Beauty Beyond the Spots

We all know how daunting it is to tell someone about your psoriasis for the first time. It is scary. I was recently in a situation that was a first for me. Reintroducing my skin to someone. Yeah, you heard me right. I am going open a page into my personal life for this one but I think it important for people to read. Many moons ago I was with the love of my life when I was diagnosed with psoriasis. It was hard and at the time it was not handled as it should have been, not by either of us.

Lay down the past

Being diagnosed is scary, truly and then to add that to the already complicated thing that is a relationship. Well, let’s just say it does not always work out the way we think it should. I expected my partner to react and behave in a certain way, and when he didn’t I got resentful. Hindsight is always 20/20 and at the time it made sense, in truth sometimes we need to step away from a situation to see it for what it was or is. I did not even know how to handle it then, so I am not sure how I expected him to handle it. The short of the long is that we ended up breaking up anyway, not due to my skin. Although it was a contributing factor.

Reconnecting online

Fast forward 10 years we kept in touch over the years. Seemingly when someone is meant to be in your life they stick around. And as we established our friendship again we would speak about things, as one does. My skin was one of them. Now he lives in Queensland Australia and for those of you who do not know, I live in Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a fair bit of distance between the two of us. Now talking online and sharing about your skin is one thing. But doing it face to face again when there is a history, that was a whole new can of worms for me.

Reuniting and starting fresh

A few weeks ago we were reunited after 8 years. He was bringing me some medicine for my skin that I could not source here and I knew he wanted to help me. It is currently winter and my skin is not in a good space at all. I was so nervous, even though I knew he was not bothered my skin anymore, one cannot but help to allow the doubtful thoughts to creep in. Let me tell you all something, It was amazing it took one moment and one gentle touch for every single doubt to fall from my heart. Sometimes people do not always know what to do or how to react or help us with our skin. And over the years I have realized that it is okay. It is okay for them to not understand and sometimes we just got to give them some time to come around.

That first touch, I knew he saw past it all, his caring nature came through in more ways than I could ever have dreamed of. Not only is he thoughtful and kind about it, he still thinks I am beautiful with all my gazillion little red dots all over my body. Sometimes we just have to give people a little bit of space to figure this out.

No matter what you think or feel at the moment, the right person for you will not make you feel inferior or judged for your skin. They will see the beauty beyond the spots and love you either which way.