Time for a Change

How often have you heard someone who is suffering from psoriasis saying, I wish people would just not treat me like an outcast. Do people not know that psoriasis is not contagious? Why am I being ostracized and treated as an outsider?

Also to that same person, I am so sick and tired of people approaching me about my skin and asking me questions. People are always giving me these silly ideas of what to try for my skin as if they do think I have already tried everything. What are they thinking about approaching someone like me? It is not just dry skin, I wish people would understand and learn more about our condition. I am sure you can relate, but do you see what is happening?

We want people to understand, help and accept us as we are. Yet we can be unapproachable and often times rude. We don’t want to talk about our condition. This doesn’t really make sense, does it?

The unwanted commentary on psoriasis

Now I know all too well how it feels to have people look, whisper and just be downright mean. I have been approached by strangers and children with questions and concerns asking if what I have is contagious. A lot of effort went into switching my mindset about this, despite how much things have changed, there are so many people who have not even heard of psoriasis. So how would they know anything about it? Let alone, if it is contagious or not.

You see I know that when my skin is at its worst, it can look pretty scary. Oddly enough, I have become okay with that. So I changed how I deal with these people, I could get myself all riled up and be pretty curt about it all and I chose to change that.

Advice for receiving advice about psoriasis

So now the thing is, how can we handle this without being rude? Honestly, I find that being patient and kind is the way to deal with this. Be it strangers or people I know, people who have walked this path with me or people who I have just met, I listen to the suggestions and I allow them to voice their questions and concerns.

It truly does me NO harm to listen to their suggestions and respond gently with gratitude, more importantly, I am actually grateful. I am grateful that they took the time to look up something, that they put effort into calling someone they know. Finding out what they used that helped them and then relaying this to me. This really shows me how people care.

Do kids know about psoriasis?

Children are raw and unfiltered. They say what they think and this can often come across as rude. My daughter has dealt with a lot of people telling her my skin is gross, dirty and sick. She is only five, and it breaks my heart that she sees that people can be so mean. It has upset her more times than I care to count. This often leaves her small self defending her mom to her peers and I never wanted that for her. We found a way to cope though.

She'll tell me who the child is and then in the next few days, I will make a point of approaching them and asking if they are curious about my skin. Sometimes they even want to touch it, which often met with an "ewww", "gross" or just simply "no thanks". You guys, I used to take this personally, it is not meant to be that way. It is just how they feel at that moment. Honestly, I often feel that way about my own skin.

The golden rule: saying thank you

All in all, my thoughts on this are that the people who are trying to help should be given a little more credit. Despite having heard this a hundred times, just say thank you.