Cassandra Bankson, Cystic Acne And Her Battle For Self-Love. 5 Lessons
I’m back! This blog is on a new hosting site but the same old CMooMuses, offering mental health and body liberation advice.
We’re going to continue on from my last blog about skincare as self care and discuss Cassandra Bankson. For those who don’t know, she is a model, former lifestyle influencers and now has a massive following on IG and YouTube, posting skincare and no makeup content.
The backbone of her struggle, and where her cause converges with ours, is that Cassandra Bankson has cystic acne.
Cystic Acne? You Mean Spots?
Yes, in the same way as saying, “Depressed? You mean a bit sad?” Cystic acne is the most severe form of acne possible.
Most people with acne get spots; cystic acne, as you may guess from the name, causes cysts. The definition from Lloyd’s Pharmacy’s online doctor site is
“Cystic acne is another term for severe acne that causes large, pus-filled, painful spots to develop on the skin. These spots are known as cysts, and they’re prone to bursting and causing permanent scarring.”
So I think we can all agree that must be pretty awful. It’s both painful and would affect any young person’s self-confidence.
Ok, But This Isn’t A Skincare Blog
No, it’s isn’t. The reason I’m writing about it, though, is that when I read through Cassandra Bankson’s experience, it spoke to me on a very deep and personal level.
She may have been talking about her skin, whereas my problem was my weight, but the feelings of self-loathing, believing myself to be ugly, suffering bullying, and so much more all mirrored my life and how I felt in the past.
Also, as I move my personal philosophy towards body liberation rather than body positivity, I’m trying to take my focus away from how I look.
True body liberation is loving yourself for everything you are, not for how you look. Physical appearance is a lesser consideration if it features at all.
Things That Touched Me In Cassandra Bankson’s Story
1. She built a shield around herself.
Hers was with concealer, and mine was with humour, but in both cases, the shield didn’t protect us. It isolated us and left us alone in a spiral of negative thoughts.
Cassandra says:
“When my skin was at its worst, I built up a shield around myself made of layers of concealer that pushed my friends and family away. I wanted to protect myself from the stares and judgments I got at school, at the grocery store, and even from my little brother. But that shield ended up being a wall of isolation.”
We’ve both used social media to tear down that wall and reach out to others. Admittedly her site is a fair bit bigger than mine, though!
2. Her cystic acne came to define her.
She became no more than the first thing people saw. I felt a pain in my heart as I read that. I relate so strongly to it!
For so many years, I saw myself as nothing but fat. Fat is all I was. I didn’t give a shit if I was intelligent, funny, kind, quick-witted, or had a pretty face. I was fat, and that negated everything else.
I believed until I could lose weight and look like I was meant to, nothing else I achieved mattered. My body was wrong, and I needed to fix it.
Cassandra says:
“And because it was the only thing that I saw when I looked in the mirror, it started to define me. I was not Cassandra, I was acne.”
3. She Felt The Need To Admit How She Was Feeling
For decades I suffered in silence about my weight. Trying one miserable diet after another, one gruelling workout after another. I told myself it was my fault every time it failed. I was useless, had no willpower and was going to be a fat cow forever!
I’d join all the chat groups of whatever new miracle diet I was trying, full of hope and confidence and then slink away when I failed. Too ashamed to admit I’d blown it again.
Eventually, as I discovered body positivity, I realised I needed a new group—one who both understood my pain and could help me move past it. A group that would encourage me to see myself as beautiful, worthy, and so much more than just fat.
Cassandra explained that she felt the need to show her skin as it was, even though it would jeopardise her modelling career. She posted a video but couldn’t bring herself to return to her channel for 4 months. When she did, she was moved to tears by what she read.
Cassandra Says:
“They told me that they were suffering with acne, too, and that my vulnerability gave them hope. One commenter told me that for the first time, she felt as if someone truly understood her struggle.”
4. She Was Part Of The “I’ll Love Myself When…” Club
I wasted so many years telling myself how happy I’d be and how much I’d love myself once I lost the weight. It makes me so sad that I believed that doing this would fix everything that was wrong in my life.
I’d have a boyfriend, have self-confidence, have friends, not be depressed, and so on. Eventually, I reached the point where I realised I had spent most of my life saying that. What if it never happened? Was I doomed to spend the rest of my life feeling like this??
I said enough is enough, and I got on board the body liberation and self-love train. I’ve had some wobbles since, but I can honestly say I’ve never looked back.
Cassandra realised that although she was preaching self-love and self-acceptance in her heart, she was still waiting til she was “cured” to be happy.
Cassandra Says:
“As honest and vulnerable as I was being about my skin online, I was holding myself back, hiding, and telling myself that I needed external beauty and clear skin in order to feel happy.”
5. She Made The Choice To Feel Beautiful
I did too. I started to consciously unlearn everything I had learned about beauty. I researched and found out how arbitrary and unrealistic the standards we hold ourselves to are.
Only 5% of women are capable of having the ideal body we’re “supposed” to have. Even photos of thin models are airbrushed to within an inch of their lives and are complete lies. The majority of women are not thin with hourglasses figures. We come in all sorts of glorious shapes and sizes.
I decided that I was beautiful, goddamn it, and no one was ever going to make me believe I wasn’t again!
Cassandra Says:
“One of the most frequent questions people ask me is, “Don’t you feel amazing now that you have clear skin?”
The truth is, I don’t. I learned to love my skin for exactly what it was years ago. I did work hard to clear it, but I have the same self-love that I decided to create that day in the mirror. To be honest, I’m happy I experienced it. Through acne, I learned to connect with others who are having the same struggle.
Connect With Cassandra Bankson
Now I know about Cassandra Bankson’s struggles and how they mirror mine, I have loved trawling her Instagram and YouTube channels. If you have any skin issues that you’re trying to resolve, I say definitely go check her out.
Even if you haven’t, though, I hope I’ve demonstrated how we feel about our skin and how we feel about being fat can be surprisingly similar, so it’s great for that reason too.
As a final point, I have learned a lot from my sister, and even if you have great skin, there’s a ton more to taking proper care of it than you might think. Look into it; it’ll blow your mind!
