since this is an article about acne phobia, my first suggestion would be to breathe! I know the breakouts are causing you a lot of anxiety right now, but it’s important to be aware of your knee-jerk reactions to that anxiety, and step back to make calm thoughtful decisions about your skin care.
That being said, coconut oil is quite comedogenic and it’s not an oil I would recommend using for anyone acne prone. Here’s the article about which oils to choose: https://thelovevitamin.com/19433/best-oils-moisturize-acne-prone-skin-type/
I like argan personally and sounds like it might be a good one for you. But be careful because it’s very doubtful that your skin is now going to immediately clear up once you switch, you have to give this one a good chance to help you. Be ware of the urge to switch your skin care again once you start argan if you don’t see immediate clearing. Good luck and sending hugs your way!
Hi Tracy what do you think about Moringa oil I have not seen anything about that oil in your web
I live in Japan and is big here
Thanks
Will moringa oil clog my pores
Hi Katy, I’ve never heard of it! If you can find the fatty acid profile somewhere and post it here, I could see if it looks ok or not
http://jcsp.org.pk/ArticleUpload/1204-5378-1-PB.pdf
Thanks Tracy I found the lipid profile for Moringa oil
Let me know please
I struggle through acne anxiety, so badly, that it takes over my life at times. I get one pimple, and I keep feeling its going to keep getting worse, until it takes over my face, and I keep staring at the mirror, again and again. It gets quite depressing, and I have battled through it for years now. Thank you for this post, it was really helpful 🙂
So glad to hear that Anjali!! <3
Tracy I’m a teenager struggling to fit in and with acne ruining my life anxiety has taken control of me I don’t have the power to have faith that I’ll be okay I have tried to resist but I fail
I am currently going through severe acne phobia. Like I got a few little bumps on my face and i feel so restless. I am struggling with my sleep. I feel like my whole face is going to breakout. It’s scary but I found this post helpful. Tell me a way to divert my mind and how to stop getting such acne phobia attacks.
Glad this helped, Shavani! I totally understand what you’re going through, it’s terrifying :/