My Mother and My Teenage Years With Psoriasis

As I started the journey of my life as a teenage girl, I noticed my life to be a bit different from ordinary people around me. In my childhood, I have always been crazy about trying to grow my hair long, but my mother forced me to keep it at a short length.

Noticing differences in my scalp

As the years passed by, I noticed that my scalp was not healthy like my classmates. Sometimes it was depressing for me as I couldn’t get my hair perm or get it to straighten.

My hair always felt dry and frizzy despite all the hair products that I used. I remember being so mad at 13 because I didn’t have long smooth hair. My mother tells me clearly about my chronic condition that prevents me from doing certain things to my hair.

My mother's fight against my psoriasis

My mother brought me up with great care and love. At this stage of my life, she told me clearly that she tried her best to control this disease on my body, but it’s not curable and there was nothing she could do. She had made up her mind to fight my psoriasis.

I was told that I couldn’t use the fancy shampoos and conditioners that smelled so good. I must go for medically-approved products that smelled bad to control those dry flakey patches on my head.

My mother always stood by my side to support me to fight psoriasis, and now I’m old enough to realize why I need to have short hair. I still hear her to this day trying to get doctors to understand that I didn’t have psoriasis because of bad hygiene, eating habits, or something that I touch.

Back in the day, the doctors hadn’t figure out that some factors of psoriasis were associated with the genetics and our immune systems, but I bet you my mother knew. She always said that it was something on the inside of my body.

Lonely and seeking support from others

She was always taking me to the library to do research. This was long before social media and I never met one person with it. I felt alone and my mother knew this.

She would find people who just had bad skin to tell me how they were feeling. I didn’t understand at the time what she was doing, but I get it now. She just wanted me to meet one person who was like me.

Worsening psoriasis with extreme weather conditions

Psoriasis is an incurable long-term inflammatory skin condition. During my journey of having this disease, I realized that this skin condition got worse with extreme weather conditions.

Psoriasis affected my self-esteem and quality of life negatively; again, my mother was there to helped me to though come all this.

She helped me to maintain specific lifestyle changes to avoid diabetes, high blood pressure, and other inflammatory diseases.

As a person with psoriasis, we always have the threat of these fatal diseases. She always looked at things differently.

As I loved to have long hair, my mother knew I couldn’t because this would increase my scalp problems. I had to make a shorter length of my style.

Accepting psoriasis and how to control it

There are many people around the world in a constant battle with skin diseases. I give acceptance to this part of myself by realizing when you can`t cure this disease, and you can try and control it some.

My mom told me to be proud of who I was; if people don’t want to look at your skin, that’s on them. She cried a million tears with me, but she never let me feel sorry for myself.

My mother passed when I was 19; she was 37. I used to feel that she spent her whole taking care of me with my psoriasis that she didn’t have time to take care of herself. Of course; after much therapy, I realized this was not true.

Appreciating what my mother taught me about myself and psoriasis

I am now strong enough to stand in front of the world to say that, yes! I did survive my psoriasis for 56 years and I have lived a better life for having it.

My skin to this day cannot take the different beauty products that we have, so I live my life by avoiding them. As my mother used to say, you have to be true to yourself.