Orange peel skin texture after Retin A usage and way worse after DIY Microneedling

Five years ago, looking back, I had really nice skin. I had a little bit of hyper pigmentation/melasma. I've always had oily skin and so I've always had visible pores. I saw my dermatologist and he gave me Retin-A and hydroquinone to lighten up the sun spots. I read that Retin A is the number one thing for anti-aging and preserving collagen and so I thought I would get a lot of benefit from it.
I used it for a couple of months and then stopped and I did this about four times over 4 years...it seems that that over that time my skin texture became worse and not better. It did help with the dark spots, the fine lines were unchanged. But my skin texture was worse and the pores seemed a bit more open and my skin a bit more dry and flaky on top. Then I heard about micro needling and that it's a miracle treatment and so I decided to try that. I quit Retin A and I did six treatments over the course of three months (aug-oct 2020) based on the Youtuber Natural Kaos's tutorials. I did it t home other a Dr Pen, I used various serums:EGF, HA, Squaline
For the first couple of months after the microneedling treatment my skin looked pretty good and then all of a sudden around the end of last year I was trying to apply my foundation and I realized it was settling in to all my pores and I realize my skin looked a lot worse and that I now have orange peel texture.
Over the last six months I have been searching for answers, was it the microneedling that damaged my skin, was it the Retin-A usage or was it that I didn't use the Retin-A long enough in order for my skin to fully retinize for the pores to shrink. I don't know, all I know is I would do anything to get the good complexion that I once had ( and didn't appreciate) back.
I hav read on here and on Reddit About a skin condition called dehydrated skin where your moisture barrier gets damaged and gives you orange peel texture and that if you repair your moisture barrier this will go away I desperately hope that is true. I don't want people to look at me up close, I avoid looking in mirrors. It's just devastating to do something to try to improve your skin only for it to get much worse. Has anyone experienced this with either Retin-A or micro needling and did you find a way to fix it?

So I wanted micro needling for fine lines and expression lines, to " plump up my collagen", to
slow aging and perhaps smooth texture more.
After 6 treatments over the course of 3 months at a depth of 0.5-2.5 mm my skin looked great. 2 months after that, my pores just seemed to hang open and the texture of my skin looked drastically worse. I noticed one day because I was trying to apply my foundation as I normally did and it was settling into my pores. I was horrified and I started to try to figure out what had happened to my skin. I found out fommmy dermatologist after the fact that micro needling causes micro tears which creates micro scars and that scar tissue takes a few months to form and when it does form it shrinks to about 2/3's the size of normal skin and so perhaps it is just scar tissue surfacing now. Or maybe the microneedling actually did structural damage to my pores and sebum glands as my skin can no longer produce sebaceous filaments on my nose and my cheeks which I always used to have. It's crazy! And it's driving me crazy, I feel very self conscious about it bd I feel a lot of remorse and I wish I had not done the treatments. I would do anything to have my old skin back...Be very careful with microneedling and do your research if you have very sensitive skin it may not be a good idea!