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Separating My Self-Worth from My Disease

How one woman has learned to let herself shine through, despite her psoriasis.

A drawing of a woman holding a heart with flowers.

It was a hot June morning during my sophomore year of high school. I knew I would not survive the day in the clothes I had planned to wear. The temperature was already in the 80s, and we still had not heard the first bell for homeroom.

The time I always dreaded had come again. The time when I would have to wear clothes that exposed the psoriasis covering my legs and arms. When I walked down a high school hallway as a teenage girl, I heard a war in my head. It felt like I was walking with a spotlight on me. I kept thinking, “I just know they are staring at my spots. They are whispering about how gross I look.”

I imagined the conversations the kids at their lockers were having about my skin. As I started down the hallway to homeroom, a cold sweat quickly turned into a hot burning sensation as salty perspiration rolled into my lesions. My face turned as red as the patches on my knees when I saw people’s eyes. They sized up my appearance as they passed.

I was 4 years old when my psoriasis developed. I have very few memories of life before the lesions. We all know that kids can be cruel, and it got to the point that I was forced to stay back in second grade because of too many absences. Psoriasis had negatively disrupted my life at a very early age.

Incident after incident and time after time, my psoriasis would continue to hurt me. As I got older, I slowly and steadily sank deep into depression. I developed coping mechanisms – some good and some not-so-good.

Before confronting a new situation, for example, I would start to get “hyped up.” Sometimes it was meeting someone for the first time. Other times it was the annual unveiling of my skin to people in my life as the weather got warmer. I would come up with answers to questions that might be asked and comebacks to snide comments that I was sure would be made. I credit my sense of humor and comedic timing to growing up with this disease.

Revealing my psoriasis to new people or in new situations also made my anxiety worse. I could feel my depression swell at the thought of people judging me based on my skin. Life seemed very unfair.

When I was with my family, however, I always felt comfortable with my psoriasis. Home was the one place I could feel safe from judgment about my skin. I am sure I brought some of my physical and emotional challenges home, but for the most part, it was like my psoriasis did not exist. My siblings would ask questions about my psoriasis gently and sparingly. It was as if they saw me as me, not my disease. That was how I wanted to feel in the outside world too.

When I started systemic medication at 20 years old, I finally experienced that feeling of freedom everywhere I went. My psoriasis went from 80% to 90% body coverage with severe lesions to maybe 3% to 5% with mild lesions. That number might as well have been 0% because I began to experience life as a different person. It literally changed my life. I felt more confident because I had a sustained reprieve from worrying about my appearance and being vigilant. I could let down my guard and relax.

During these years of clear(er) skin, I have replaced my overwhelming anxiety and sadness with a quiet confidence. There are definitely still times when I have to endure one of those old situations with my psoriasis, but I feel better equipped to cope and to understand that a person’s reaction to my skin does not affect my worth. This new confidence comes from the realization that I am the same person with or without psoriasis. I can now show people the real me and that I am not just a person with psoriasis.   

Physically, I still struggle with psoriasis. Many treatments lose efficacy over time. Flare-ups still occur, but not at the level that they did in the past.

In many ways, though, the physical, social, and emotional difficulties I experienced during my formative years impacted my overall well-being by introducing me to anxiety and depression. Like most scars from youth, they have made a lasting imprint on my life.

With continued support from my family and health care professionals, I am able to reflect on and be grateful for the body I am in. On particularly bad days, I like to remind myself that at least I do not have to deal with my skin in the way that I used to.

A Tug of War

Melissa opens up about friendships, dating, and growing up with psoriasis.

Read Melissa's story

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