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lnconclusive · 4 years

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how I’ve been feeling

23/10/2020

Why hello - welcome to my sad place. As you may have guessed given the fact I’ve resurrected my use of tumblr (often synonymous with sad, moody angst), I’ve not been feeling That Good recently. It really be like that sometime.

Firstly, I want to apologise if I’ve been a little distant or been ridiculously bad at replying over the last wee while. It’s not malicious or intentional, I’ve just had a lot on my mind. You might not even have noticed since I tend to pretend Everything is Fine! a bit too often. I do this a lot: if I pretend everything is normal, I’d kinda feel that way too, right? If only lmao.

Second, I’m warning you in advance that this post is long, dramatic and self-indulgent. Though, I’m not sorry for being dramatic. My mental health hasn’t been great and in all honesty, it has been a pretty dramatic and turbulent couple of weeks for me. My mood has plummeted, my focus absolutely shot and I’ve cried more in the last few weeks than I probably have in the last 5 years. Being dramatic is probably the best way for me to actually address how I’m feeling head-on, rather than suppress my feelings as I always do.

Anyway - what’s up? Basically: my skin is fucked right now. (Also, this is going to be very long so I’ve added some subheadings for signposting haha.)

History w eczema

I’ve never had an easy relationship with my skin. As most of you probably know, I have eczema. Those who know me from primary and intermediate especially know that back in the day, I had Very Bad Eczema. But in reality - I had VERY very bad eczema, which has scarred me for life in a number of ways. Again I kinda wish I was just being dramatic, but thinking back to my childhood and realising that I used every single birthday wish I’ve ever had wishing for ‘normal’ skin, makes me realise that my eczema really did have a debilitating effect on both my mental and physical health.

As a kid, my eczema was very difficult. It wasn’t just the tiny bits of eczema on your hand or elbow like most kids had, it was whole body eczema which was hell. I could barely sleep most night because I would scratch the entire night and wake up (from a few disrupted hours of sleep) bleeding and stuck to the sheets. For anyone that has travelled with me or shared a bed with me, you know I scratch subconsciously in my sleep - I often laugh it off, but imagine how bad it must have been for scratching to have become ingrained in my brain, even when I’m at my deepest stage of sleep.

Anyway, as a kid I looked hideous, and mentally I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from that. Being a flaky, scab covered girl was hard - if I myself thought I was hideous, what did everyone else think of me when they had to look at my face? My arms? My legs? I often say to people that we can trace a lot of our personality traits back to our childhood - and for me, most of my most negative personality traits link directly to the mental scars of eczema. Deep insecurity about how I look, constant worry about what people think about me and what people are saying about me, and an obsession with trying to ‘prove’ myself all stem from my eczema. And unfortunately, these traits have stuck around and get triggered the worst whenever my skin gets bad.

But miraculously, my eczema subsided a bit in high school and uni. It was amazing; my confidence and acceptance of myself was finally turning! I finally felt normal. I am immensely grateful that I got to experience these last few years with very manageable levels of eczema. Even though I bristled and felt extremely uncomfortable anytime someone would mention my skin (especially if I was having a slight flare-up), it was really nothing compared to what I had gone through when I was younger - when my entire self-image was essentially defined by eczema.

However, my eczema never really went away (despite my birthday wishes). I was told by the countless doctors and dermatologists that “eczema fades away when you hit your teenage years, don’t worry!” And for the last few years, I’ve clung to that, telling myself that I had finally gotten out of that cycle. Only, that wasn’t really the case.

Sept 2020: topical steroid withdrawal

I won’t delve into the specifics too much now, but essentially I’ve been prescribed topical steroid creams to deal with eczema for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was young, I’ve been on and off topical steroid creams which was my best friend - it would always incredibly clear up my most stubborn spots of eczema, and finally I’d feel a bit of relief. In high school, I started using gentle steroid creams on my face to combat my (incredibly) high levels of insecurity. And so my entire life has just revolved around using steroid creams; to make me feel better, normal, and not hideous.

But the issue is: you’re really not supposed to be on steroids forever. It should clear a particularly tricky spot of eczema up, and then you shouldn’t need it anymore. Yet, I’ve been on steroids (on and off) essentially since I was 8. Whoops.

And so my skin (and my mental health to some extent) has become both reliant and addicted to steroid creams in a bid to keep my eczema at bay, to just look normal. There is a whole (but very scary) area of the internet on this very thing - its called Topical Steroid Withdrawal, and is basically where people who have misused and become dependent on steroids. If you try to stop using steroids, you have to deal with a horrifying recovery process where your body has to essentially relearn how to do all the things the steroids did. When I found out about this ‘addiction' to steroids when googling during a relatively bad flare up last year, everything clicked. I knew without a doubt that this is me - that I was dependent and addicted to steroids, and if I ever stopped, my skin couldn’t function on its own. But I couldn’t come to terms with it, and just forged on with my steroid use and ignored all the red flags - until a few weeks ago, when I decided that for my long term health, I wanted to finally cut off using steroids, for good.

But: Topical Steroid Withdrawal is not easy. In fact, it is very very hard. If you google it, there are countless horrifying stories and images. It’s a process that can last for years for people, and turns their life upside down. I don’t wanna go into it too much, but it really is, truly very scary. And I’m just starting the process now - yikes. But there is some good news: most people who successfully stop using steroids eventually return their skin to a state where its ‘normal’, without any use of steroids. This is what I am desperately hoping for, and working towards.

I’m only about a few weeks in but my skin is Not Doing Well. My face is a dry, flaking mess (since that’s where I’ve concentrated my use of steroids over the last few years), which burns anytime I put any moisture on it. I’ve not been able to sleep because I keep scratching myself raw at night. Parts of my skin is quite frankly disgusting rn, and I hate it. And mentally, I can’t stop thinking about worse case scenarios (what if my skin doesn’t get better, what if I’m like this forever, what if my entire body breaks down) while all my insecurities flare up again, but worse. Honestly, I’ve been finding it really hard dragging myself out of bed; firstly bc my skin hurts so bad its more comfortable not to move lmao, but also because I’m so self conscious and sad I don’t want to do anything sometimes.

It’s a very very uncertain and long term process, and my mind has been a jumbled mess over the last while. I’m scared of the next few months, scared that I won’t be able to start my job normally, and scared of the recovery process. But thankfully, I’m not doing as bad as I could be. Other people’s stories and photos are a thousand times worse than mine, and I thank my lucky stars (if I have any) that my recovery is milder than it could be so far.

Going forward

It’s hard because I know that I’m my own worst enemy at the moment. I know without a doubt all of my beautiful friends would support and love me, even if I looked like a monster YET my brain can’t really compute that. I hate my skin so much at the moment, I’m so angry I have to go through this and so self conscious about each and every flake on my skin, that I keep dragging myself down.

BUT: I’ve been working on it. I’ve taken these last few weeks to really reflect and (try) to accept whats going on, because frankly - what other choice do I have? Mentally, I’ve been getting stronger and I’m finding things to focus on other than my skin; aka uni, which can be ignored no longer. I’m finally talking to people about this whole thing rather than bottling it up which has helped enormously too. I’m feeling a lot more optimistic now than i was a few weeks ago - and I’m very very proud of myself for it.

It’s still gonna be Rough! though. Physically I’m exhausted and mentally I have to remember to be nicer to myself. I have to deal with patches of skin which oozes and bleeds, and force myself to sleep even though my mind is so active I haven’t slept before 3 or 4am in a long time. BUT again, I’m working on it.

With Victoria probably opening up again soon, I’m in two minds about the whole thing. On one hand I have fiercely missed all of you SO much and want to see and hug all of you so so much; on the other hand, I’m so self-conscious that I kind of want to hide forever. I think I’m going to take my time, slowly open up myself to real people again, and not put any pressure on myself. I’m sorry in advance if I don’t see you for a while - I promise when I’m feeling better I’ll be back and as annoying as ever!

OKAY I think that is probably enough wallowing (but very cathartic wallowing though) for today. I wanna reassure everyone that I’m doing !!okay!! despite how dramatic I’ve sounded above; I’m doing better now, and I’m determined to be a Bad Bitch and get over this whole thing as best I can. Writing this has been very therapeutic, and I honestly think I’m hitting a turning point towards acceptance which I am so grateful to finally reach. I’ve also (spoiler alert) cut myself some full bangs lol - pls pretend to like them next time I see you either virtually or in person (they’re not fantastically cut given I chopped them last night with Julie’s scissors from like high school, but it was a very therapeutic process lmao with the added benefit that it covers up my flaking, dry forehead too).

ANYWAY I love y’all, and I’ll see you on the flip side (soon hopefully).

Love, Michelle

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