My Story, My Diagnosis: Alisha's Story

Psoriasis are far from invisible, but the emotional toll is easier to hide. For years, Alisha lived with the physical and mental effects of psoriasis, until one doctor and one treatment worked. Now Alisha empowers others to love the skin they're in.

Transcript

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ALICA BRIDGES: My name is Alicia bridges, I've lived with psoriasis for over 25 years and I'm 30 years old.

00:08

I first encountered psoriasis when I was seven years old. I had patches on my knees and elbows,

00:14

my skin used to flake everywhere, which was super embarrassing. My skin was always inflamed, painful to the touch.

00:22

That's just the physical component. Now we get into the invisible parts of having psoriasis, which is the mental and emotional

00:30

symptoms. I've dealt with depression, anxiety, as well as panic attacks. For example, the coworker walks up to me

00:37

and he says, you know, you're a really pretty girl but you have ugly skin, and all I could do was go to the bathroom and cry.

00:46

I found an effective treatment in the form of a biologic, and the current biologic that I'm on has me 100% clear.

00:55

Once my psoriasis cleared, I still was dealing with self-esteem issues, I still was dealing with issues of truly loving myself.

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And so I realized that you have to learn how to love yourself whether you're 100% covered with psoriasis

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or whether you're clear. You have to give yourself unconditional love no matter the circumstances.

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A lot of people that I've come in contact with who are living with psoriasis also share the same sentiments

01:25

of being fearful and ashamed. I figure that through my blog, I can help others and tell

01:32

my story, share my experiences. In addition to that, also give tips so that it could alleviate some of the stress I went through

01:41

for another person, so someone else can maybe have a better time dealing with this disease. If there's a person who is living with some psoriasis

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and they're having a hard time, I would say, number one, find a community, whether that's an online support group or something

01:57

right in your town. The other thing that I would suggest is to find a doctor that you can trust.

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Make sure that that doctor is fighting to treat you, not just throwing treatments at you. I would also say, don't hide feelings

02:12

about how psoriasis affects your mental and emotional health. Make sure that you share those feelings

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and you talk to your friends and family about that as well as your doctor, because a lot of people don't realize the mental and emotional hardship

02:28

of this disease because we isolate and we don't talk about it.