Summer Remission is Late

Every year for the last 10 years, I have gone into remission in the summer without fail. There is a pattern, and I am accustomed to it.

Winter is hell, then spring comes and I still suffer, summer arrives a few weeks later. Usually by the fourth week into summer, my skin is clearing rapidly and my joint pain is less. 

Last week I passed the mark of when I am normally feeling much better. Lo and behold, I am not feeling better. My skin is busy clearing, maybe 40% remains. My pain levels however are almost worse than what they were in winter. I am flabbergasted, to say the least.

Struggling with lack of remission

I am so accustomed to things being as they always are, that I am struggling with this. I am truly a creature of habit. So what do I do know, I was not prepared for this.

Firstly I am trying to figure out why. Why my skin decided that this year is the year that things will be different. The thought is that maybe the seasons are shifting down here, maybe my full remission is still coming.

Those 4 months of the year have been my sanity for so long. I am not even sure if it will make a difference knowing why, but maybe in my mind it will.

A stressful year

It has been a year. WOW. When I sit back and think about it, my little girl and I have made it through some pretty hairy moments. Giving credit where it is due, maybe the emotional stress I have been through is still shedding itself from my system.

My dad's passing is still constant grief, nothing like I have been through before. So maybe that is why this delay is happening.

It is enough to make one think about the effect of emotional trauma on your physical being. It drains you to your core, leaving you gasping for air at any chance you get.

Focusing on self-care

So going forward, there is going to be some more of this self-care going down in my home. Maybe time to slow it down a bit and focus on taking care of this vessel that is carrying my soul. She needs it.

Long walks on the beach (cliché I know) and breathing fresh air, burying her feet in the soil. Long soaks in a bath of Epsom salts to help my skin shed all the extra scales that we truly do not need. Reconnecting with everything and taking time to say, you are okay, you deserve this break. It is okay to need to look after yourself.

Trying to find ways to acheive remission

Hope springs eternal. The one thing I very stubbornly refuse to let go of. Some days it is easier than others to keep holding on.

Refusing to let go of hope is something that has served me well in my life. Remission will come, better late than never. It will be okay, maybe not today, but it will be. The hunt to find something that works for me and my psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis is still on.

"I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains." - Anne Frank