Treating the anxiety did more than treating the skin
Tim lives with anxiety, and dermatographia fed straight into it. The welts fade in an hour; the worry used to last all day. That is the part he wants discussed.
Tim Williams ·
- Living with it
- More than 10 years
- Main trigger
- Stress and anxiety
- What helped
- Treating the anxiety alongside the skin, and worrying about it less
Living with anxiety, any ailment makes me worry and leads my mind down a dark path. So dermatographia feeds into that. Recently, through the treatments above, I found I don't worry about it as much. I just go about my life, try to be healthier and happier.
That's the part I don't see talked about enough. The welts themselves aren't dangerous. But when you're an anxious person, a body doing something visible and unexplained is fuel. I'd check my skin, find a mark, and spend the evening convinced something worse was going on. The checking involved touching, the touching made more marks, and round it went.
What broke the cycle wasn't only what I put on or in my body. It was working on the anxiety itself, and deliberately not inspecting my skin every hour. The calmer I got, the quieter my skin got — and the quieter my skin got, the calmer I got.
If you're in the anxious loop with this, that's the bit I'd want you to hear.