From womenshealthmag.com
After learning they were both living with the skin disease, blogger Sabrina Skiles set out on a mission: empowering others with chronic conditions to practice self-love
I was a junior in high school when I suddenly noticed I had developed these red, raised patches on my elbows. They felt very different from the rest of my skin, and I had no idea what was going on, so I showed them to my mom. Her casual response surprised me. She simply told me that it was psoriasis, a skin disease that causes an itchy rash, and that she has it, too.
Her calmness assuaged any thoughts of being scared or nervous. She made me an appointment with a dermatologist who confirmed the diagnosis: I had psoriasis.
My mom had never mentioned psoriasis before, but as I learned more about the disease, I realized the signs had been there all along. She rubbed her elbows sometimes because they itched from the disorder, and she would scratch her head more than most people because she also suffered from scalp psoriasis.
I also learned that this was a chronic disease, something that wasn't ever going to go away.
Being diagnosed with a chronic health condition when you’re 15 can be a lot to process. Thankfully, my mom guided and supported me throughout my journey. I started having conversations with her about what it meant to live with psoriasis and how she coped with flares. I was also curious to know why we had never talked about this before. Her answer was simple: It had never really come up.
My mom made it all seem so normal. (Although she did share at one point that she secretly hoped her children would never develop this skin disease.) And she didn’t equate her appearance with her worth. However, I was still a teenager, and like other teens, the main concerns were how people would perceive my skin and what other kids would say. During one flare, my body was 90 percent covered in red, scaly plaques. But I felt like if psoriasis didn’t bother my mom, why should it bother me?
I eventually got to a point where I just didn’t care. I spoke to people about my psoriasis when I caught them looking at my rashes or when they asked, but I was very casual about it, like my mom, and I felt confident talking about what I was going through, thanks to her conversations with me.
I’m 37 now, and a blogger, and my mom is the reason I’m so big on body positivity and health advocacy. Her attitude toward her psoriasis has impacted so much of how I look at beauty. It helped me focus on learning more about my condition and what I could do about it rather than dwelling on how it would negatively impact my life. I’ve learned there are ways you can manage it— including little tricks to cope, like choosing certain fabrics that won’t irritate my skin and keeping a travel-size lotion on me at all times to soothe my skin whenever flares happen.
My mom passed away nine years ago, and I now have two young kids. I’m passing on her philosophy of beauty, using my psoriasis as a teaching opportunity. I tell my children how important it is to know that having a condition like this doesn’t define who you are or how beautiful you feel—and I have my mom to thank for that.
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