Jul 302012
 

If you haunt psoriasis self-help sites – which is worth doing if you happen to have it – you will often come across the standard advice of avoiding wearing dark coloured clothing (such as here, here or here). This is obviously to avoid showing up the inevitable skin flakes, and is to some extent quite sensible. After all a flurry of skin flakes cascading down black clothing (as I almost always wear) is not exactly subtle, and will make people wonder if you have something nasty.

And given that most of the damage associated with psoriasis is associated with how we feel society may react to the news we have a loathsome skin condition, it is hardly surprising that people want to hide it.

But perhaps that is the wrong way – perhaps we should be letting the flakes show up, and if people react as if we ought to be wearing sack-cloth clothing, ringing a bell, and shouting “Unclean” as we walk around, then fuck ’em.