When Is It Time for the Last Resort?

Thirty days ago, I started a journey I’ve been petrified of since I was sixteen. I put it off for as long as I could. I tried every natural remedy, every craze, and even other medications. Nothing worked. So when my best friend said she was pulling the trigger, I realized it was time for me to do the same.

Accutane.

I’ve struggled with acne for the last twelve years. It started in fifth grade, was at its worst in middle school, and completely reshaped my self-image in high school. Having acne as an adult felt like the final insult. There is nothing more degrading than knowing the first thing someone notices about you is your biggest insecurity.

There was never a name you could call me that I hadn’t already called myself. Never a look you could give me that I hadn’t already seen in the mirror. Acne is cruel, and sometimes nothing you do will fix it. I remember a boy in middle school calling me pepperoni face. Worse, I remember feeling like I would never be beautiful because of my acne. It’s naïve to believe my acne isn’t the first thing people see. I see their eyes drift to a breakout I’m having. I feel their pity, and it’s nothing I haven’t already beaten myself up about

So I'm finally forced to ask myself: when is it time for the last resort? It seems that time is now.

Starting Accutane was a fear I’d carried for years. I never wanted to rely on medication to fix my skin. I wanted to be like my cousins, whose skin cleared up at the end of high school or the beginning of college. But I’m not like them—no matter how many nights I spent praying that I would be.

My skin is dry. My lips are cracked and bleeding. My acne feels different than it did before. I feel different too. I don’t feel beautiful. I don’t feel clean. I don’t feel like I’ve reached my fullest potential. While I can logically accept that I’m only in the first month of a six-month journey, emotionally I am distraught over the fact that I’m still breaking out. I can’t drink, I can’t take certain medications, and I can’t go more than twenty minutes without applying lip balm—but I keep telling myself it will all be worth it. It has to be.

Since starting Accutane, I’ve been an emotional wreck, and I can’t tell if it’s the medication or seasonal depression. I cry almost every day. I sit and think about how my life feels like it’s falling apart—how I rarely get to spend time with my friends because most of them don’t live nearby anymore, how if I had more money my boyfriend wouldn’t be stuck in Brazil, how I have no real hobbies other than reading and spend more time with books than with people. I think about the thousands of dollars I spent on a degree and how I’m starting to believe I might be a terrible writer.

Maybe it all correlates with this stupid medication. Maybe I’m just being dramatic. My skin hasn’t cleared yet, but I know this medicine is working—I have to believe it is. After all, it’s been three days since I’ve washed my hair and it still looks like day-one hair. So at the very least, I’m not as greasy as I once was.

Maybe that’s what the last resort really is: choosing to keep going, even when you’re not convinced it’s working yet.

All my love always,

RK