Me
This was one of the projects that I was most nervous to create. When I talked to my lecturer about my project, he noted that what it was perhaps missing was a self-portrait, as after all, when I first started looking at this project, it was my own relationship with my skin condition that sparked ideas. For one, I was not very well-versed in taking self portraits. And for two, the relationship between me and my skin condition, is a complicated one and is something that I am very self conscious about and still struggle with today, although I must admit, this project has helped me to feel a lot more comfortable about it. Accompanying the photographs, is an essay that you can read at the bottom of the page.
Contact Dermatitis is a funny thing. Some days, your skin looks perfectly normal, others, you don’t even recognise it and are embarrassed to be seen. One
week, you feel no pain, no bleeding, no cracks, and the next, its as though acid has been poured on your skin, both visually and physically. I was told by a
doctor that I had contact dermatitis during 2020. Because of the coronavirus, I had become a lot more aware and conscious, and frankly incredibly
paranoid about germs on surfaces, in the atmosphere and more, and it started to eat away at me. Something I hadn’t given much extra thought to prior,
suddenly became an issue that mentally impacted me so much that I would clean my hands so frequently until they bled, purely to get the ‘feeling of germs’
off my skin, even if sometimes there was nothing visibly there. When you think about eczema and dermatitis, and skin conditions in general, you often just
think of the physical impact and not as much the mental toll it takes. Since having this condition, there have definitely been moments where I have been
really embarrassed to have people see my skin. Sometimes I wear long sleeves to cover my knuckles, other times I just keep them in my pockets all day. I
have some eczema gloves now but even then I am terrified that they will attract even more attention as they are obviously skin-condition gloves. Every time
that I have a flare up, I have to face the choice whether to protect my skin and try to heal it, risking people seeing how bad it looks and asking questions, or
leave the gloves and the creams and the ointments at home, just to make the pain that much worse for that much longer, but hey, at least no one will see
how disgusting my skin looks.
Three years on, I know how to deal with it better and how to heal my skin, and I am becoming a lot more confident with the condition now, but it’s still a
journey that I am learning to deal with. After all, you’re supposed to be comfortable in your own skin, not scared of it.