A Little Girl's Best Friend...

I never have understood - and never will understand - people who do not like animals nor see the importance of animals in one's life. They are not only a source of comfort and protection but medically, having a pet has proven to do more good for a patient than treatment itself in some cases. I'm not saying that having a pet will bring back your pigmentation in the case of Vitiligo, but it can surely relieve any stress or anxiety that the condition may cause you. 


My Yorkshire Terrier Kaiso is now 16 years old (far beyond his expected life span) and has been on this journey with me since I was 8. The total acceptance and lack of judgment found in this 'best friend' can get you through some truly difficult times. It may sound a little cliché, but seeing the way our animals look up to us and treat us with complete loyalty, acceptance and trust in return for just a little love and acknowledgement gives us quite an example of how we should treat each other. I would most certainly recommend getting a pet for a young child with a medical condition such as Vitiligo - it gives us somewhere to go when everywhere else is too difficult. Just remember that a pet is for life.


Here I am at about 9 or 10 years old. Yes, I was an absolute little nerd :) I even had braces by the time I was 12! You can see the Vitiligo clearly on my forehead, neck and backs of my hands, even inside my ears. Long sleeves were also my comfort zone.

"Lucky", You Say - Part 4

Here I am at my confirmation in Cyprus in 1995. We had recently moved to a new town called Limassol (roughly an hour or so drive away from Paphos where we first lived) and I had changed schools. It was the first time I was seeing my old friends since moving, as my confirmation took place in Paphos where I had done my First Communion.

I remember the first day of my new school, my mother wrote a letter for me to read out to my class explaining that I wasn't contagious or sick and that I was hoping they would still be friends with me regardless of what I looked like. I remember my voice broke during that part of the letter as I stood at the front of the class, and a couple of my classmates also started to tear up. I'm eternally grateful to my mother for what she did by making me read that letter out - immediately after class, a group of girls came up and asked me if I wanted to sit with them for lunch. Those are still some of my closest friends to this day.

You can see that my arms had almost completely changed (except my knuckles and fingers), as had my legs and torso. The Vitiligo was now making its way up my neck, soon to go into overdrive on my face upon hitting puberty. The white patch on my forehead kept growing and shrinking as you can tell from previous photos, which shows how unpredictable the condition is.

Aged 9 at my confirmation in Paphos, Cyprus

Letter From A Skinned Alive Reader

I get a lot of emails and messages from people around the world throughout the week, which usually spur me on to continue writing on the Skinned Alive blog. Sometimes a letter will help me choose what topic to touch on and sometimes, like now, the letter itself is too good not to share.

I was sent this last week by a reader and her letter was very touching. It helps to see things from someone else's perspective. She highlights perfectly what it is to be afraid of your patches and how vulnerable it makes you. Here's her story:

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Hi Darcel,

Thanks for writing back to me a couple weeks ago. I enjoy reading your blog posts, as well as your Facebook posts on Skinned Alive. I wanted to share something with you that took place after I read your blog posts a couple weeks ago.

First of all, just to give you a little background, I have always felt very ashamed of my Vitiligo and have really struggled over the years to come to terms with it. I have always kept my patches hidden as much as possible and have struggled with self-acceptance on many levels. I also have really bad eczema, two different types, so it sometimes feels as if my skin defines me somehow.

My background is a bit different from yours. It was a bit unstable, and there was some abuse, which is what started my lack of self-acceptance. I was always told I was ugly and worthless....even though I really wasn't. I had beautiful long dark hair as a child, but I never believed I was beautiful. When I developed these skin issues, it made it that much harder for me to love and accept myself. No one in my family that we know of has Vitiligo, or eczema for that matter, which leads me to believe that my skin issues were the result of emotional trauma. If you think about it, our skin is the biggest barrier of protection against the outside world. The fact that I have so many skin issues tells me that my "barrier" has been violated and feels so vulnerable. I have slowly been trying to address some of these things from a holistic point of view (body, mind and spirit), and I am introducing a lot of compassion into my life that I've always lacked from others and from myself. I'm trying to 'love' on my skin and the many issues I have with it.

When I stumbled upon your blog and read every post, it spoke numbers to me. You said, "Sometimes I let my skin matter to me more than it matters to others." 
Isn't that the truth?!! I have paid more attention to it than anyone else has. My husband has never had a problem with it, nor anyone else, but I continued feeling repulsed by it, covering it up like some horrible disease.

I found myself in tears when you said, "My skin won't behave itself, so I sometimes feel like I am losing me, or the me I have learned to identify with." 

I could identify with that SO much. For years and years my biggest fear was that my vitiligo would reach my face, and that everyone would finally see it and be repulsed by it. I was terrified of the idea of it on my face. I didn't care if it showed up all over my arms and legs, just as long as it stayed far away from my face. Unfortunately six months ago, I developed a patch directly above my left eye, and it is slowly spreading. I cried and cried when I first noticed it. It was my worst fear coming true and I felt like I was slowly loosing myself. I'm still scared!

I knew I needed to show this spot on my eye compassion, rather than doing what I have done for so many years....dodging the mirror with disgust and shame, hating every part of my Vitiligo. I was still struggling to show it compassion until I read your blog posts. I loved the quote by India Arie, "I am not my hair; I am not this skin; I am not your expectations, no... I am not my hair; I am not this skin; I am the soul that lives within." 

After reading all of of your posts, I found myself standing in front of a mirror crying so hard ....feeling SO sad that I had been so mean to myself all these years. Sad that I had made it so much bigger than it really was. Sad that I had 'abused' myself by rejecting my skin, instead of loving it. I stood in front of that mirror finally able to look at myself and say, "I am SO sorry! I'm so sorry for being so mean and hurtful. From now on it stops! I will learn to love and accept you!"
It's been two weeks since that time and I am slowly learning to love myself...ALL of me. Not just my skin, but myself as a whole. For years I felt defined by my skin. It was as if I was walking around with a distorted pair of glasses on, seeing only the bad things in myself....things that no one else but me saw. I have been my own worst enemy. I find myself slowly taking off those glasses now and becoming 'whole.' 

I would love to be strong enough one day to be of some encouragement and comfort to someone else going through this. Right now, however, I am on this new journey trying to heal and show myself compassion every day.

My husband and I are currently living in Italy. I find myself traveling all over, trying to 'find' the me that I kept hidden for all these years. I want to know myself in a way that I have never known before because I was too busy beating myself up. Last week I went to Paris. This week I went to Venice....and who knows where I'll go next week. All I know is that I just want to let "LIFE" inside my heart and start living! I don't want to be that timid, frightened girl anymore. I want to be free to love myself no matter what I look like!

I love that you have learned to accept yourself from such a young age. I'm 30 years old and I feel as though I am taking baby steps for the first time in my life. I'm finally ready for healing and peace. I'm ready for a new start.

I also quoted Ann Curry when she said to you on the Today Show, "Compassion and understanding is the road, and not separation and judgment." That's where I am right now. Learning to show myself compassion and understanding for the first time in my life!

I just wanted to share that with you since you've played such a big part in this new 'path' I'm on now. The only thing I wish were different about your blog is that you would post more frequently! :) I love reading what you have to share. 

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"Lucky", You Say... Part Two

My Vitiligo spread to my arms and legs, then torso before taking over my face around the time of puberty.


Here I am aged 8 in Cyprus - you can't see my arms and legs, which shows how easy they are to hide (when it's not summer), but you can see my natural original colour on my face (except for the small de-pigmented patches at the very top of my forehead by my hairline)... This was just before the Vitiligo picked up the pace and patches started growing and multiplying. You can also see it on my knuckles and the back of my hand in the first picture.

Freckles...

You are beautiful... Your skin is flawless...

These are things I try to say to myself when I look at me in the mirror. This is what I say to convince myself that everything is okay and it's not worrying me that there is a new spot on my face that most certainly wasn't there this time last week.

I have never thought of myself as beautiful. Never. Even now, when people say it to me, on whatever rare occasion that may be, it's not a word I would ever use to describe myself. It's hard to change years of habitual thinking. Attractive, maybe. I can see attractive... I pride myself on keeping my body toned and fit, loved my life in the dance studio, so even sexy is a definite possibility. But my skin tortured me enough over the years to stop me from ever using beautiful. 

And yet, when I look in the mirror, I repeat these affirmations to convince myself that that spot has always been there. It's not new, it's not adding to the multitude of tiny spots that I can identify on various parts of my body. Inside though, I am freaking out. Yes, it's only small now, but the point is that it wasn't there a few days ago. And I swear that the spot I noticed two weeks ago is now twice the size it was before.

What does this mean? Does this mean that my Vitiligo is better? Or is it worse? I'm so confused by my condition sometimes because I don't have distinguishable patches like other sufferers, so does this mean that I have an extreme case of bad Vitiligo or a good case of one skin tone, even if it isn't mine? Confused, confused, confused...

I went to a poetry reading the other day with some friends. At the end of the first session, a girl sang a popular song by India Arie called Video. I know the song well enough to sing along, but it was only when I started singing along to the second verse that the lyrics hit me like a two-ton truck:

When I look in the mirror and the only one there is me

Every freckle on my face is where it's supposed to be

But... but... every freckle on my face is not where it's supposed to be though! This is what a voice in my head started screaming and since then, I can't stop thinking about those lyrics. My freckles are changing every day. My skin won't behave itself, so I sometimes feel like I am losing me, or the me I have learned to identify with.

Skin. It's the first point of contact someone has with us. It's the first thing people see, it's how people identify with one another. In one way, our skin defines us. Sad, but true. I refused to let my skin define me as a person growing up, so I became talkative, outgoing, strong-minded and opinionated so that people would judge me outside of my skin and look past the patches to my personality. And then I became one colour and I adapted and learned to have an identity that included my new skin. And now, it feels like after years, I have finally adjusted with this skin that isn't mine in the first place - yet it is - and it's playing tricks on me again.

I keep thinking: Maybe I should stress myself out so that the pigment spots disappear or don't grow so rapidly.

How ridiculous is that? Stressing yourself out to keep the skin you've grown used to. It's ludicrous, but this is how my mind works with regards to my skin. Then I'm thinking maybe I'm getting pigment spots because I'm NOT stressed. Maybe, for once in my life, I'm at peace, I'm even possibly... happy? 

But then if happiness means no stress... and no stress means more pigment... and more pigment patches means I stress out about it... and stressing about it reverses the pigment patches (in my head)... but then I'm stressed out, so I can't feel at peace or happy...

It's a vicious cycle going on in my head right now.

I just wanted you to know that I still worry about these things too. My skin is 99% one colour and my life isn't any more perfect or my mind any calmer than when I was a overcompensating teen with patches. The spots on my face remind me that I still have Vitiligo, I'm not out of the woods yet. Not knowing when or where the next spot will show up is beginning to threaten the identity that I finally managed to accept.

I am scared too. But India Arie goes on to say:

But I learned to love myself unconditionally

Because I am a queen


Yes, indeed.