How to love your skin…

It often seems impossible to even ‘like’ your skin when you have eczema, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, rosacea or any other skin condition. And let’s not even get stared on what Topical Steroid Withdrawal can do to your skin.

However, learning to love my skin and to love yourself despite what it looks and feels like has been a game changer.

Yes it can be very difficult at times. When it feels like you have literally aged 20 years in the space of a year, it’s hard to find the positive in that.

When you lay in bed itching and scratching and every day is built around managing your skin, not enjoying live to the fullest like normal people do, it can make you feel despondent and hopeless.

I still have a long way to go, but I had to change the way I saw my skin in order to heal from TSW. It has been a HUGE life lesson.

When I realised during some counselling a while ago that I actually hated myself. And not just that, I was disgusted with my skin, with my face, with everything. It was a big turning point.

Picture the scene.

Therapist: ‘Ruth, can you say out loud, I love you Ruth. To yourself.‘

Me: ‘Err, No. Why would I do that? I’m not saying that out loud’

Therapist: ‘I’m just asking you to say those four words.‘

Me: ‘I’d feel silly saying it out loud… ‘

Therapist: ‘Can you say them in your head, just to yourself?’

I’m now looking down, not maintaining any eye contact. There are tears in my eyes. I can’t look at her. I can’t process these emotions. I can’t say I love you Ruth, I can’t. And it dawns on me that the reason I can’t say this is because the opposite is true. I hated myself. I didn’t even really like myself much if I’m being honest.

And I never did say it out loud in that session. I just wept. For a long time. And we spoke about the voice I use to talk to myself. About the negative things I say inside my head. Because my inner critic back then was a complete and utter bitch to me. Way worse than any bully and I’ve experienced the nasty rotten side of school and workplace bullying myself. No one else has ever been as mean to me as I was being to myself.

I realised that I could find deep depths of empathy for others. I could and did speak to others with kindness and am able to empathise and talk to people quite easily. I can feel their pain, almost too much sometimes. People seem to find me easy to talk to and have learnt that the best thing to do is just to listen. Being heard, seen and accepted can help way more than advice, which may not be welcomed or helpful. Often I I have nothing to say, so I just listen.

I wasn’t doing either of these things for myself.

I wasn’t listening to my soul, to my skin or to myself. My skin had been crying out for help and I just kept on tearing at it and treating it with disgust. I was rough with my skin, I ripped it without any attempt to moderate this behaviour. If I applied emollient I was rough and kind rubbed it on aggressively. I scratched when I was itchy, every time. I just didn’t care.

It took me a very long time to be able to look in the mirror and say ‘I love you Ruth’, and to really mean it. But I have made huge progress. I do love myself now and I’m really proud of what I’ve done, how far I’ve come and the bravery and courage I’ve found inside.

But it’s not easy. I had to fake it. You know the saying, Fake it till you make it! Or with TSW, Flake till you make it! It kind of works, but it really is a challenge. The first time I did this I cried, and the second, and the third. But over time I was able to stand tall, shoulders back, and look myself in the eyes any say, out loud, ‘I Bloody love you!’

It took me months and I would say it and inside be thinking… no you don’t. But some days I did, and other days I felt more warmly towards that part of me that cared and wanted enough to try this.

If you can’t love yourself you can’t expect anyone else to love you back! Another hard life lesson.

And you can’t heal if you hate your skin. It’s so true. And possibly one of the most important lessons to learn. You need to find a way to love yourself and your skin as if it were the most precious gift.

I know eczema is horrible and TSW is nasty, but we are not horrible and nasty. We are not our eczema and TSW.

What you look like is such a small part of who you are.

Sadly, as a nation, we are so hung up on appearance. We judge people on how they look, how they dress, how they speak, we all do it. The media, portraying air brushed stick thin women and muscled, perfectly groomed men are definitely not helping.

I started listening to podcasts and researching skin positivity. I found The Calmer You Podcast from @chloebrotheridge which is really good and also Discovered the book “I love me” by David R Hamilton @davidrhamiltonphd He explores the science of self love. and it’s so very simple, some of things he recommends. Like simply just standing up tall, putting your shoulders back and training yourself to do this as you stand, walk, move around in the day. It’s actually remarkable how much that helps.

I would say that now, 18 months into Topical Steroid Withdrawal, my skin is more like the eczema I grew up with and less like TSW. I now have less nerve pain, I can sleep and my skin is less oozy, crusty and flaky. Being able to sleep has made a huge difference as so much healing, regeneration and mental recharging happens at night.

I now have itchy, red sore skin on the backs of my knees and inside crease of my elbows, where I had it as a child! It’s still healing on my hands and my face. But on the whole I’m really healed. My skin is way better than it has ever been for a very long time and I am putting nothing on my skin except emollients.

So I’ll leave you with this. I love me. I do. I love you Roo 😘💓
Do you love you?

It takes time, rest, self care, self love, the support of my friends and family and whole lot of emollient!

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