Connect the dots...on my face.

SKIN.
I feel I am quite the expert on this topic. I have been dealing with "skin issues" since I was in 8th grade. Seeing as I am now 25, that's a heck of a long time.
I say skin issues instead of acne because it didn't start out that way.
Now it's been over a decade since these problems started so I can't remember every detail, but I'll try my best.
From what I do remember, there were extremes. Extreme dryness to the point where I would cry from wanting to tare the skin from my face, dryness that made me question whether or not I was part reptile, dryness that made facial expression painful. This time of my life was also equipped with spells of oil. The kind of oily that no matter how many oil sheets I used you could still fry an egg on my face in the sun, kind of oily.
I tried everything you could think of at the drugstore and I may as well just have lit my cash on fire because nothing worked.
I can remember this being the time I started using makeup to cover what I believed at that time was horrible skin (this would be a good time to take a break and cry over that last statement because let me tell you, it just kept going up from there).
The split personality/hormonal bitch that was my skin continued for the next two years. Which leads me to Junior year of High School where the universe decided, "You know, I just don't think I've given her enough to deal with" and with that I gained what must have been 30 pounds and my face transformed into something out of a proactive ad (That's if they actually used people with acne and not models with perfect airbrushed skin).
I'm not going to lie and say I worked out and ate healthy, because I was a teenager and I live in America. However my lifestyle didn't change from what it was the last 5 years of my life and wouldn't change for the next 5. Yet somehow Junior year was the year my body rebelled; and I've got the pictures to prove it.
By Senior year I had lost the weight and my skin had begun to clear considerably. I know what everyone's thinking so I'll save you the trouble of asking, I did miss my acne, we had been through some great times together and it was hard to watch it go so suddenly, but lucky for me I'm left with about 50 scars as a constant memory, a token if you will.
The point of my life I am at now is the same as it has been since Senior year, majority of my skin is scaring, however there is also the never ending reoccurring acne that just keeps stopping by unannounced and uninvited. I probably get a new guest EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And the second I notice one is missing I find, that isn't true, he's just relocated somewhere else.
Let us go over the treatment methods I've tried shall we?
First off I have tried everything there is..basically.

• Acne.org
• Acne free
• Murad 
• Clean and Clear 
• Biore 
• Oxy Skin Care
• Mario Badescu 
• Neutrogena
• Clinique 3 Step System
• Alba Botanica
• Cerave
• Olay
• Aveeno
• St. Ives
• Simple

I'm not kidding when I say NONE of these worked. I will say some worked less than others.

I have been to a total of 5 dermatologists who do nothing but push medication at you and I have tried most of them, except for Accutane because of two reasons, it works by shutting off oil glands and I don't know how many times I will have to explain this, because every doctor refuses to believe it, It just CAN'T be POSSIBLE there eyes seem to say. But I swear on every star in the sky my skin for the past 6 years is as dry as the Sahara Desert. But this goes against logic that I have acne and dry skin so I must be lying, anyway... second reason is I suffer from depression and this medication causes depression and can lead to suicide so um yea, no thank you. But you know it's weird I say these things and yet Accutane was still a reoccurring topic of discussion, because of this it's been over a year since I seen one of "those doctors". 

During my visits I did try things don't get me wrong, this including topical and oral medications. And guess what?! None of them worked. No reaction at all! Oh wait, that's a lie, I had an allergic reaction to Doxycycline which made me look like a beached whale. Awesome. 

I tried giving up common food allergies such as Gluten and Dairy, neither helped my skin. 

I tried eating nothing but fruit and vegetables and maybe this would have worked except I only lasted a week before I felt constantly faint and overwhelmed with everything. 

I could go into more detail about what I ate and how much but people who live by that diet will surely tell me all the things I did wrong without me having to say more than that one run on sentence, so I'll save myself the hassle. 

I am currently trying my best to drink an excessive amount of water so there's that.

Well point is I said enough is enough and took the red eye to California to meet up with one of the worlds best plastic surgeons so I could have facial reconstruction surgery. All was going well till her told me the price, so I hauled my ass back onto the plane and came home, having to think of something else.

In all seriousness I decided to see a naturopath doctor. 

I seen her for the first time two weeks ago and see her again two weeks from now. She has put me on a bunch of vitamins and I'm going to keep everyone posted on all the goings on of my face and if things get better or worse, what things have helped and so on. I think I'll make this a weekly thing. 

<3

depressing depression

Well What Do You Know...

I let an excessive amount of time go by before I wrote. 

Which Brings me to the topic of this blog post..

DEPRESSION.

Such a beautiful topic. So uplifting. So inspiring. 

Honestly I am a huge J.K. Rowling fan, (you're thinking what the f*ck does that have to do with anything Lara?! Well hold on to your panties there, I'm going to tell you) She often speaks about her depression and how it took getting to rock bottom for her to be able to build herself back up. Not only this incredible woman, but many others (men included) often say the same..."it wasn't until I was at my breaking point that I got better" or "It took everything falling apart for me to put everything back together" or "I didn't start my life till I realized I had no life" Or..Or..Or..basically anything and I gotta say I am incredibly happy for these people, honest to God I am over the moon thrilled for those people! However I have to say that hearing about that makes me slip even further into the hole I have so busily created for myself. Hearing people say that they were able to get themselves out of that hole all on their own makes the bottom of my hole turn into quick sand (and yes, that is the best example I can think of at this moment in time). I just can't fathom how this doesn't work for me, how I can not be one of "those". And so I just sit and think about how I am not getting better or I don't think at all. 

I feel this may be a good time to turn my blog into somewhat of a community of people talking about their struggles with this because there is so much that people don't understand or refuse to believe. 

We all know that the world is becoming much more "accepting" of mental disorders, I use the word accepting very loosely because I don't think the world is accepting of it at all. The better word to use would be "aware" but even that word only works to an extent. If you don't know what I mean by this I mean that almost everyone knows what depression is. But the truth of the matter is, most of those people haven't a clue. They have an idea of what it is, which probably revolves around someone being very sad. Or not wanting to do things anymore, or gaining weight. While all these things are very much a reality of the disease, it is by no means all of it. Let me give you an example, I have been at my current job for over a year and I have learned what the average person might have learned in 3 months. This is because my attention skills aren't there. AT ALL. For the past year my anxiety level has been so high that I honestly feel I have no control over my life. Additionally, I have depression. If you yourself suffer from depression you I am sure are aware, maybe even personally, that depression can come in waves. I don't mean in the sense of Bipolar depression (which if you didn't know is when a person experiences levels of extreme high and lows, lows meaning horrible depression, highs meaning incredible happiness) I do not personally have Bipolar depression so I can not give you straight up facts about the disease, other than this is something numerous people I know who have been diagnosed with Bipolar have told me they experience. I also know that there are two kinds of Bipolar but am not entirely informed about which is which so I'm not going to start making guesses. Point of that separate tangent, was to make you aware of what I meant when I said depression comes in waves, which brings me back to what I was originally stating..in that depression can be much worse certain days than it is others. For me, it will never go away. Even on days when I am laughing so hard I can't breath or have just spent a whole day with a friend or shit even when I'm on vacation, it doesn't matter. It is still there. It is still this grey ora around everything and everyone around all my thoughts, all my feelings and it will. not. leave. That being said there are days when it is much much worse. Days where I feel like an empty shell. Days where the only thing keeping me from ending everything is knowing, "this day will pass" and I do the only thing I can think of doing which is sleep. I sleep way too often to rid myself of way too many hours of emptiness that I simply can not deal with. 

When I say people are not accepting I mean most people reading this without depression and even a good amount of people with it will be thinking "Well she isn't trying hard enough or She doesn't want it enough. She should be on medication, She should talk to someone" And on and on..Well guess what, I am trying, I do want it enough, I am on medication and I have a therapist. And it simply isn't enough. This will be hard for a lot of people to understand and even more so with people who are also suffering because those certain people with depression who can't understand are doing better, with the aid of one or a combination of the things mentioned. But as I just stated for some not even all these things combined do a damn fucking thing. This is hard to understand, I get that because it's hard for me to understand and I've been dealing with it for years. 

I am suicidal I think about dying all the time. I think things would be a lot better if I were't here, not only for myself but for everyone who knows me. That being said, I genuinely believe I will not end my life, and everyone reading this in a similar situation shouldn't either. I am not going to sit here and type out a lie about how I know things will get better. I do know for some of you though, you've got a decent shot. SO MANY people with Depression have gotten rid of there depression or significantly reduced it with help, and there is a damn good shot you will too. However I also know there are a select few like me out there who may never get better (I'm not saying I know I never will, I'm still relatively young and hold onto the hope that I will overcome this) or will, from a positive standpoint, just have to deal with this for a number of years. To those people I say, there may never be a day where the emptiness is completely gone, however there will be plenty of days where you will be happy, and even though the emptiness may still be there hovering, the happiness and joy you experience in your life makes it more than worth it. So I say keep on pushing on. 

To anyone who needs to talk and is too afraid to speak out on their own, just message me I am a great listener and more than willing to read whatever it is you want to share. And even if it feels like no one cares, I'm telling you truthfully, I may have never seen your face or heard your voice. I may know absolutely nothing about you, but it doesn't matter because I love you. It doesn't matter all the reasons you have listed in your head as to why you're unlovable or shouldn't be loved. I love you. Because I genuinely believe every person in the world and every person reading this is a good person. 

<3