I'm hideous - look away!

I'm gonna be real for a minute. Okay, I'm always pretty real, but today I'm gonna be real in that, "Oh, wow, she's talking about that in public, but now that you mention it, I get that, too, so what's she saying?" way.

See, a few days ago, I felt this tender spot between my eyes - just to the side of my left eyebrow. I recognized the feeling. It was one of those deep, under-the-skin zits forming - the kind that feel giant and totally hurt and may or may not come to the surface enough for you to actually do anything about them. Instead of just a little white pimple on the surface, it's this little bomb that grows farther down, swelling out and creating a welt - a painful, tender welt.

You want to leave it alone. You know that messing with it won't help. But see, ONE time, somewhere along the line, you messed with one, and you DID accomplish something. You pushed and prodded and squeezed and actually managed to get the offending white stuff to push the surface - kapow! Immediately there was relief, and the blemish was gone like a day or two later. So now, even when you just keep making it worse, some part of your psyche says to press on (See what I did there? "Press" on? That was kind of accidental, but it's still a pun.). So you just keep harrassing it, creating a bigger and bigger problem, possibly scarring yourself and extending the time it's going to take for the blemish to heal.

Well, I tried to stop myself from making this zit worse, namely because it's in a spot on my face that can't be hidden by hair or something. It's RIGHT THERE between my eyes, by my eyebrow. Even if it were cold enough for a ski mask, I'm pretty sure you'd still be able to see it. And my co-workers would freak if I came to work in a ski mask. So, that's off the table.

So, yesterday on my lunch hour, I went to CVS and got some Clearasil (because that stuff really does work) and some antibacterial wipes. I had to wipe my makeup off so I could put the Clearasil on, and I read that most zits are caused by bacteria, so let's try and kill the bacteria, right? It seemed to help somewhat. But I gotta tell ya, even with a little bit of cosmetic improvement, I could still feel painful tenderness radiating down from this freakin Vesuvius into my nose and eye socket. Seriously!

So last night, I washed carefully, applied more Clearasil, and crossed my fingers. This morning I woke up, went to the mirror, focusing my sight with laser-like precision on the zit. Hmmm. Might be a little improvement - I'm not really sure. It's not any worse, so that's good. Touch around the permimeter. Still tender. Hmmm. I had hoped for more. sigh. (Pull gaze back a little bit to take in rest of face.) Oh my god. What the hell is wrong with my eye?

I have no idea what is going on, but the skin of my left eyelid has swollen up and sort of flopped over - not swollen like a balloon, but more like someone who was really fat and then lost weight and there's extra skin now. It's the inside corner, near where all the tenderness is. Fan-fucking-tastic. So now, not only do I have the zit still marring the landscape. Now my left eye looks like I'm mongoloid or something. What. The. Hell?

The only time I've ever had this kind of swelling in my eyelids was when I was having an allergic reaction to something. I don't know if I'm reacting to the Clearasil or to something in the air, and it's just coincidence that it's happening just as I'm fighting Mount Fuji on my face, or what, but *something* is going on, and Mama ain't happy.

So, I didn't put any Clearasil or anything else on the affected area this morning - just washed my face and left it be. I didn't even use any foundation when I put on my makeup this morning or use any concealer on the zit. I'm just leaving it the hell alone. I did put on eye makeup - I had to at least try and camouflage the eye swelling. The makeup helped, and I know my eye isn't allergic to any of that stuff since I use it everyday, so I'm not worried about that. But it is still swollen and freaky.

If anyone knows of a voodoo chant or witch's spell I can use to clear all of this up, it would be much appreciated. Without some kind of divine intervention, I could be positively deformed by the end of the weekend.