I wish I could share with you each of the emails that I receive from people with vitiligo, just so you could see that others feel the same way that you do at times about having patchy skin. I can’t though because sometimes a soul is bared through the writings and unless the emailer asks me to publish it, I will not.
Come on…just give me a hint.
I can, however, share the gist of many of the messages: sometimes the writer is just too self-conscious or embarrassed about having vitiligo that they don’t do many things that they want to do or need to accomplish, to have a fulfilling life.
For those of us who have a light complexion, living with vitiligo may be a little bit easier than those who have a dark complexion. That may sound like a “duh” statement, but the truth is that ones self-image/ self-esteem has a lot to do with how one will deal with anything that makes them physically different from the majority of people. So it goes without saying that someone with dark skin and a positive self-image may be totally comfortable with having vitiligo; whereas, a light-skinned person with vitiligo and low-self esteem, may not fare as well.
Why does having vitiligo bother me so much?
Social conditioning and personal experiences are large factors of our negative perception of having vitiligo. Have you ever seen someone with vitiligo on a magazine cover, a t.v. show, or in a movie? I don’t recall that I have. Frankly, anything that differs from the norm can make you feel atypical in either a positive or negative manner.
If one chooses to dye their hair with purple streaks, they feel good because it is an expression of their individuality. When someone puts tattoos all over their body, they too are expressing themselves. The only difference in our ‘vitiligo’ individuality and a tattoo, is that we didn’t choose this form which makes us stand out.
But do we really stand out in a negative way?
Most days before leaving my house I make sure to put on makeup to cover the vitiligo on my forehead and hands. But, there are days…many of them…that I just can’t be bothered. Oh, I’m still self-conscious about it while I am out, but I’m just not that worried about it, and that is a good thing.
For instance, Saturday I went to Borders to relax with a coffee and read a few gossip magazines. Once I had my fill of reading which celebrities are in rehab and who is dating who (or is that ‘whom’), I went to peruse the books. While standing in the psychology section, I struck up a conversation with the woman next to me. We had a delightful time talking about synchronicities in life and what they might mean. In the end we exchanged email addresses and I gave her the web addresses to my 2 websites: vitiligocover.com and sculptmagazine.com.
She emailed me later that afternoon saying that she enjoyed our conversation. She also told me that she had visited my websites and wondered if I had vitiligo because she didn’t notice it on me. Imagine my surprise; I had not bothered with putting on makeup before venturing out that morning so why didn’t she notice the vitiligo?
I will keep repeating this until it is in our collective psyche
She didn’t consciously notice my vitiligo because she was focused on our conversation which resulted from both of our personalities. When speaking with her, I was not ‘Nathalie, the girl with vitiligo’, I was just me; a confident woman who loves to talk and to make people laugh.
This is the message I send back to anyone who emails telling me that they are unhappy living a self-imposed exile because of their vitiligo:
You are a beautiful person, inside and out. Let your personality shine and your vitiligo will either go unnoticed or it will be seen as beauty marks by those near you. That is not an empty promise…it’s the truth.
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