Self-Acceptance With Psoriasis

If there is something that has become evidently clear to me in the last weeks it is how hard self-acceptance is. I am part of many online communities that support psoriasis and the people who have it.

There are social groups, there are advice groups. Whatever you are looking for you will find it. On one of them, we recently had a selfie day, where everyone was encouraged to share a selfie. There were people from all walks of life, colors, shapes everyone was different.

The insecurity that comes with psoriasis

Psoriasis is the one thing that we have in common. The photos were wonderful. Seeing all the faces behind the names was just lovely. It was lovely to see how many people had incredible confidence.

However, it was also so sad for me to see how many people were putting themselves down. Comparing themselves to others in the group or other people. I cannot help but wonder where society went wrong with this. How and why did teach ourselves to do this?

So much more than our condition

Surely showing kindness to ourselves would get us further? I sat back and listened with my eyes as I read through the comments. Seeing how hard everyone was being on themselves.

We need to stop that, we need to be kinder to ourselves. More importantly, we need to embrace our differences rather than use them to separate us from each other. If we were meant to be like each other, we would have all come out a dull grey cookie cutter shape human. We are so much more than that.

Speak kindly to yourself

One day when I was having a grumble about something, my best friend said to me "Clair, what would you say to me if you heard me speaking this way about myself?"

You know this made me tearful and quiet, she was right. Never in a million years would I accept her saying something like this about herself. Why did I think it was okay to speak this way about and to myself?

How to find self-acceptance

Its starts with being kinder to yourself. This does not mean boosting your ego and becoming self-centered and vain. It rather means that you should learn to love yourself even when you are not exactly 100% where you want to be.

We are always growing, learning, and becoming more ourselves this journey never ends. Be kinder to yourself along the way, do not berate yourself.  Always remember that your spirit and your mind and heart, hear the things you say, even if they are not said out loud.

Have you found ways to overcome the insecurity of living with psoriasis? Do you have a story where it seemingly all made sense?