A Confession

A few days ago I renewed my membership to Vitiligo Support International. Maybe there was a bit of the cynic in my intro to this blog regarding medical treatment of vitiligo. There's heat in my veins when I think about it, I admit. On ther other hand, some of the research and the sincere attempts to help I respect very much. Highest in my esteem are site members, non-professionals, mostly women, who are an immense comfort and resource of valuable information. Year after year they welcome frightened newcomers, offer encouragement, a sense of belonging.
Now the confession. I have never suffered from having vitiligo. It started when I was fourteen, the age a girl looks at herself critically in the mirror and not just to wash sleep out of her eyes. The mysterious white spots didn't bother me nearly as much as my bowed legs and thin hair. I am caucasian, grew up in a northern hemisphere, didn't tan much anyway, which helped.

A few years later I was living on a beach in southern Spain. It was the exciting sixties, and the world-wide hippie movement had begun. Under the Mediterranean sun I tanned a dark-chocolate brown. The white patches around my eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth were big and startling. Plus, my lower lip got so burned it grew a thick crust that cracked and bled whenever I accidentally smiled or laughed.
I had a boyfriend and was on the adventure of life, free at last, off to continue my education at the "University of the World." The sudden, dramatic appearance of vitiligo wasn't powerful enough to dampen my high spirits. I do remember saying to God in a firm tone: "Put it where You want, but NOT on my face!" The following summer the vit was back... and not in my face. I'm still musing over that one.

The vitiligo came and went, summers and winters, the rest of my life. I did get it again on my face, but smaller and milder. It stayed about the same on hands, feet, elbows, knees. All the misery that seems to affect so many with vit was my misery too, but not because of my skin. I felt fine, pretty, even in summer. At thirty, I studied modeling and did runway and photographic modeling. Sometimes I covered with make-up, sometimes not.
One day a handsome artist said, "Vous avez de belles mains-- c'est comme dela dentelle." (You have beautiful hands, like lace.) I began to pay more attention to my vit, to agree with the sensitive artist that my lacy hands were indeed beautiful! It made me feel exotic, and different as in unique.
But mostly people don't even notice. I've had old friends ask, "What do you have on your hands?" The same thing I've had for the past ten years you've known me, I say. And they say, "No way! I would have noticed." But in fact most don't. I do believe it's largely because I don't.

I'm not taking credit for not feeling bad about having vitiligo, it was not my doing. I've had to deal with the same feelings that come with vit --shame, shyness, feeling unworthy, ugly, insecure, lonely, scared; comparing myself to others and coming up short. Or going the opposite direction -- getting on my high-horse and wounding others with my false superiority and pride.

My personal hell was not vitiligo, it was unrequieted love.