Re: My anxious head
- From: real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell)
- Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2008 12:04:28 +0000
<maelstrom21@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I find it difficult enough coping with fairly low-level depression and
anxiety so I really hate it when, like today, things are more acute.
I have a bit of the skin complaint psoriasis, fairly mild as psoriasis
goes but one of the areas it tends to crop up on is the scalp. It's
been flaring up there for the past week or two and not only has it
been driving me nuts with the itching but it's been causing me a lot
of stress.
Hmm.
All I've known about psoriasis is `it gets worse with stress and there's
stuff you can use to make it less bad'.
When my hair was thick, I didn't worry about the scalp psoriasis too
much - it only meant a bit of dandruff would be visible to people.
Umm. When it's bad, people think `Oh lordy his scalp's dropping off in
chunks, must be psoriasis'. It's worse than `just a bit of dandruff' in
many cases, a /lot/ worse.
I once shared a student house with someone who suffered from it badly.
It was quite funny - any time life got stressful for him, we all knew
immediately because his face and scalp started to fall off in chunks.
On the other hand *his* job involved sitting in an office running
computer networks.
Now that my hair is much thinner and receeded I worry about people
being able to see the red, scabby patches that are the psoriasis
plaques themselves.
I can think of three things that could be done:
1) Use the various gloops to limit the symptoms.
2) Reduce the stress if your life.
3) Wear a hat.
Number 3 is easiest - although it won't help cover anything not on top
of your head.
Worse still, my job involves contact with a lot
of people. I dont think I can cope with comments, questions and
stares about the state of my head on times when I get such a flare up
as I have recently.
The trick with this sort of thing is to prepare a standard spiel and use
it. If you do that (and you can do it in just the right way), it gets
easier to cope the more repeated comments you have to deal with, not
harder.
I worry about when exactly that time will come
and could it be here already? Perhaps people have noticed but are too
polite or unsure to say anything?
Maybe I will have to change my job to something that involves dealing
with less people. But I really like my job. There's a good bunch of
people there and it's a really understanding organisation with respect
to sick leave etc. It is so demoralising to think I may have to quit
for no other reason than the way that I look.
Try talking to the boss?
That I will, in effect,
be too ugly to work there.
I bet the only person who thinks that is you.
I don't want to go to a job where I only
see a handful of people as I like the interaction (mostly anyway) with
large numbers of people. But I dont see how I could ever be strong
enough to just carry on if the psoriasis is so bad on my scalp.
Whatever strength people with visible 'differences' have to do these
things...I just don't have.
No? But could you not get it?
The company and my co-workers are understanding about when I have the
odd day off work like today. But what will I do long term? I just
don't know :(
Nor me, but you could try talking to people who might be able to help
you. I think of GP and immediate boss.
With psoriasis, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were herbal
stuff that was very useful. There's a lot of stuff can be done to
reduce symptoms.
Rowland.
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- My anxious head
- From: maelstrom21
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