Acne is one of the most common skin conditions found amongst those between the ages of 12-21, but it is something that can affect adult who are even in their 30s and 40s! Acne is the clogging of multiple pores that results in the formation of blackheads, whiteheads, pustules, or cysts above the skin. Acne can appear on any part of the body, but the most common places are the face, back and chest. This skin condition can have a real negative effect on your self-esteem, and can make people feel ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting,’ so it is best to try and seek a treatment to improve your confidence.
Acne is different for everyone, and, therefore, so is the treatment. A good place to start is with tackling your diet. You could have the clearest skin as a child, but as we grow up, we can slip into bad food and lifestyle habits that affects our skin. Try keeping a food diary to see if certain foods affect your skin more than others. Keep this up for about a month to see if you can pinpoint certain foods that makes your skin worse and cut them out of your diet. The more healthy you are on the inside, the more healthy you will be on the outside, too. If diet doesn’t seem to be affecting your skin, however, it’s worth trying a different route. Acne could be a result of you not washing your skin a lot, or it could be as a result of the products you’re using. Try and get a face wash that is cleansing, but good for sensitive skin. As someone who comes into the latter category, I’ve found that Neutrogena has been a real help with my type of acne without irritating my skin. Don’t wash your face more than twice a day, otherwise you’re at risk of losing the natural oils that your skin obtains. Makeup is another thing that can make or break your skin. Naturally, people with acne want to cover their skin up, but this can actually be detrimental. Makeup, when not washed out of your pores properly can either create acne, or make it considerably worse. So, if you are going to wear makeup, try using water based products, as these are less likely to clog your pores. The downside to buying non-comedogenic foundations is that they can be hellishly expensive. But they are worth the money, and is better than creating more skin problems for yourself. From experience, the best ones are the Nars All Day Luminous Foundation, or the Bare Minerals Undefined Original SPF Foundation (although the latter needs to be built up for better coverage.) If your acne is starting to drastically affect your confidence and, in turn, your mental health, it is probably time to go and see a doctor about it. They will be able to prescribe you creams and medicine that can help your acne a lot more than any drugstore products can. Some acne can be treated through the use of face washes and lifestyle changes, but others it’s a bit harder, and the acne is a bit deeper than the face washes can treat. Seeing a doctor would probably be the best option when your physical appearance is making you self conscious. I suffer with an acne that didn’t actually surface above my skin. All the pimples grow underneath the skin’s surface; some days are worse than others. It is soul destroying enough for me to see that my acne has grown, so I can’t even begin to imagine what those with visible acne feel like. Society has made us feel like this condition should be ‘hush hush,’ like we aren’t pretty, or we don’t fit in. But, each time I see a picture of a girl on Instagram with perfect skin, I have to remind myself that filters and photoshop are rife in our generation, and that acne affects a whole lot of the population. Acne doesn’t make me ugly. And it doesn’t make you ugly, either. Tasha
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Break ups. They are some of the worst experiences that we have to get through. Sometimes, we’re not even sure if we’re actually going to get through them. It feels as though we’re going to hurt forever. And you’re right, it will hurt. But not constantly.
Being the person who is being broken up with is difficult, especially if the split comes out of nowhere. People can often be left questioning what they did wrong, if anything, to make someone fall out of love with them. And you wonder how long your ex partner has been planning the break up for. It could have been an impulsive decision, or it could have been something they were thinking about for months. It’s the not knowing that drives you mad. People can break up with you for many reasons. Sometimes it’s to do with us, sometimes it’s to do with them. Whatever the reason, it hurts. It’s a different hurt compared to that of a betrayal of a friend, or the death of a loved one. It’s a hurt that is all consuming because of its unpredictability. One minute you’re in a happy relationship, thinking about how you’ve never felt like this with anyone else before. The next you’re coughing your lungs up in the middle of your bedroom floor wondering how your heart can still function when it’s shattered into small, red pieces right in front of you. And, in the moment, you don’t care for a reason. You just want it not to hurt, just for a second. You just want to feel numb. Whatever the reason is for a breakup, it should never make you question your worth. A lot of the time, relationships don’t last because the person has decided that something else can make them happier. This isn’t to say that everyone is going to do this to you. Not everyone will discard you eventually. Not everyone will get bored and chuck you away like a child discarding a toy. You will make someone so happy one day. There is someone out there who is waiting for a person exactly like you. It never seems like it in the moment, but one day you will meet someone, and it will be different. You will find yourself in another person. Nobody can really tell you exactly how to deal with a breakup. Much like a death, we all cope very differently, so you just have to do what you have to do. But there are a few things you can do to soften the blow for you: Firstly, do NOT decrease your level of self care. Don’t sit in your bed for days not eating and not sleeping. Cry by all means. Cry until you feel you can breathe again. But do not wrap yourself in that duvet and continue to stay there overthinking every single thing you did to make them unlove you. It won’t get them back. Get up, pop the kettle on, grab your favourite blanket, lay on the sofa and watch your favourite film. Watch it five times if you want to. Run a bath with loads of candles around you, and lots of bubbles in it. Relax. Close your eyes and pay attention to how the water feels, not your heart. Keep soldiering through every day. Keep breathing. It is enough. Secondly, decrease your social media usage. Being on their Facebook page, stalking every person on their friends list won’t solve anything. If you have to, unfollow them on the social medias you have them on. They will move on. They will post pictures of them with their new partner. It will feel as though someone has smacked a knife straight through the middle of you. It won’t feel like that forever. Sign out of Facebook and spend time with those who matter. Try and aid the moving on process by not dwelling on who they’re spending their time with. Thirdly, don’t be scared if you feel as though you aren’t getting better. Getting over something as big as a breakup can take a long time, and there will be days where you wish you didn’t have to go through this pain. And then, there will be days where you’re glad you did, because it has made you into who you are. Things do get better, often enough when we aren’t focusing on it. Distract yourself with work, school, anything that isn’t to do with them. One day, you’ll be sitting in your car and it will dawn on you that you are okay, and that you made it. Lastly, love yourself. Love yourself in a way that they couldn’t. Love yourself in a way that no-one else can. Self love is the most powerful thing in the whole world. The day you decide to take that first step is the day you will find freedom. Be your first and last love. And don’t let anyone break you the way they did again. Tasha When we’re children, a lot of our school lives is taken up with learning new things, and there is a sole focus on Maths and English. Therefore, a lot of our education involves us surrounded by books. That’s where my love of reading started, anyway.
When I was in Year R, we had a certain amount of books we had to read each week to hit our target and get our sticker on the chart. The amount we had to read was two books per week; I was reading at least five, because the original target wasn’t enough for me. If my family went out anywhere, I’d always have a book grasped in between my little hands. Words were the one thing that could always fascinate me. Everything changed when I got to college though. I’d pick up my phone more than I’d pick up a book in the first year, and in the second year I was hunched over revision cards for eight months. I couldn’t remember the last time I read a full book without answering a message off my phone or getting distracted. I’d lost passion for the one thing that I loved and the one thing that I was actually mildly good at. And this carried on into my first year of university. Reading bored me, especially the set reading that they had given us. In April, I finished my first year at uni, and I decided that I was going to make good use of my time. I’d go out and socialise, I’d spend time in different room in the house not just my bedroom, and, most of all, I was going to pick up a book again and I was going to try and gain back the love I once had for words. It can be hard rekindling a love for something that you haven’t done in a while, but it isn’t impossible. When I decided that I wanted to get back into reading, I made sure that nothing would distract me. I turned the notifications for certain apps off my phone, and, sometimes, I turned my phone off altogether. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t contactable at all so that I wasn’t going to be distracted. I also gave myself either a set time to read (for example, I’d set myself a target to read for half an hour) or I would set myself a chapter target (basically, if I was on Chapter One, then I’d set myself the target of reading until Chapter Three). In the end, I didn’t need the targets - I read to my heart's content without even thinking about time, or thinking about what chapter I needed to get to. It became natural again. And so it is with anything that you do. You set yourself targets, you make sure nothing distracts you, and you get back into doing what you love. It is possible to rekindle the love that you thought was lost. It is possible to transport back to the person you once were. But, equally, it’s okay if you can’t rekindle the passion that you had for something you once loved. It’s okay if you don’t love it anymore. It just means you’ve changed and grown as a person, and there’s no harm in that. If you don’t have a love for something that you used to do, move on. There’s no point wasting any more time with it if you don’t want to do it anymore. So, instead, find new things to love. Find an activity that interests you and put your everything into that. We don’t have to love the things we once did. Like anything, we either grow together with things we love, or we grow apart. There is no shame in either. Tasha As much as it’s important to talk about being the heartbreakee in a breakup, it is also important about being the heartbreaker. Sometimes we get wrapped up in a relationship that starts to make us unhappy, and we have to find a way to get out of it. It can be hard knowing that you’re going to be breaking someone’s heart, but you need to do what’s best for you. If you’re not happy, then you need to do something about it.
Nobody who is a decent person likes being the heartbreaker. Especially if you’ve fallen in love with someone else, and know that you are going to move on faster than the person you used to love. But sometimes, it needs to be done, especially if you are in a toxic relationship. If you’re unsure of how to actually break up with someone, here are a few pointers to help steer you in the right direction: Firstly, do not feel guilty about wanting to leave someone. Sometimes, our situations change and we end up not having as strong feelings for a person compared to when we first got with them. Worrying about their reaction is only normal, and it shows that you are a good person who doesn’t want to hurt them. But worrying about their reaction should not stop you from doing what is best for you. If ending the relationship is the best thing for you, then it is something that needs to be done, no matter how much it hurts at the time. Secondly, do not allow the person to manipulate you into staying with them. If they try to tell you that they’re going to harm themselves if you don’t stay with them, leave anyway. If they’re going to do something, they will, and that will never be your fault. Chances are they were going to do it at some point or another, and it was their decision to do so. You have no part in that decision. It will never be your fault. Sometimes, people will try and turn their behaviour on you too in an attempt to make your stay with them. They could say that they ‘knew this was coming’ because ‘you’ve been different recently.’ Or, they could say that they’ve been acting in a certain way lately as a reaction to how you’ve been. Do not listen to this. If you know full well that you have not been emotionally abusive or manipulative in the relationship, then what they’re saying to you is wrong. Stick to your guns, and go with your gut. Don’t let them manipulate you. Thirdly, don’t tell them that you love them. You may want to, you may still be in love with them, but you shouldn’t say this. It might give them hope that you will return to them one day when you haven’t found the same love for anyone else. You shouldn’t be giving them hope. If you want to leave, then leave. But you need to be sure that it’s the right thing that you’re doing. You need to be sure that you’re leaving them for good. Lastly, be tentative. Make sure that you break the news with the greatest care, especially if they were a good partner. If they haven’t done anything wrong, then don’t make them feel like they have. Just tell them that you need to focus on yourself and that you hope they find what they’re looking for. Don’t offer to be friends, because, in most cases, that doesn’t work out, especially if feelings are still present between you both. Part on the best terms you can. They may not like it, they may cry, and you will too, but it will get better. You will both heal again, and you have good memories with each other to look back on that will stay with you forever. Tasha Knowing what career path you want to go down can be hard to figure out when you’re only sixteen years of age. Firstly you’re a kid who doesn’t have a care in the world, and then, as if by magic, everyone’s asking you about what you want to do. People have, of course, asked you this prior to this moment. And you’ve said something either impossible, or horrifically generic. I know that when I was little, my career path changed ona daily; one day I wanted to be a vet, then I wanted to be a dancer, then a singer. These are only a couple of examples! But I didn’t have to worry whether they were possible or not, because I was young. Nobody was asking seriously. And then, by the time I left school, that’s all people seemed to be asking me, as if I had a clue about what I wanted to be. I still had no idea.
Obviously, it’s ideal to have a career path in mind as you edge closer to adulthood, as this makes it easier to decide whether you want to go to university or not. But, if you don’t know what you want, that’s okay. It is okay to not have a clue what you’re doing. You’re young, and you have time to figure it out. Figuring it out is the hardest part, but once that’s done, everything else becomes a little easier. The starting point for me was going to some career fayre’s at college. These seem lame, I know, but they are actually really helpful. There are dozens of people who come from loads of different areas to try and help you decide if their career is for you. You don’t have to commit to anything. You just show up and go to a couple of stalls that you’re interested in, let them give you leaflets and various other free things, and then you can sit on your own and look through them at your own pace. It’s also perfectly normal to want to switch careers in the middle of your pursuit for one of them. So if you wanted to be a teacher, but then half way through pursuing this career, you suddenly decide you want to become Tasha Sometimes life can be hard, and all you want is someone to talk to you and understand you. Few people realise that getting help is easier than you think, the helps out there because people want you to get it and become happier, don't let the opportunity slide.
When I was younger I went through things that I felt no one could understand or help me through, but people can be there and they can support you. Getting help is not hard, all it takes is courage. If you think something is really wrong there are so many sources of support such as a doctor/nurse, counselling, suicide helplines, medication, Samaritans etc. You may think no one wants to listen but they do, no one wants you to sit and suffer, you don't have to cry alone. You have to let yourself get better, and open up to others you trust that can help you find the right support which will keep you going during your life. If you try out counselling or medication or any of the options and it's not for you, move on to the next one! It can take people years until they're happy with who or what is there for them. You may find it difficult to open up to others about your problems, but it would hurt them more if you suffered in silence, you are not on this earth to be sad. You deserve to enjoy life so if you think you need help, get it. -Mei We think we are defined by what others think of us, but what makes you an amazing person is how you see yourself, not how the world sees you. You can't live your life by the approval of others, just express yourself, and find who you are alone.
I have many friends who identify as the opposite gender, and they seem to believe that they will only be a 'real' boy or girl if others refer to them with the right pronouns and respect them. But unfortunately you can't demand respect and acceptance, normally it must be earned. Even if you are the only one who uses the right pronouns for yourself and refers to yourself as the gender you wish to be, you can't give up on yourself. Not everyone will understand, but as long as you stay strong things will always be okay. Be who you want to be and never let anyone change that or try and tell you you're wrong. Even if you don't think you pass as a boy or girl and even if it feels like a constant battle, people will be here for you. But most importantly, you must be there for yourself when no one else will. Gender and sex are extremely different, you are not defined by what is under your clothes, always remember that. We live in a society where being transgender is accepted, don't be afraid, you are not alone. I can't give any true advice other than you can be whoever you chose to be. Never be afraid to express yourself and don't feel you have to be trapped in a body you hate. - Mei and hopeless. When I was around 16 I began to realise that I had feelings for one of my best friends. It messed me up- I think it's also worth mentioning that she was the first female I had liked and before her I had only ever liked guys. So this confused me a lot, I didn't know if I genuinely had a crush on her or if I was overthinking things and putting meaning where it didn't belong. Over the time that I had been friends with her, I'd gotten quite attached to her so I struggled to tell anyone else and was terrified of losing her as a friend because she meant a lot to me. I was infatuated with her. It seemed more exciting than normal crushes (I'm not sure whether this was because she was a girl or because she was one of my best friends). She was just really awesome and she'd been there for me through a lot and she was really clever and dorky and pretty and her sarcastic little comebacks amazed me. I knew it wouldn't work out although I hoped it would anyway. I want you to know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with liking your friend, and you should not feel wrong for doing so. You are entitled to have feelings for whoever you want.
Now if you like your friend, you kinda have 2 options to try to get over it with the intention of not ruining your friendship, or to go for it. It can be really difficult to get over someone you like especially if they are your friend but here are some tips to hopefully help you get over a friend:
If you are considering telling them then go for it. Yes, there is a chance that you'll lose your friendship but there's also a chance that the feelings are returned and that'd be really awesome. Although bare in mind this may not happen so try not to expect this if you do tell them. If you are good enough friends they wont let the feelings ruin your friendship because they care about you. Remember, dont feel guilty for feeling the way you do, it's not your fault and everything happens for a reason and if you want to tell then, be brave and believe in yourself, something amazing could come out of it -Mei xx One of my biggest fears is growing up. It's something that I get worked up over on a daily basis. I'm 17 but I'll be 18 in around 5 months, and I am terrified because I am not ready to be a functional adult. I'm terrified of university and eventually work and just want to stay as a five year old for ever :') As a person, I tend to live in the past which really isn't the best. I know a lot of people deal with this kind of a thing, I've developed ways to cope with feeling overwhelmed and nostalgic about growing up:
Mei xx Disclaimer: I am not in any way trying to bash people who conform to labels, if you’ve found a label that you feel describes you then that is great and I am really happy for you.
Why categorise yourself? Don’t get me wrong, if you want to label yourself there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, its super great. But I don’t think that anybody should feel pressured to conform to a label if they don’t want to. Feelings aren’t black and white, because it’s not comparable to anything, so I believe that it is 100% okay for somebody to not conform. If you don’t feel that you fit the definition of a label or know how you feel it is completely okay to say, ‘yeah, I just like people’ rather the spending time hung up on the fact that you may have to come out and trying to fit yourself into a category. You might identify as a female and have liked guys your whole life and one day like another female. AND THAT IS OKAY. You might not like another female after that AND THAT IS OKAY. You do not have to label yourself as anything if you don’t want to. You have the right to feel however you want and call yourself whatever you want and nobody has the right to tell you otherwise because you are your own person and get to label yourself as whatever you want. Don’t ever let people make you feel invalid for your feelings. A label puts you into a box which some people can find awesome but it may make others uncomfortable. If you’re comfortable with labelling yourself a sexuality and find one that fits you well, then that is great. But if not, you don’t have to spend your time stressing about it. There might be a certain body type, eye colour, or hair colour that we are exclusively attracted to. Yet we don’t label ourselves with those preferences, so why label ourselves with anything else like sexuality if you don’t feel comfortable with it. Ultimately you are going to like people that you like more for who they are rather than what they are, and that is what’s super great about feelings. You don’t need a social “name badge” to justify how you are feeling. Personally, I don’t like to conform to sexuality labels, I have liked mainly guys and I do think I’ll probably end up with a guy, however I’ve definitely had legitimate feelings for a girl before and I wouldn’t rule that out. However, I prefer not to label myself because ultimately it doesn’t really achieve anything in my mind because I already know exactly how I feel. I think the key is that I’m happy with the way I regard my sexuality, and you should be too. Call yourself whatever you’d like as long as it makes you happy and don’t hate on others for either not labelling themselves or choosing to label themselves because everybody is different. Mei :3x |
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