What My Acne Scars Taught Me About Other People (And Their Opinions)

Summary

I've had scars for most of my adult life that I hid and felt ashamed of, worried about what people would think if they saw them. One comment from someone I loved shifted that completely, and taught me that far fewer people notice or judge us than we assume. That mindset shift let me care less about the few who do, and spend that energy on something that actually matters.

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When I was 18 in my final year at school, I started getting spots on my back and chest. Small at first, then they became bigger, redder, impossible to ignore. I hated them. I was ashamed of them. I would do anything to stop anyone else seeing them.

On the days of school football matches, I'd put my football underlayer on beneath my uniform in the morning, just so I didn't have to have my top off in the changing room. The guys would laugh and joke. I'd mutter some excuse about being cold at school that day. 

Into university and this insecurity still followed me. When my mates would take their tops off (as drunk Englishmen occasionally like to do), I'd be the only one who kept theirs on. Sticking out like a sore thumb.

On holiday, I'd lie in the baking sun, t-shirt still on, too scared to take it off and risk people seeing what was beneath it.

Around 22, the spots began to fade. Relief, finally. Until I noticed that the spots were beginning to scar. But not like normal acne scars. Big, lumpy, ugly ones.

My mum took me to specialist after specialist, who all told us the same thing: genetics, keloid scars, no real cure, we can try some treatments that might reduce the lumpiness, but with no guarantee. We tried and tried. Nothing worked.

I remember one day in London with my Mum after another failed treatment, sat at lunch afterwards as the waiter began setting down our food, I suddenly started to cry - crying at the realization that I would carry this insecurity and shame for the rest of my life.

Fast forward to 2020. Now living in Dubai, my best friend at the time - a lovely Palestinian girl who I met at work - noticed the scars on my back and asked what they were. Horrified, I told her and admitted how ugly and ashamed I felt of them. "They look like jewels," she said. "You shouldn't be ashamed at all. They're unique. They're beautiful."

From that conversation, something started to shift.

A week later and for the first time in my life since I was 18, I went to swim without a rash vest on, in the communal pool in my apartment block. Walking down with my towel under my arm, I stopped and almost turned back many times. When I got to the poolside, I felt every eye on me, so I stalled, rearranging my towel again and again, delaying the moment I'd have to take my top off.

Finally, I pulled it off and walked briskly to the pool steps to get into the water before too many people could see. I swam a few lengths, convinced every sunglassed face around that pool was staring at me and thinking the same thing: what the hell are those ugly things on his back? I climbed out, threw my towel over my shoulders, grabbed my things and rushed back upstairs.

It was excruciating. But it was also the beginning of something.

Today, thanks to that lovely Palestinian girl (who you've probably guessed is my now wife Majd), I've fully accepted those scars as part of me. I don't think twice about them anymore.

And do you want to know what the funny thing is? All of those years when I was so self-conscious, so insecure, so ashamed of what other people might think of my scars - it was mostly all in my head.

The vast majority of the people at that pool that Sunday afternoon in Dubai didn't care. Hardly anyone was even looking. They were all too wrapped up in their own heads, worrying about what everyone else thought of them, to spend much time thinking about me.

Now, some people will tell you not to worry about what other people think of you because no one is thinking of or judging you. I think that's misleading. Some people do notice us and judge us. A few of the people who were sitting around that pool did see my scars. Of them, a couple probably did judge me for them. So, it's not that no one notices us or judges us, it's just that the number who do is far smaller than we imagine.

And, we make the mistake of handing those few people enormous power.

I gave the handful of people in this world who would see my scars and judge me for them, the power to make me feel ashamed in my own skin.

But why should a few superficial opinions dictate how comfortable I feel about myself? They shouldn't. It took me a long time to see that, but once I did, it was liberating. Some people still stare. Some ask questions. Some probably still judge and I’m now completely fine with that.

We all carry insecurities, we all carry scars - whether visible or not. We also all have only so much mental energy available to us each day, it is a limited resource after all. So do we want to waste that precious mental energy worrying about what judgemental people think of us?

I am becoming better, but I still at times care too much about what other people think of me. And it is okay if you do too, the goal is not to completely rid ourselves of these thoughts (that’s impossible).

The goal is rather to become more aware of them and to think them just a little less. So that we can then channel that mental energy into something productive - such as creating a life of greater meaning and purpose perhaps?