I think there’s a lot of pressure on appearance in my family there’s a lot of pressure for general perfection which means often I wouldn’t really, you know, I might, you know, mention how I wasn’t feeling great about my skin particularly when it was like everyone was going to a party I’d like, you know, when I was like younger I’d tell my mum that I was feeling bad. But she was actually the one I think, I know she didn’t mean it she was always trying to look out for me- at first made me aware that my skin was really bad because she, it was obvious to me that she was concerned about it and she was trying to take me to doctors to get resolved but I guess also that was because she could see the effect that it was having on me and like my you know just at school and, you know, social life and stuff like that and I think, so I guess she was probably even more aware than me how it was affecting me.

How long after noticing that you were getting spots did you talk to somebody about it?

I don’t know. Probably quite quickly because it was kind of like I wasn’t really self-conscious in the way where I wouldn’t talk to my family about it, because I’d, I’d seen like my brothers get it. And some of them had it at that point because they were still like, when I was 12 they, one of them would have been like 16, 17, still having them. So it wasn’t like a subject where I was afraid to talk to people because I was embarrassed. So I was quite confident, I was just, not confident but I was just kind of like, Oh, I’m starting to get it And then like my siblings were kind of not teasing but like, you know, Oh, Tom’s growing up that sort of thing. So they, everyone sort of noticed it. So it was quite an easy thing to talk to people about. So probably quite quickly. I don’t know exactly.

I spoke to like most people in my family because all, most of my brothers and sisters have had it. And they would tell me what they thought that you should do. Friends would say what they’ve done. And then my mum and dad would tell me what they thought I should do as well. Cos I think we saw the doctors as like not necessarily like the thing we should do first, because we figured we should try all the other stuff first. So yeah.

Did you find their advice helpful?

Yeah, it was all right, it was good, it was good. It was like, just stuff like make sure you use hot water when you wash, not hot, hot but like, you know, like slightly warm water. Put, make sure you don’t use certain types of moisturiser that aren’t actually gonna, like that are gonna include stuff that isn’t as helpful. Use like just simple moisturisers. Use like actual, don’t, like [sister’s name] kept telling me to avoid the sort of branded stuff. Because that tended to be a lot more like not as effective because they want you to keep buying it sort of thing. Kinda, I don’t know if that’s true but, yeah, that’s sort of the advice. So it was all helpful because it kind of made me decide what I wanted to do and how I wanted to go about getting rid of it.

Mostly my mum, I think. She was quite encouraging and quite positive about it, yeah. And my friends did make positive comments about the fact that acne, for example, when my acne had gone down by a lot when I was a teenager, lots of people said, Oh, your face is so much better now. And that was actually really nice. Yeah.

Yeah. What kind of comments would your mum make to sort of be positive?

She would, she would just keep reminding me about the creams, cos I’m quite a forgetful person. And it’s really easy to forget taking something if you take it every day, like it’s quite ironic but like you kind of forget whether you’ve done it or not. So, yeah, that was really helpful.

So, when you first went to the GP did you go with anybody, like a family member or?

Yeah I think I went with my Mum. Like, I think I might have gone with my Mum and sister; my sister waited outside and I went in with my Mum yeah. Like I think she’s come to all my doctor’s appointments ever yeah.

So she’s been quite involved?

Yeah, I think it’s really good to have like family members involved with appointments because they can keep track of things and they can ask like questions to the doctor like, “She’s been on this for ages; what’s going to happen?” whereas I might not have felt the confidence to be able to do that so, yeah it was quite good support.

And, I often took my Dad to these and he’d like also like say, “Yes there’s been an improvement,” or, “No there’s not,” cos obviously he’s been able to observe me for a longer time. It would just sort of like collect all our three views on the situation and then think of where to go from there yeh.

Well I mean cos my mum was kind of the one sort of dealing with it as it were when I was younger but yeah we never really talked about it and I think, you know, maybe that’s just part of our relationship and the fact that, you know we, we don’t really talk about stuff like that and for her like it was just the kind of thing that every so often she’d be like, It’s still not any better is it, let’s go again. and yeah so I never felt like I really opened up to her about how much it was affecting me.

Would you tend to go to appointments with the GP and the dermatologist just on your own or would you take a family member or friend?

Well when I think, yeah so initially I went with my mum when I was like really young and then and yeah she came with me to the dermatologist like the first time round and then the second time round, she came for the first appointment and then was like, Oh, well you don’t need me, and I was like a bit upset about that because I felt like I did, but never mind. and then this time in [university city], my boyfriend came with me and he’s a medical student so that was just kind of reassuring as well because you know, he was there but.

And what about family members?

Yeah, I mean, like mum, I suppose my mum was the main person I spoke to about it. And she was like, Yeah, it’s, it’s a good idea just to go on it. See how you find it, if you get depressed, or if like, if you need to talk to anyone, just give me a call and we can like, see how your feeling and then you can just come off it if you feel like you’re deteriorating or, or something like that.

Do you think there was any sort of impact on your parents or other family members of sort of having acne in terms of?

No. Maybe, I mean, maybe my mum, obviously my mum had to see me go through it. And she might feel sort of a little bit bad for me when like it flared up and she’d be like, Oh, it’s looking quite bad today. Like she wouldn’t shy away from saying, it looks bad, like she’d tell me, Yeah, it’s looking bad, what have you been doing to try and prevent it? So, I mean, she felt sort of, maybe a little bit, sort of sad for me at some times, but, you know, she knew I was sort of I’m quite a like, I don’t know, an emotionally strong person. It’s not I’m going to sort of cry about it or anything like that, I just get on with it.