Eye of the beholder...

This is a post I've been debating in my mind for a few weeks now. Those who know me know that I suffer from psoriasis. It's a skin condition that I've had now for something like 10 years. For a lot of people (at least here in the UK), it's something they've only heard of through a TV show called The Singing Detective. While my case is nowhere near as severe as what's shown there, it is something that affects how others see me, and so it affects how I see myself. I won't go into depth about what it is or what causes it. Partly that's because there's a lot of resources that give details about it out on the 'net. Partly it's because it's not relevant to this post....

Instead, this post is to give a point of view of a sufferer of psoriasis. For the most part, it's something I don't think about on a normal day. It just means I have to spend 15 minutes on top of what most people have in the morning treating the areas where I get the psoriasis. Those are the good days. Then, there's the bad days. For example, there are the days where I have to get up early (4:30am ish) because I'm flying somewhere for work. On days like that, the psoriasis starts to get dry and itchy after about 10 hours (particularly after being on a plane where they de-humidify the air) so I'm trying to hide the scratch reflex and red, dry areas from customers. Even worse are the times where I'm going out on a date. I dread that moment where I meet the woman, and I can see in her eyes that moment, not of revulsion,, more of pity. You can almost see the wall being built behind the eyes, blocking you off from a potential relationship, purely because of how you look.

I know this looks like a straight-on whine, and to a certain extent it's true. But then, psoriasis is something that creates this reservation in the sufferer and in the eyes of others, separating those who suffer from it from the rest of society. It's based on the old adage that the first impression counts, and sufferers unfortunately can only ever make a poor impression, given the visual impact that psoriasis makes. Am I angry about that? Yes, at times. Do I feel it's unfair, most definitely. Still, I've found that true friends, (those who understand and accept you for who you are and what you look like) are more common that I would've thought. That makes things so much better...

As an aside, we had such lovely April weather here in the south of the UK over Easter. I'll try to post a link to the photos I took of my parent's village, once I work out how to do that!