This is an abbreviated story of a young girl who learned what it means to truly love herself by letting go of a traumatic past so she can step into her bright future, and heal from her chronic cystic acne.

This is my personal healing story.  I agreed to share it on an acne-clearing blog, known as TheLoveVitamin in which I am a mentor through the Skincare Bootcamp Academy Forum.

If any segment of my story personally resonates with you, or if you would like more insight regarding my story please share with me via the comments section or personally via email.  My hope is that it becomes a healing catalyst for those who are in need.

It wasn’t long ago that I was lost in life and severely depressed, unable to acknowledge that I had issues that needed healing.

I was so heavy hearted and walking in the dark, that I couldn’t notice the light shining directly in front of me.

If you are experiencing any emotional pain while suffering from cystic, inflamed acne, let my story be a beacon of light for you to find your own path of healing.

My Acne Story From the Beginning

I was a typical teenage acne patient. Without the diagnosis, thankfully. Who knows how much more damage my skin would have endured had I been taken to the dermatologist in my teenage years.

However, I did purchase every skincare kit that I could buy. With absolutely no guidance, nothing seemed to help my acne as promised so I kept buying and applying.

Surely something would help clear it up, I thought.

By my late teens I was diagnosed with severe depression and shunted through endless therapy sessions, cycling through oral medication after medication.

Pair that with cystic, inflamed acne mostly to my cheeks and severe stomach inflammation and I was a mess.  I hated myself and my life but I didn’t know it.

All I knew was that I was at once mildly then turned severely depressed, from the psychiatrist diagnoses, and I had no idea the effect all of these medications had on my body, all of my stomach issues, and my skin.  The diagnosis scared me inside.  I was alone and scared.

I was too far depressed and immature to realize that this was an emotional and bodily issue … I didn’t realize a mind body connection existed, and perhaps was always present.

Getting Diagnosed with Rosacea; Piling on The Dermatologist’s Creams

While I was in college studying psychology my acne became so aggressive I didn’t want to leave the house or attend classes or work.

I quit school and my current job and I enrolled in skincare school for the makeup courses. I thought I could at least learn how to cover it properly if I was going to be stuck with it.

My self esteem was at an all time low… I could barely hold my head up during the interview for it.

At the age of 22, I was also diagnosed with mild rosacea by the dermatologists I began working for while in esthetics school, as well as immediately after obtaining my esthetics licensure.

It was considered a job perk to receive so many expensive high end prescription creams and oral antibiotics for free, so I piled them on and ignorantly popped the pills.

Plus, my skin was already so damaged and inflamed that I had to wear thick makeup to cover scars in order to feel professional enough to counsel and treat other patients on their skincare needs.

Not surprisingly, my skin had taken a turn for the worst.

My skin hated these creams, but I was told it was normal to have peeling, flaking, more redness and even increased cystic acne.

So I kept piling the creams and the scar-covering makeup on, but little did I know these things were damaging my skin with every application.

I later went on to become a medical assistant on top of being a medical esthetician.  I performed deep chemical peels and laser resurfacing while perfecting ideal product and treatment sales pitches.

I also began lecturing to large crowds on behalf of the doctors on skin cancer prevention and general dermatology practices.

SOMETHING CHANGED….

While researching for and preparing for these monthly lectures, something inside changed and I began to question what I had been taught.

The medical grade concepts and high end ingredients shoved at me for high price selling purposes were no longer making sense.  I had several red flag moments. I just had a hunch something was amiss.  The more I researched, the more I learned the truth about the skincare industry. I couldn’t go on in the position I was in, teaching what I now consider to be skin damaging, non-benefitting lies.

One day, with the birth of my baby girl, I immediately left the medical industry never to return.  It took several hard years, but I was determined to start my own practice and start teaching the truth about the commercialized skincare industry!  I began community educating on all of the fallacies.

I followed my instincts with my new business, and it lead me to become trained in custom blended skincare, natural skincare ingredients, organic product formulation, herbalism, aromatherapy, Ayurveda, oncology esthetics, lymphatic drainage and healing energy therapy.  This is my formula for my successful healing skincare clinic.

How Energy Healing Was A Major Key to Healing My Cystic Acne

Meditation had been a part of my life since I was nine, when I was introduced to it in mother-daughter therapy sessions as a child. It was always there for me when I sought it, on and off.

In my early adult life, I was introduced to Reiki. I wasn’t even twenty years old!  But I was too depressed and in a dark place to dive into it.  It is telling how the Universe will keep giving you clues toward healing if you are open to them.  I was not open and had to endure over a decade more of traumatic pain before Reiki found me again several years ago.  This time I was ready.  I had several healing sessions from it over a three year period and I could notice positive shifts in my mental and emotional state which flowed over into my mothering and my being a wife, exuding positive results and change with the way I interacted with both loves of my life.

It was during these Reiki sessions that I learned that despite all of the intensive counseling – domestic violence/sexual assault therapy I had undergone, my healing journey had just begun.

I began to realize that I needed to heal all of the trapped negative energy inside me so that my body can learn balance for the first time in my life.  And it did just that.

It was during immediately following these Reiki sessions that my cystic acne and stomach pains and fatigue began to fade away.  Slowly at first, then much more noticeably as I kept doing the work.  I had to look very deep inside and this was not easy.  It can be incredibly painful stirring up and bringing forth locked up emotions from any type of traumatic event or upbringing.

The trauma for me was three-fold.

As early as the age of four, I underwent sexual abuse, emotional abuse and physical abuse in an extremely violent household.  I witnessed for the duration of my childhood more acts of abuse and violence than I care to recall.

My earliest memory I held onto was when I was four and it is one of my saddest memories, and since this age I began harboring negativity, shame, guilt and self-hatred, anger and sadness.

As a little girl up until my late teens, I was always afraid of what the day ahead would present me with.  I just didn’t know what to expect when I arrived home. I constantly lived in fear.  With all of the energy healing work, I recently decided that all these things encompass one word:  negativity.

It was all I have ever known and its darkness found a home in my body, my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, my heart, my actions, my Life.

It took me over 30 years to realize that these feelings that had become me were the lie.  They were not part of my true self, but a lies I had been believing my entire life.  They were not meant to remain a part of my life plan or what the Universe had intended for me.  They were meant for me to experience them and then heal from them.

The nearly two decades of breakouts were a way of my body trying to show me that something wasn’t right inside of myself emotionally.

As I began to walk the healing energy path of freeing myself of negativity and listening to and respecting the inner wisdom of my body, my cystic acne began to disappear, followed immediately by my acne scars.

These scars were more than damaged skin structure.  They harnessed a lifetime of shame, guilt, regret, depression, self-loathing, anger, sadness, fear.

As I learned to be in control of my new life and began to love my self and my body for the sacred, pure creation that it is, the past began to fade away.  It was the most challenging and rewarding path I have ever walked.

Now I am free and dedicate myself to guide others through their emotional healing. I have stopped the generational abuse and negativity cycle in my own family and in my personal life and now I have become a healer myself.

It is beyond my wildest dreams that someone ‘like me’ could guide others to healing their own trapped negativity and emotions but my skincare clinic is becoming so much more than a healing skincare clinic.

It is life healing clinic.

And what a gift that I now get to guide people to find their own healing story!  I was recently told that the when the hurt become healed, they become the healer.  This is beyond accurate when I perform Reiki Facials for my clients.

Healing and Moving Forward

We all have our story to tell.  What emotions are you allowing your body to hold onto for so long?  Are you ready to let them go?  It was a conscious difficult effort to declare closing the doors to my past.  Before I could close them I had to walk through them but one last time.  If I would’ve known what was on the other side, I may not have waited until my thirties to allow my healing journey to begin.  The other side is a new magnificent life I could’ve only dreamed of.  Free from any past pain and negativity.

Thinking back and smiling on my life, everything was a stepping stone to bring me to where I am today.  I am so excited for this positive future to keep unveiling itself to me through new people that I meet and opportunities that come my way.

Currently, my skin is the healthiest it has ever been…  even with the stress of a business, a second child (arriving any day now!) and a severe lack of sleep.  My spirit is the happiest and lightest it has ever been.  It is incredibly freeing.

By releasing all of the trapped negativity my body was able to relearn how to operate functionally and healthily. It now can quickly clear itself of any imbalances, this mainly consisting of former digestive issues and skincare (rosacea and acne) related conditions.

While it is an ongoing personal process, I was finally ready and open for the changes that energy healing could bring into my life.

There were moments where I began healing emotionally, but still tried to hold onto the past.  That didn’t work.  It only led to more pain, which I had become addicted to.  Nothing entirely caused a positive shift in my life until I closed those doors and continued to move forward.

I now continue to move forward and embrace a life that is full of: promise, peace, contentment, joy, love, passion, excitement and healing.  I now have the gift of being the energy and skin healer as I offer guidance to those who are meant to walk a similar path as mine.

Melissa Armstrong is the founder of Cleanse In Truth Skincare Clinic located in Schaumburg, Illinois.

She offers skin care education classes, custom made organic skin care blends, and in-person and online consultations through her website.

She is also an official mentor through Naturally Clear Skin Academy program.