Appearance vs. Reality

I've been pretty fortunate; most people don't make comments on my psoriasis. But they don't have to. I catch them staring. I can see their eyes rolling back in their heads as they try to resist asking the question on everyone's minds: "What is THAT?"

I never knew how vain I was until two years ago, when psoriasis exploded all over my body and left me looking like I'd been outside playing in acid rain. Of course, my mother could tell you that I've always been vain and that I inherited the vanity gene from her. But I digress.

Psoriasis is in many ways a social disease - it affects the way you interact with people. It's harder to approach a stranger and strike up a conversation when you're wondering if they're staring at the new lesion on your cheek. Of course, it's right where a dimple would be if you had dimples, so you smile and hope they'll be fooled into thinking it's a dimple, or - even better - just a big zit. This stuff actually goes through your mind in the seconds before you open your mouth to say hi.

The visitors at Flake HQ have contributed a whole list of things that have been said to them about psoriasis. Some are sad, others are funny. Every time I read through this page, I realize that maybe a friend was right last week when he said people are afraid to talk to me sometimes, because none of those things have ever been said to me!

The most interesting thing that was ever said to me about my psoriasis was when I returned to work after a week-long illness and a co-worker commented that I must be feeling better, because my skin looked better. That's polite, compared to what could be said about the angry red gash that runs along my hairline.

In a lot of ways, having psoriasis has tamed me.

I have been forced to slow down and take care of myself - psoriasis is nothing if not time-consuming.

Psoriasis has taught me the importance of appearance vs. reality (something my 11th-grade English teacher could never get me to understand). If something looks bad, it's usually not as bad as I make it out to be. If it is as bad as it looks, I can still find ways to deal with it.

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