The First Scratch

I’m not the kind of person that likes to put my personal feelings, thoughts and views out there for the world to see. Judging by my social media accounts, it looks like I’m only active on them once every few months and when I do post its just a nice picture of me and my girlfriend or my dog. 

This is also reflected in my personal life. Don’t get me wrong, I have the same issues that everybody else has. Stress, worries, illness, lack of confidence, the list goes on. But I keep them all inside me, internalised. I like to give off the impression that I can handle everything that’s thrown at me and it doesn’t affect me. 

 Nobody in today’s modern society can handle the stresses of life and work without some kind of recourse. It’s simply not possible. Whether it’s through comfort eating, smoking, drinking, or even becoming moody and withdrawn, these issues will cause reactions in people. But for me, it manifests in the form of my eczema. Redness. Itchiness. Oozing sores. Flakey skin. Infections. You name it, I’ve had it in one form or another eczema wise. And it sucks. 

 Having had eczema all my life, I consider myself a self-appointed expert on the aggravating factors of eczema (as I have experienced many of them myself). My biggest aggravating factor? Stress. Whether its a stressful day at work, an upcoming exam or even an argument with somebody, you can guarantee I’ll have some kind of a flare up. Then on top of this, throw into the mix that having the heating too high, certain detergents, hot showers, sleep itching, allergies, and just the habitual act of itching are all additional factors that aggravate my eczema, you can probably see my problem. 

 Now, I completely realise that compared to some eczema sufferers I don’t actually have it as bad as it could be. I’m able to go about my daily business most days and barring the usual comments that all eczema sufferers will be used to about the skin on my collar, the blood spots on my shirt, or the fact that I “look really warm today” because of the eczema on my face, I am usually able to get through the day. 

But it gets me down. It makes me lack confidence. It embarrasses me. 

 Don’t get me wrong, I have a really supportive network around me. My girlfriend is fantastic, she sits under blankets in the freezing cold in winter so that I don’t have to put the heating on too high and sometimes even pins me down so that I can’t itch. But I know she gets frustrated when I’m itching at night and the bed shakes and keeps her awake and I feel horrible that it affects her in such a way. Growing up my mum was brilliant, always made sure I had my repeat prescriptions so that I never ran out, coated me in creams and washed my sheets without a second thought when they were covered in blood. 

 But they can never really understand and I don’t mean that in a bad way. There is nothing more frustrating to me than somebody telling me to stop scratching. Well duhhh. If it was that simple eczema wouldn’t be a problem. I could just stop any time, stop before my skin goes red and inflamed, stop before I break the skin and bleed, stop before it becomes an open painful sore. Despite this, I can completely understand why somebody would tell me to stop scratching, that’s the obvious solution, right? 

 All of the above has led to my decision to start this blog. I’ve convinced myself that nobody will probably read it anyway, but I needed somewhere where I could really vent my frustrations. Complain when I’ve had a bad night (I’ve had a bad few weeks which has prompted the outburst above) and moan when I’ve ruined another white t-shirt or pillowcase. But also I want to show how it’s not actually all bad. I have days at a time when (although I might get a bit of dry skin) my eczema is brilliant and manageable. Sometimes I even think I have reached the holy grail of eczema by ‘growing out of it’. 

But it inevitably returns with a vengeance. So this is my way of talking about my eczema problems whilst managing to keep my “cool” exterior. 

If you end up reading this, thank you for taking the time. 

If you are a fellow eczema sufferer, don’t forget to moisturise!