Tonight while shopping I saw a woman with vitiligo standing about 3 feet away from me. There was a man on her other side and I noticed that she caught a glance from him and immediately looked downwards while sliding her vitiligo covered hand into her coat pocket. (Does this sound familiar to you?)
I so wanted to lean over and tell her that he had smiled at her; that he wasn’t gawking at her vitiligo. But I knew all to well why she had done what she did. Immediately I felt a connection to her; like we were both members of some secret society, and I wanted to reach out to her and talk about our vitiligo. It’s not often that we come across someone else who truly understands the emotional issues attached to living with these damned white patches on our body.
Oddly enough, I was afraid to approach her. I didn’t want to seem intrusive, and I certainly didn’t want to make her feel like her vitiligo was obvious. So, in the end I walked away. And even 20 minutes later, as I stood in line to pay, I felt a pull to go find her and talk, but dismissed it
Now as sit comfortably at home I regret my choice, but I know if faced with the situation again I would have the same reaction. The problem is that I don’t want to offend the other person by pointing out that I noticed their vitiligo.
Tell me, would you be offended, or put off, if someone with vitiligo approached you to talk about it?
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