I May Have Lost All The Battles—But I Won The War

(Okay. This has irked me since I was a teenager reading the fashion magazines with the airbrushed, clear skinned models as the face of acne. Fuck you, you insensitive magazine editors! And HaHa! Now who looks younger?…Um…now back to a loving place.)

Don’t you love stories with happy endings? Where the hero or heroine battle their demons, slay the dragons and eventually end up victorious? Me too! This is that kind of story.

Last week, as I sat picking my toenails (long story), watching political pundits try to explain the most asinine and unexplainable Presidential campaign of my entire life, (which could be to blame for the toenail picking), the ticker at the bottom of the screen which runs “Breaking News” stories caused me to sit up and take notice.

“Study finds acne suffers age better and live longer.”

WHAT!?

Well, I almost started jumping up and down except my boobs, which have lost all of their former shape and elasticity, would have flown up and hit me in the face—and knocked me unconscious—and I wanted to enjoy this moment.

I was certain I had hallucinated from the lack of blood flow to my brain. My head had been down by my feet concentrating on my horrible toe calluses. Can we just talk for a minute about?…no…let’s stay focused on the most positive thing I’ve heard in a looooong while. Maybe years. Perhaps decades. Bitching about my case of epic toe jam will have to wait for another day.

Awwww…dontcha all act so disappointed.

So, I waited at full attention and lo and behold, five minutes later the acne headline came back around.

“Study finds acne suffers age better and live longer.” Just writing that again makes me so happy.

It was true! Oh, sweet Jesus. There is a God!

Still, seeing was not believing. You know, everything you see on the news is not always true…right? So I jumped up onto my callused, toe-jammy feet and ran to get my laptop. I HAD to look this up.

You see, I was cursed with acne from the age of twelve to…well, now.

Even at the tender age of fifty-eight I still get angry looking, teenage breakouts.
But only when I’m having my picture taken or I’m going to be on a live video feed. When was invited to be on Huffington Post Live last year to talk about life after divorce, I developed a zit so large and so red I was forced to go and get a cortisone shot (something I hadn’t done in over ten years), lest I look like someone who had been punched in the face.

Face punching does not instill confidence in a happy post-divorce life.

Running for last minute shots, monthly facials, peels, and potions that smell like The La Brea Tar Pits.
Ah, such is the life of an acne sufferer. Mine could go from minimal to moderate at the sight of a french fry. I could go months without a single inch of clear skin. NOT A SINGLE INCH.  The week before my period? Forget about it—all bets were off. Heavy layers of Clearasil at night and cover-up by day could not hide the angry monsters who would torment my life. The chin zits were the worst, they hurt like hell, followed only by the dreaded nose zit. Every word or facial expression made my eyes wince and water in pain.

Back then, I wanted to hide. Or die. Acne does that. It takes your self-esteem and throws it in the wood chipper. But luckily it hits you at an age when no one notices and you feel on top of the world—your teens. All irony aside, looking back, I have no idea how I remained an extrovert. I’m pretty sure I overcompensated.

I was one of the lucky ones. I have a minimum of scarring—physically…

Anyhow, for all of you fellow acne suffers (I wanted to say former acne sufferers but it really never goes away—does it?), here is the study:

“A new study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology found that the cells of people with acne are better equipped to curb aging, which not only means these lucky folks look better later in life but that they are also more likely to reach old age.” 

How’s that for a silver lining?

“Researchers looked at over 1,000 female twins, a quarter of whom suffered from acne. They investigated the participants’ skin biopsies and white blood cells and discovered that those affected by breakouts had longer “telomeres,” which are essentially protective caps in our DNA that holds together the ends of chromosomes.

These telomeres prevent your chromosomes from breaking down and fusing with neighboring chromosomes during cell division. As we get older, these “caps” shrink, and people with acne, who the study found usually have longer telomeres, therefore tend to stay youthful for longer.”

Seems we acne sufferers also have lazy pathway genes that are less active (sullen and moody), therefore slowing the aging process.

Eureka! Hallelujah! Hazah! All of those years battling my overzealous oil glands has finally paid off!

I wonder if I had known this back when I was nineteen and in the war-of-my-life for the face-of-my-dreams if it would have made a rat’s ass of a difference to me then? I’m not someone who enjoys delayed gratification so I’m gonna say no.

But I’ve gotta tell ya, it sure feels good now! And this is simply a feel good story.

Did you/do you have acne? Isn’t this terrific news?

I’m sitting back and waiting for the studies that find that chocolate makes you smarter and sex make you taller.

Carry on,
xox