Surviving Acne
Abigail Collins' Skin Journey
Abigail Collins is a 20-year-old with an Instagram account. Sounds similar to every other 20-something female out there, right?
Not really.
Abigail has accumulated 15.9k followers on her page and uses her instagram account to document her acne journey, using the platform to share her progress with medication like Accutane, show off any products that have been useful for her, discuss important issues like confidence and self-love and ultimately, let people feel like they aren't alone.
Stripping back her online life, Abigail has gone through eye-opening experiences, from developing acne as an adolescent and learning to live with it as she grew herself.
On beginning to talk to Abigail, her friendliness quickly radiated, putting to bed any worries that were had over the oncoming potentially difficult conversation. Despite some hard times, Abigail seemed confident and was willing and ready to share her wisdom.
The beginning
Despite saying that she was blessed with clear skin until her teens, Abigail says: "It was probably in first year of school, that I got the odd one [spot]." she reminisced, going on to tell how it all started. "When I turned around 16, so around 4th year, it got really severe. I always had white heads, cysts – the whole shebang, every single day and nothing could cover it up."
"In that moment that was the worst it had ever been and I was just putting makeup on and trying to hide it all the time and I picked really bad at it and now I’m left with really bad scars. I think it was just not really having much knowledge at such a young age and I think that’s what caused it to be so severe now."
As many of us can relate to, Abigail now has an intricate skin routine compared to her early teenage years, in what she describes was: "a bit of micellar water and away to bed". She shares a lot of this on her instagram account for others to take inspiration from.
"You should walk around with a bag on your head"
Getting back to her time as a young teen, Abigail reflected on learning to deal with her acne whilst being exposed to other kids her age everyday - who she says struggled with her acne more than her. "People would always come up to me and say “you should walk around with a bag over your head” and “who needs to see that”. It was from people who I thought were my friends as well."
It's hard not to notice how she talks about this time with little to no feeling in her voice, almost as though she pities the people who were mean to her. She recalls laughing them off but admitting how it hurt her deep down and made her lack a lot of confidence.
"I feel like its [acne] still so taboo now, I’ve constantly grown up as being that one person who “nobody looks like her” and “she doesn’t look like anyone else” and I think it just made me stick out so much more."
"Nobody wants to be my friend – is it because I look a certain way?"
It's clear that Abigail feels the ignorance of others when they fail to accept her skin as the norm. She stopped wearing makeup to embrace her skin (plus the addition of the time and cost of applying it every morning) in her final year of school. It was those who grew up with her that were a lot less judgemental and although they looked, they didn't say anything. Although, she admits she left secondary school with only one friend. She explains that: "The friends that I did have didn’t understand what I was going through. I couldn’t relate to any of them." Going on to say that: "I think it was always in the back of my head that: “Cool, nobody really wants to be my friend – is it because I look a certain way?”.
Recalling her past friends from that time, she mentions that they would often discreetly encourage her to wear makeup on any outings so that she would "feel comfortable", something Abigail thinks was to make her then-friends more comfortable, not her. She laughs as she says that many of those who treated her this way are now contacting her to say how proud they are of her Instagram. She talks about how she appreciates this, but also says also she would have done it four years sooner hadn't it been for them.
Epidermis - @sophieharristaylor
Epidermis - @sophieharristaylor
"It's just skin."
Moving on from her younger years, Abigail admits to being much shier and lacking confidence since those times. She said if anyone had told her during that time that she would be posting unfiltered pictures of her skin for thousands to see, she wouldn't have believed it. She now promotes that it shouldn't matter whether we have clear skin or acne prone skin - it's just skin at the end of the day. "Every skin is normal", Abigail reiterates, and explains that if you have spots, you are still pretty. She tells people to look in the mirror and say: "You know what? I am beautiful!" Recalling on her past, she now says that she has a lot of more self-worth and self-love on her side, compared to how she felt three years ago.
"Oh my god, nobody can see me like that".
Although social media has been incredibly helpful for Abigail in terms of her confidence and for her followers, she addresses some issues with the platform - Facetune.
"I used to edit every single spot out and post it on Instagram and it was so debilitating to look back on the non-edited pictures and be like: “"oh my god, nobody can see me like that" even though that’s how I looked." She now explains that if people know you don't look like that in real life, why should you try and pretend online? and even stating that people have offered to edit her photos for her. Abigail thinks she received these offers because editing has become so normalised, saying that we are conditioned to it. She believes that this trend is giving people unrealistic expectations, when in real life, nobody looks like that.
"Nobody has a waist like that. Nobody has skin like that, everybody has pores. It’s natural. Everyone has stretch marks, its natural and everybody gets dry skin." She goes on to say that she would have more respect for stars like the Kardashians, who she describes as the "pinnacle of beauty", posted some more down-to-earth, unfiltered photos.
@abis_acne
@abis_acne
Despite the filters and trends, Abigail says that her Instagram has been mostly positive.
"I think it definitely has allowed me to express myself a lot more and ne more in touch with myself.". It has even given her opportunities such as featuring in a photoshoot in London earlier this year, stating that without her instagram, this wouldn't have been a possibility. The shoot, called 'Epidermis', focused on people with all kinds of skin conditions such as acne, psoriasis, rosacea and dermatitis. Abigail denotes this as one experience that had no taboos attached to it, saying: "it was just so nice to have photos taken of our skin but without actually talking about our skin. It was so normalised, I always stand by not letting your acne define you, but it's obviously hard not to do. But I do solidly stand with that."
She also notes that since she started Instagram she is much more sympathetic to others suffering with acne and other skin related conditions. She admits that before then, she was in the toxic mindset that: “my skin is the worst skin and nobody else can complain to me about spots because I am literally the queen of spots”. But now, since people messaged her on the platform, sent photos and given their story, her mindset has completely changed.
Recalling her first time to the doctors, she remembers being told that she would have to begin Accutane. "I didn’t believe it and I thought I could do it all by myself, that skin care could solve it all.", she remembers seeing adverts claiming to 'clear your skin in 3 months', and so, put off taking the medication. She admits trying all the popular methods but eventually went back to the doctor and began topical Accutane. At first, she used a gel form, directly applied to the skin due to being unable to swallow tablets. She believes this only helped with the top layer of her skin, rather than the tablet form which treats inside the body as well. Since realising this, she has began putting the tablets liquid into food to consume it that way, or, the "baby way" as she calls it whilst defining its taste as similar to that of spicy rice. She goes on to advise that common side effects are tiredness, dry lips, dry skin and sore joints and back.
"I’ve had to change certain aspects of my life because of my acne which is so bizarre." Taking medication isn't the only change Abigail has had to make to accommodate her skin, but she also says she has suffered from severe pain as a result. She states that although it is natural for her to sleep on her back, she at times hasn't been able to depending on how severe the acne is on her back. Even wearing bras began to get extremely difficult for Abigail as she says now she mostly sticks to non-wired bras as they are softer on the skin. Yet, sometimes she can't wear one at all due to the straps causing such a pain and weight on her shoulders, often causing sports to break out. The pain isn't limited to her back, it spreads to her face making it unbearable to even touch, yet Accutane has helped control the pain.
She wants to leave her journey on the final note of advice that acne doesn’t define you, whatsoever.
"I think it’s just about making the disconnect that it’s just acne, it’s just skin and skin is normal. Nobody should be able to alter your opinion of yourself; you shouldn’t listen to anyone else."
If you have been inspired by Abigail's journey or just want to keep up to date with how she is doing - find her on instagram:
