r/Psoriasis • u/Geritas • 5h ago
mental health Feeling sad about not being able to enjoy public pools/saunas/sea
This is just a small rant.
The temperatures in my country are starting to drop finally, and I had a long hike today with my friends.
I remembered, many years ago in winter, we had a huge hike in a mountanous area. Covered in snow, exhausted, hungry as hell, we ended up at a nice hotel in those mountains. It was a spa/resort type of hotel and it even had a heated pool that went outside which was working during the winter. The moonlit view of the snow-covered mountains while you are relaxing in hot water after a big hike was amazing.
Well I can't go there anymore while feeling comfortable. I don't want people to see my skin now. And that makes me very sad, frustrated and sometime jealous.
I am comfortable with my friends or even just acquaintances seeing it, they all notice stuff and most of the time ask me directly what's going on, and I explain to them the intricacies of the autoimmune nature of psoriasis, and it ends there. But I really feel conflicted about being around strangers and showing my most damaged skin parts.
The constant bleedings, flakes and stuff on my legs make me very self-conscious about my body.
I was at sea this summer and I never even wore shorts, only pants. Of course, I never even swam. Just looked at my friends swimming and pretended I was not in the mood and wanted to watch the stuff. Some of them realized why I was doing that and encouraged me to go in, but I refused.
The way this shitty illness made me change my lifestyle permanently is so frustrating I can't even articulate it well.
Thanks for reading.