Having any health condition can be damaging to your mental health, but psoriasis can be particularly upsetting. While many diseases show few visible signs, psoriasis is not so respectful of your privacy, meaning that you can endure rude comments, rejection, and discrimination by those who don’t understand the condition. According to Anne Krolikowski, executive director of a national medical specialty association, ‘If psoriasis didn’t manifest itself through the skin, it would be a different situation. Because our society puts emphasis on beauty, it’s difficult. In public situations, people sometimes blurt out things they regret.’ So how do you prevent these things from happening, and guard your mental health against the negativity of psoriasis?
1. Control Your Reaction: Victoria Gardner Nye, who was diagnosed with psoriasis in 1990 at the age of 17, recalls, ‘People talked; they said I had AIDS. They called me a leper and backed away. I cried because I didn’t know how to deal with it. Now I just let them move away from me. It’s their choice.’ As Rebecca Ross, PhD, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at OregonHealth & ScienceUniversity in Portland, points out, ‘You can’t control other people’s behaviour, but you can control your own reaction to them. Insensitive behaviour reflects the other person’s mood and temperament, not who you are as a person. And try to remember that people are fallible. Most of us have unintentionally made insensitive comments and have regretted it terribly.’
2. Seek Out Support: Ross notes, ‘Sometimes we need to seek validation from friends, family, support groups, or a counsellor to decrease the effects of the behaviour of uninformed people.’ A friend she met in college helped Gardner Nye to laugh off people’s comments. ‘I credit him with my sense of humour about my disease,’ she comments. ‘Someone can make fun of me and I can laugh it off, but other days, if someone does the same thing, I’ll cry. I definitely take it day by day.’
3. Covering Up: Krolikowski, who was diagnosed with psoriasis at the age of four, reveals, ‘I live for the warm weather and I can’t imagine wearing long sleeves and jeans in the summer. This is just my personal experience, but if you are self-conscious and go to great lengths to cover it up, people are going to notice. Sometimes you’re better off just dressing like everyone else. But it definitely depends on how severe your psoriasis is and what you’re comfortable with.’ Despite having had psoriasis for 20 years, Rob Traister, who runs an online support group, still covers up in certain situations. ‘When I meet a client for the first time, I wear a long-sleeve shirt and pants because I don’t want to distract them from the work at hand,’ he details. ‘While you hope people won’t be biased, they sometimes are.’
4. Educating Others:Gardner Nye argues, ‘Sometimes you just know when someone is willing to listen. When people are staring at me, sometimes I just say that I have psoriasis. If they want to engage in a conversation about that, great. But I’m not going to force them.’ Ross advises, ‘Be direct and say, “I’ve noticed that you are looking at these psoriasis patches on my arms. If you’re interested, I can tell you more about them.” This gives the person the option to learn about psoriasis, yet saves the person with the condition from explaining it to those who aren’t interested.’ However, Kolikowski keeps it simple by saying, ‘It’s psoriasis, a noncontagious skin disease.’
5. Dealing with Discrimination: Allan F. Chino, PhD, a psychologist in private practice with Functional Pain Solutions and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at OregonHealth & ScienceUniversity in Portland, asserts, ‘Any conscientious employer has to address [workplace discrimination. It’s in the employer’s best interest to listen to the employee’s complaints and rectify them, since that will create a healthier workplace for everyone. And if he doesn’t, he could be sued.’
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