During my teens, I felt lucky not to go through the acne ‘phase’ people typically associate with adolescence. But at the start of 2020, as I had just turned 24, everything changed.

My skin went from only ever experiencing small, manageable breakouts to being covered in severe cystic acne, triggered, I believe, by an overprescription of medication and a hormonal imbalance. It all started in 2019, when my periods stopped and I experienced a small number of spots on my body. The dermatologist I saw insisted I take antibiotics, rather than treating the area topically. The antibiotics didn’t help my skin and they damaged my gut microbiome. I began experiencing food sensitivities and stress, followed by a major breakout across my cheeks. I was prescribed a short course of contraception to calm down my skin, but once I stopped taking this my cystic acne became inflamed and flared completely out of control.

In the summer of 2020 my periods came back and my acne spread all over my face and neck in deep cystic lesions. I felt so alone. Nothing seemed to help and no one I knew was going through the same thing.

“I tried everything to ‘fix’ my acne. Accepting that my skin will never be perfect freed me.”