And so I went to the doctor I think when I was about 14 and the doctor sort of said, “OK well there’s this thing called sort of coverage make-up that the Red Cross do and we could go and sort of get that sorted for you if you like?” And I thought, ‘Yeh that’d be good,’ because it’s sort of used for like burn victims and just people who have really heavy scars, like wine marks and etc etc. So, me and my mum and my sisters, we went down to [town name] and we went to the Red Cross clinic and I got it done and it was all sort of very like, like a movie sort of set with like prosthetics and everything everywhere and all these different shades of make-up. And, I put it on and I just, I’d not even put it on my, they not only put it on my face but they also put it on sort of my arms and the back of my legs, and I just looked like a completely different person, it was just, it was really sort of uplifting and I was like, “Wow this means sort of” It just made me feel that tiny bit more confident even though, having eczema for years, obviously sort of knocked me down internally but, just at least I didn’t sort of show it on the outside.

I had a little around my neck, the back of my neck if it ever got really worse then it would go over to the front but it’s not something that’s overly obvious. But when I went to the barber’s, when you have your short back and sides the back part’s not particularly fun because you always get this like nonsensical advice from a from a barber about, you know, Oh I think you I think you should take this or that or whatever. It’s like, no it’s nothing, absolutely nothing to do with you and you’re area of expertise shall we say.

It’s just those environments like when you go to like a barber for example and if you have any near your neck or anything like that then it affects you. Cos obviously like they, they really overdo it when, when you go to the barbers and stuff like when they shave, they literally shave your face like they’ll shave this and this and everything [laughs] it’s, it’s weird so when they go down the neck they go right down and if anything gets in the way then yeah it’s, it’s not a comfortable experience for either side reallybecause yeah but certainly more uncomfortable for the person sitting down.

Cos I bleach my hair, I have like a patch of eczema on the back of my scalp so whenever I would like bleach my hair to dye it it would really, really aggravate it so my skin at the back of my neck is really itchy so I’m always scratching and people think I’ve got head lice or something. And it was really bad for a while it was like swollen and peeling and disgusting.

I was more worried that I was allergic to hair dye [laughs] cos if I had to stop dying my hair I don’t know what I’d do. Yeh, no, that was what I was worried about but then I mentioned to the doctor at some point that I thought it might be eczema related and that seemed to solve the matter.

I think when it’s like near your head or like your brain or something maybe they’re a bit more worried about it but I don’t know. Yeh so I just said that it had been quite bad and she had a look at it and it was like peeling and itchy and disgusting-looking so they just gave me some stuff for it but even that wasn’t something that they were really worried about, even the hairdressers carried on whacking bleach on it the same, it wasn’t like, it wasn’t like they refused to touch it or anything so.

I’ve had, so on my face; I’ve had it on my arms; I have had it on the backs of my knees but, I haven’t had it on the backs of my knees in a long time so that’s good. I’ve had it on my torso, my chest and then I said my scalp and the back of my neck. I think the back of my neck was one of the hardest places to get rid of it. But, my scalp is definitely the hardest I think because even though my face was, I think my face was a lot harder to deal with because it’s just – it’s so visible when your face is always there and you have to, people have to see your face and your face is always just there so, I think that’s – it was harder to deal with in that sense but, it’s been hardest to sort of cure, in a sense, on my scalp because that’s just been there for years. And, I mean it went away and then it came back and it just it sort of varies in severity if that makes sense. So, sometimes it’s a lot worse and sometimes it’s OK but it’s never just gone and that makes you really self-conscious, like you’re always like, ‘Oh I need to check my hair and make sure that it’s all covered up and, you know, nobody can really see it and I need to comb it thoroughly and wash it so it’ll all come out,’ but then if you wash it too much you’re sort of taking away all the moisture and the oils from your hair which your sort of scalp needs, and it’s just like I can’t win [laughs]. So, yeh I think that’s the most that’s the hardest place definitely.

There was like two years where it was really, really bad and on the top of my eyelids as well and it would just make me so tired because my eyelids would be so heavy and it would just kind of knacker me and just cos it was all visible and all on my face then I’d be visibly scratching, just to kind of ease the pain.

My eyelids but it’s just, its agony when it’s up there and in lectures I can’t concentrate because it’s just my eyes are so, so horrid. So that, when my eyelids are bad that does have a massive impact on life [laughs] more than I probably realise.

It is sort of based upon the fact that my eyes aren’t able to lubricate themselves efficiently enough. And this can cause like irritation which can ultimately lead to ulcers. Ulcers are very dangerous, especially on your eyes or ulcers aren’t dangerous, but on the eyes they are.

They can potentially blind you, in a sense. So, my parents were very concerned. And it got so severe at one point that they decided because I was in a lot of pain and I wasn’t able to go to school that they should conduct this sort of surgery where they inject steroids in my eyes, which is very worrying, well, they don’t actually put it in my eyes, but it’s in my eyelids where most of the irritation occurs. And, I remember the first day I had that operation. I was crying before the operation, because see – I was very scared. But it was very, it was unsuccessful because the next day I woke up and I was still in pain. So they did the same thing again, so two days in a row I had the surgery done. And after that, I was better. I was, I was really well. And then again, six months later, it sort of came back. But I think it was that time when it came back after six months it had gotten so bad I remember the consultant saying, it also has formed some sort of shield and I don’t know what that is in biological terms [laughs]. But I needed immediate surgery and then after coming out of surgery, it became evident that I’d actually got a scar on my eye.

Okay.

But fortunately, it hasn’t affected my vision.

Do you still have to go back for treatment for?

Yes. But it seems as though like the amount of operations I have become sort of, I don’t know, exponential. Every time I have had one, the gap between is a lot larger. I think the last time I had one was about four years ago. which was, it’s great in a sense, because that means as the gap gets bigger, I am a lot less likely to have flare ups. I mean when I do have flare ups, I still have to use eye drops daily, although I don’t really use them that much in the winter, because that’s when it’s less severe. When it does flare up, I can usually control it with steroid eye drops, which I rarely use.

I think facial hair is one of those things that it depends how you sort of portray it or if you keep it neat, I guess. I think that’s something I did do. So, I was reluctant to shave mine all my, all my facial hair off, purely because when I had done it, it gets, especially back then, it does it does get very itchy. I mean, I shaved my neck and I shave sort of around here where I tried to shape it up. But, the itchiest places are just like above my chin and those areas. So, I don’t really shave those because I know that if I do it each day, it’ll it will be really hard to stop and it also gets bumpy and red and I don’t really want to show people that. But yeah it was a learning curve as well [laughs].

My high school. So they would, they actually ran a facial hair check around our year. And, eventually I said, okay, not that I was growing it for religious reasons, I said, I am just growing it for religious reasons. And, because I’d never actually grown it out before. Little did I know that that would also cause my face to become very hot and that would irritate my eczema too. I still had to keep it like a sweet spot between short and long which is like the most less irritating length. But my school wouldn’t understand that. So, I said, okay, I am growing it for religious reasons. They went, okay then. But then like the moustache is just irritating on your lip. And religiously as well, in my religion, which is Islam it’s not really supposed to go like below your lip, because then it gets into your mouth and then food gets stuck to it and sort of logical reasons like that. So then I trimmed my moustache and she said, oh, what about this part and I said, that’s my moustache. That’s not my beard [laughs]. And then they sort of threatened to call home and stuff. And eventually I just sort of found the sweet spot, which was stubble and I said, yeah, I shaved yesterday [laughs]. It’s grown back to stubble. Yeah, and then they never really said much about it.

it’s like if it’s in a really intimate place, like it sounds a bit disgusting, but I get it right under my bum cheek, like in the crease where your bum meets, meets your thigh. And if I’m in public I can’t just start scratching it, cos I’ll look like I’m trying to scratch my, my bum. And I don’t want people to be like, What’s she doing? Why is she scratching her bum But it’s so hard. So I have to like go to the toilet and just be like arr because of the relief. And I try not to do it if I’m with my friends cos I know they’ll notice and I know they’ll be like, Stop scratching. Stop it, stop it And sometimes people just telling you to stop can make you want to do it more. It, it’s one of those things though, isn’t it? You tell somebody not to do something and off they go and do it. And it almost starts off like a trigger reaction sometimes. So if I’ve got a scra-, like an itch on my leg, I’ll slowly make my, my way up my leg and up my body and then back down the other one.