Why my face is none of your business: the importance of kindness and routine

I sometimes wonder why, as human beings, we’re not very good at being kind to each other. Sometimes, we all have the gift of blurting out the wrong thing.

This was the thought that pinged across my mind recently as (yet) another person decided to comment on my facial eczema, which, until very recently, had been, through my own lack of willpower, an issue I had literally faced every day.

“Ooohhh” they said. “That looks sore.”

“Yes” I said. “Unfortunately it’s quite bad at the minute.” (this is your cue to change the topic).

“Yes” they continued. “It looks really bad, doesn’t it.”

“Yes” I said, with a smile. “It is, isn’t it.”

So that was that.

As anyone with eczema will tell you, firstly, it isn’t a condition which likes you to have fun. Mine doesn’t support chlorine, for example, or low-quality white wine on a night out, though I fear this is also partly to do with age. I recently risked a single “mini bottle” at a leaving do; the next morning my face had a sandpapery texture and a red hue.

Other people who suffer with it will tell you that certain foods make their skin flare up. Sometimes it is stress, or changing skin products. Too much sun does it for others.

Secondly, getting it under control is a continuous process, and you have to be committed. The issue was, I wasn’t, (until I got a very stern warning – of which, more later) - and so the result was like the age-old nursery rhyme: when the skin on my face was good it was very, very good – but when it was bad, it was horrid.

It felt horrid. It looked horrid. But of course, it was on my face, so I couldn’t see it – but everyone else could.

And sometimes, probably out of sympathy, they said something, as the angry red patches glowed at them throughout the day, or in the evening. There’s a strip of skin under my right eye which is especially noticeable, like a smudge which needs wiping away.

Just in case you’re wondering if make-up was on option, in order to smother the glow and stop the sympathetic glances (sometimes accompanied by teeth-sucking) – it was and wasn’t. Yes, I could slather on some foundation – but my skin would pay for it for three days. So, make-up was strictly limited to the occasional night out at the weekend.

You might be thinking (and you’d be right to) “So why aren’t you getting it under control?”

The answer for me is this.

Firstly, it requires adherence to a routine which takes place mainly in the morning in order to be a success. The mornings, as my husband will attest, are not my strong point. I detest them. I’m okay by 10 am once I’ve got three teas down me, but, in common with most people, I work full time and have a child to get out of the house on time to school, before I get to work. My mind is racing, so is the clock. So, I’m looking for easy time saves on that morning routine. After all, one must claw back some minutes if there’s a school dress which needs drying with a hairdryer or a coat to find, because you forgot to take it out of the car boot on Friday, and it’s now Monday. So, if this means (month in month out) I fail to use the globby, awful shower emollient because I’ve forgotten to re-order the prescription and if I don’t use the massive bottle of moisturiser because it’s being used as a handy door stop, so be it. True story, btw, re the door stop. It was marvellous.

So, there's a time issue. There's also the "can't be bothered" issue. And lastly, the "I'm used to it now and if I ignore it it'll go away" issue. This had been serving me well until recently.

Change came in the unflattering light of a hospital clinic. Earlier this month, the wake-up call I needed to take my skin a bit more seriously came during an appointment with the Dermatology Department at the Hospital. The specialist did not mince their words. I had been so pre-occupied with worrying about the eczema on my face, I’d forgotten about the rest of me and how it looked. Not great, as it transpired. The backs of my knees, elbows, stomach and back were all enjoying an eczema party. There’s a persistent dry patch on the top of my right hand. I’ve just got used to it. And the party had come to an end.

I am now on a low-level antibiotic for six weeks, twice a day. I am using the gloopy shower gel replacement in its medicinal looking green bottle. I am having cooler showers (God, I love a hot shower). I am faithfully putting on the moisturiser. I take prescription-strength antibiotics. I apply paint-stripper Fucibet cream reliably. Sometimes twice a day. But once a day is better than the “not at all I was achieving” so I try to celebrate this. The catalyst was hearing the skin condition described by the doctor as being “moderate to severe” with a risk of scarring if I carried on the way I was. I was so used to living with it that I’d have described it as “mild.” It didn’t look mild to the doctor, particularly not my face, and she’s the expert.

I left the appointment feeling strangely vulnerable, a bit sorry for myself, and annoyed with myself in equal measure. Something had to change. I left my prescription for what would turn out to be a carrier bag of goods at the Hospital Pharmacy and went straight to the nearest chemist to buy a bottle of the gloopy shower gel substitute to tide me over while my script was being processed.

So here we are. Two weeks later I am now one packet of antibiotics down and pleased with myself that I have (hopefully) created a new routine which will benefit me long-term. The hardest thing of all for me is accepting that this is not a quick-fix. To see the benefits, I’ll have to put the work in, repeatedly for weeks on end, and possibly for the rest of my life. This was something I am used to doing at work, day in day out, but I’m ashamed to say, I have never thought of it in terms of my long-term health. I guess I have never thought of eczema as serious, though at times in meetings, it feels like it is burning through my clothes and I wonder why other people can’t see it. It feels visible.

By seeing a routine as an investment, rather than something else to fit in, it’s making me more positive.

I think the key is not to over-think it. I am reminded of something my (nearly) ten-year-old daughter said to me when I congratulated her on winning a prize in the Eisteddfod earlier this year. She had never taken part before and my heart was in my mouth before she started, followed by tears streaming down my face as she read her poem. Iris, however, had a different perspective.

“It’s not hard, mum” she said, with that enviable clarity and insight children often have. “You just have to get up on the stage and read a poem.”

There you are then. I just have to get up, and do my routine.

If you’re finding it hard to make a particular change stick, maybe this post will be food for thought and will give you a little boost to do the same.

Finally, a note on kindness (having had my skin laughed at)

Sometimes, the best thing you can do is say nothing at all. After all, the very thing you’re commenting on can be something someone can’t help. You just don’t know what someone is dealing with. They don’t need our comments to make the bad day they’re hiding worse.

Unless someone specifically asks you, things they might not want or need your opinion on include, but are not limited to the below:

·????????Their weight (you don’t know the reason why) (when pregnant 2 men discussed with me in the room “how big I was”

·????????The number of children they do or don’t have (you don’t know the reason why)???????

·????????The reason they work part time/different hours to you (you don’t know the reason why)

·????????Where they live/the car they drive (I have had my car, a third-hand Mercedes estate, which makes me smile every day, because I LOVE cars (even if I know nothing about them) described as “a waste of money” by someone on?six-figure salary, who had no idea what it meant to me)

·????????What school their child goes to (you don’t know the reason why)

·????????What they’re wearing/style choices

·????????Why they have been off work (could be a bereavement/miscarriage)

·????????Any visible or less visible disability or impairment that person has

·????????Their eczema?