My Biggest Secret.

A lot of people that know me probably don't know this about me. I have psoriasis. I'm tired of feeling ashamed for that since I have no control over it. It's one of my biggest secrets but it's ironic since it's not something I can really hide.

For those of you who don't know what psoriasis is, it's a chronic auto immune disease. Psoriasis is when your body overproduces new skin cells. They build up in patches all over the skin and that is what you see. It's a lifelong disease with no known cure and I was diagnosed with it when I was 11. So I've lived with this for 9 years. I really don't publicly tell people about it. Even a lot of my best friends and people who have known me my whole life have never gotten my whole story about it. Honestly, at this point in my life, I can't even remember not having it. 

It's caused some of my greatest insecurities and it's probably the one thing I've cried about the most in life. One of the worst years in my entire life was in middle school. I know a lot of people had their worst year in middle school, but mine was pretty terrible. A lot of people remember one particular year where I wore a hat everyday to school. This wasn't because I thought I was cool or anything remotely close to that. It was because that my psoriasis had gotten so bad that year on my scalp I literally had a decently sized bald spot from it. I was too embarrassed to go to school like that and obviously I couldn't just not go to school. So I had to get special permission from my principal to wear it. People jokingly would sometimes take my hat off, but they had no idea the real reason I was wearing it. It was terrifying and everyday I was scared that people would see what I really looked like without the hat and not want to be friends with me anymore.

If you've met me (which if you're reading this, I hope you have), you've most likely seen my psoriasis on my arms and legs. There are months where it's been barely noticeable and then months where it's very obvious. I can have breakouts of it depending on stress, different environments, etc. I've tried pretty much every type of medication since I was 11. Some have worked for at least a short time, but most all of them have had no affect. I've had creams, sprays, lotions, UV light therapy, and so much more. Since there is no cure, I'll have this the rest of my life and it will never truly go away. 

Luckily, the few people I have told have been amazing. They understand and they don't judge me based on how I look. You'd be surprised that more often than not, people judge me when they see it. If I got a penny every time I caught someone staring at it on me, I know I'd be rich. They might get grossed out and it's really hard to deal with. I can't change the fact that I have it. There are a lot of things I hate about having it, especially the fact that I can't even try and donate bone marrow to anyone, namely my own dad, because leukemia is an auto-immune disease and so is psoriasis. 

But while having psoriasis is the hardest thing in my life, it's actually made me a better person. It's taken me 9 years to understand that. My larger than life personality is actually to compensate for my lack of normal appearance. It's also helped me to never judge a person by their looks because I hate when people do that to me. 

Now this was really hard for me to write. Why did I decide to randomly do it then? I'm not sure. It might be that I've just been getting fed up with myself and with the judging looks from others. It might be something else entirely. I just know that I've been too ashamed of this for too long and I'm tired of it. So there you go. One of my biggest secrets, all spelled out for you. I didn't write this blog post for pity. There are definitely worst things to have in life. I just wanted people to understand me better and I know a lot of people have noticed it.

So last but not least, I want to give a little shout out to all of my amazing friends. You might never have heard my story about all this, but you still treated me the same anyway. That's the only reason I became so loud and crazy. This definitely made me more closed off when I was younger and I never thought I'd be how I am today. It's those friends who treated me the same as everyone else that are some of the best people I have ever met. :)

Thanks for reading! And thanks for all the love over the years <3