The drama queen I wear as skin

"Jeez, what happened to your face?"

Yes, people would walk up to you to ask this. And yes, the question is as rattling as ever each time, as it brings all your insecurities rushing back full force. Usually, some shady routine is suggested for the ghastly incident on your face that ranges from acne to heat rash or some stubborn strain of Tinea vesicolor stunting on you. 

There's a classic disgust they wear on their faces while commiserating with you. It's usually at the edge of my tongue to say "It really doesn't hurt, unless you poke that way" but I keep it in every time.

 So since I was a little kid, I've always had one skin problem or the other; my brother still hisses his frustration whenever I mention something else that went wrong with my face again. My mom said I was about  four years old when the first break-out happened. It gave me the worst picture memory I'll ever have, sitting there, trying to look pretty but with a body of red beat goo crawling over. Let's just say the cycle of different breakouts began. If it wasn't something on my face, it'd be on my neck or just heat rash all over. 

At some point in secondary school, it was my head. My mom scrapped that one with Tiger razor blade till it bled and I was convinced I was going bald at that spot.

I learnt to do something about it early enough; in primary school, I mixed so many medicated hair creams and dusting powders together, thinking I was making a magic mix(blame the manufacturers for being very convincing with their label). I rubbed the magic mix all over my self, savouring the peppery feel and believing I'd be Snow White by morning. Of course, I  made it all worse, and got sad for weeks when some kid called my forearms "iyama"; a very polite way of saying "Ewwwww, did you fall in a septic tank?" 

The unlimited supply of medicated soap came handy, and me seeing the consequence in form of an irritated skin, within 72 hours when I couldn't afford to keep buying in school at any given time, or when I just felt like not killing off 99.9% germs like Dettol promises. 

Of course, it got better. Less irritating offers because "You should take care of your face more". Uurrggghhh, I know, it's my face that doesn't care about my pocket and craves Fenty skin products.

Anyway, this should be some sort of testimony about what miracle happened, or an appraisal of what the universe taught me. Although I've learnt that cheap make up products isn't for me and until I can afford Rihanna's make-up kit, I should avoid foundation and roadside brown powders. 

Some super doctor at the university health centre helped, being the first person to give me the right magic mix. My skin still sucks. Less so. I still get told "Hey, your face looks like shit". Less so, too. I just wanted to write about my ugly over reactive skin because of the recent drama it started on my neck, which happens to be a perfect conversation starter.

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