The first time I sort of noticed was when I sort of went to school, well nursery, and all. When you start to realise, become aware of others and what they do and what they can eat. I do remember things like going to the zoo or going to farms with my friends and family friends and they were allowed to do things like go and ride horses and things like that or, you know, I did actually used to ride horses until probably about five but then they found out I was like really allergic to them. So, but things like thatso just, you know, things that you couldn’t do just because of allergies and eczema and things like that, or things that you couldn’t eat because of it. As you get older you become more aware of that I guess.

I just wanted to do what everyone else was doing cos I was that age when it was like everyone wore the same clothes, awful clothes, and everyone was like trying make-up for the first time and everyone was kissing boys for the first time and I just wanted to be doing all of that and because I couldn’t do the make-up thing then I felt like I’ve been robbed of everything because obviously the make-up thing was so like linked like kissing your first boy and like going to parties and being this confident, beautiful girl. Like I felt like all of that was because of the lack of make-up and therefore the double lack of confidence, it all kind of started to kind of knock on to all the other stuff.

I think my friends help me deal with it so m-, deal with it well. Cos they have their own problems, so we sort of tit for tat, if you know what I mean. Like we, we swap our problems and we know how, it’s a good support system that they have there for me. They, they’ll always be there with an emergency pot of cream if I’ve run out or they’ll be willing to come with me to the doctor’s and things like that. And they’re understanding that it will stop me from doing certain things that I want to. So they’re willing to go on slightly cooler holidays without as many activities that can be done and things like that. I think my friends are my biggest support system because, as, as I said, it has such a knock-on effect on my confidence that I don’t really want to go out and participate in any of the hobbies that I like to do.

You get like the younger groups that would like probably just say, would probably look at you and you know, whisper to their friends or I don’t know say eee’ or something like that, I know that they don’t know what I’ve got but it kind of makes me feel like if they’re seeing it like that what are other people seeing, if that makes sense so I would force myself to cover up, force myself to put more moisturiser I guess just to make sure that my skin is better. And like but sometimes again like when people don’t understand when you put the creams they’ll say stuff like oh he’s got cream on his face, shiny face or whatnot you know what I mean, so yeh. But obviously those people don’t understand what I was going through.

At uni you spend a lot of time in the evenings going out and getting sort of hot and sweaty, and sort of nightclubs and things like that, which is not very sort of, like cos I think it was quite difficult in the first couple of years especially when that’s a lot of socialising happens in the first year, first year or two at university. Which it is quite difficult to sort of do that but you just, you wanna sort of make friends and things like that, so you just sort of have to grin and bear it and skip instead [laughs]. No, that’s definitely not the thing to do [laughs].

[Laughs]

So yeah so, yeah I think yeah, it did impact a bit on that, but yeah by the time I’d sort of sorted it out I’d moved on with my social life, so you know, only go out once a week or something, so it was sort of easier to cope with and just sort of things like bars and pubs sort of, once you sort of move, a bit older, bit more mature, and that’s the sort of socialising you do. It’s a bit easier to sort of cope with those sort of things so.

I’ll always come back with like worse eczema than when I started out at the weekend and I know that’s because of sex and like yeh it is definitely linked and I think that’s why the doctor, the smart doctor, didn’t let him come in because he was wanting to talk about that. And I think it’s the hormones, I think when my hormones go all over the shop which is the same thing from periods stuff, as soon as my hormones are kind of like jangled my skin reacts to it.

It was so pivotal in my decision to get the coil cos I went to the doctor here and was like I’m so bored with the pill, it’s so bad for my eczema and then just like I need an alternative and she was like Well, the coil’s really great a) cos there’s an non-hormonal one and b) because the hormonal one is only the equivalent of half a pill a week, so you’re taking six and a half less pills than you would be on the pill. So I was like That sounds great and it has been great, it really has been fine with my eczema, thank God.

With sort of like sexual stuff like lube or whatever then there’s stuff that I can’t use but partners have always been really understanding about that and they’ve been fine about it. I’ve never sort of got into a position with a guy where they’ve been like What the hell is wrong with you? but well not about that anyway [laughter] they yeh for the most part then, you know, I’ve because I’ve been very open about it if someone said what’s up with your hand well what is that then, you know, because I kind of get when, if you get into like a sexual situation with someone, if you see a sore red spot at any point on your partners body you’re gonna be a bit like.. but I’ve always just been like it’s eczema its fine it’s not contagious don’t worry, I’m not covered in herpes or anything like that. But yeh from the point of view of sort of just coupley stuff like I once had a boyfriend once give me a massage and he’d brought this special stuff for it and everything and I was just like I’m sorry I can’t use it [laughter] I’m sorry you can’t come near me with that.

I always like mention it to, just to see if anyone else has it. But sometimes you think, like you’d never think somebody would have it. Cos you think that they’re such a like beautiful person with like the most amazing skin. And then they have it on like a part of their body that you’d never even see. So that’s quite interesting. And then you just like, we always talk about what products we’re using, what’s helping. And it was actually, my friend’s been seeing a dermatologist like privately because she couldn’t see one on the NHS. And it’s through like things that her dermatologist told her that these-, she’s then told me and I’ve then talked to my GP about. It’s like kind of managed to get like different treatments and different like creams and stuff. Which is frustrating cos you think why couldn’t the GP just tell me about it in the first place?’ But, yeah, so that information kind of threads through. So it’s quite good to talk about it to different people and try different creams and different like treatments. Like hemp oil. One of my friends takes hemp oil and she’s found that’s been really useful. So that’s been something that I’ve been like trying. And, yeah, we swap it. And then also like when it’s bad you’re like, you can just say, Oh, my eczema’s so bad, then they’ll text you back like, Oh, me too, I’m so itchy.

I was worried about not getting the same support here that I got at home. But in a way, I get more support here, because there’s a bigger variety of people and a lot more people’ve got eczema than I actually thought, because at school, it seemed like it was just me and one other girl. And we didn’t really talk that much so it’s not like I could talk to her about it.

If one of my friends is like, Oh, you’ve got eczema I’ve got it too. It’s nice to be like, it’s like something that we, us, we both know about and like you feel kind of, I don’t know, not special but included when there’s someone else with eczema and you can talk about it with them. You don’t feel so alone. And other people, other people don’t understand what’s going on, but in a way you kind of feel relieved that you’ve found someone else that knows what you’re going through. And it’s nice to be like, Oh that didn’t work for me, but have you tried this? and it’s like, Oh yeah, that works for me too and stuff like that.

Growing up I didn’t really know anyone with eczema, which it probably would be beneficial to know someone with a similar condition I think if because then, at least you can talk about it, whereas I didn’t really ever, there was not really, apart from my Dad and my brother, who have very minor, I didn’t really know anyone that had it. So, I think at Uni, one of my friends, she has it on her hands as well; it was interesting to hear her side of things. And obviously she, obviously sort of mentioned it, we both talked about. I think I might have talked about it first. Whereas other people often just say either “Are your hands OK?” or, “Does that hurt?” or they’ll say, “What’s that?” and some people say, which my friend at Uni and I always, are just so like, “Ergh yes we know.” Basically people often say, “You need to put some moisturiser on that.” It’s like, “Yes I know [laughs] obviously.