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If you’ve ever been told to “just stop googling” when you’ve met with a doctor to get help for a skin flare-up, this episode is for you.
I’ll bet you’ve had unfortunate experiences in the conventional medical system that’s left you feeling dismissed, gaslight, ignored, and even abandoned when you’ve reached out for help.
That’s NOT okay.
Especially because you’re trying your best to do right by your health because you want to get better.
You are definitely not alone – which is why I’m sharing responses from other skin rash warriors who’ve gone through the same thing.
Let’s dive into the most common response triggered by these types of encounters with providers, and how it eats away at your hope, trust, and motivation.
Plus, the best way you can reignite the spark of hope for your skin healing journey!
Or, listen on your favorite app: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | Subscribe on Android
In This Episode:
- The pivotal moment that makes MOST people give up hope for healing
- Setbacks + flare-ups in your skin
- Heartbreaking responses shared by skin rash warriors
- What TYPE of skin rash warrior are you?
- The #1 best mindset shift that is the spark for HOPE
Links
INVITATION >> Save Your Seat For My Upcoming Webinar on Common Mistakes People Make On Their Skin Healing Journey (PLUS I’m going to share more on how to find + work on YOUR hidden skin rash root causes).
354: How To Reignite Hope That You Can Heal On Your Skin Healing Journey {FULL TRANSCRIPT}
Welcome back to episode 354 of the Healthy Skin Show! In today’s episode, I want to talk about a pivotal moment in dealing with your skin that leaves, I would estimate 9 out of 10 skin rash warriors, CRUSHED. It’s something that I’ve noticed from listening to people that undermines your hope that you’ll ever get answers to your chronic skin issues.
So imagine your skin is a mess (maybe this is your situation right now or you’ve been there in the past). You’re in a lot of pain, maybe super itchy, not sleeping well or at all, and you’re really uncomfortable and struggling.
Also, you feel really embarrassed about the state of your skin because of how it looks. You’re maybe at a point where it’s even hard to hide it. We all know how people love to give advice they think is helpful, but often when you’re super flared, the suggestions aren’t often helpful. They make you feel even more self-conscious and worse about your situation.
So you schedule an appointment with your provider, and you’re basically met with a response that is, frankly, dismissive, absolutely not helpful, and definitely not what you were looking for.
You’ve gone there for help because you want to know what’s wrong. It’s natural because logic tells you that if you know what’s wrong, then you could hopefully do something about it, right? I’m willing to bet that you’ve spent some time googling what could be the possible reason why you’ve got these dreadful rashes. I’ve done that myself when I was struggling with hand eczema. You just want to know what else you could do!
So you get to the appointment and ask plainly and politely, “What do you think is causing all of this? I saw that maybe X/Y/Z could be a factor on this website. Can we do some testing or something to figure this out?”
And you’re met with the response of “Stop googling. We just don’t know what’s causing this, and you just need to learn to live with this.”
There might be some talk of how it’s genetic, triggered by an allergy, or something else that requires more research before anyone can really make a determination if it's a factor.
Has this happened to you?
When You’re Told To Just Stop Googling…
I know there are some wonderful providers out there, but I find this experience to be extremely common – and the most likely place that you walk away feeling completely defeated and hopeless OR you get angry, dig your heels in, determined to figure it out yourself.
Again, you aren’t probably feeling your best mentally or emotionally at this moment because you aren’t physically well.
You just want help, and you’re already in a low place because of whatever’s going on with your skin.
How do you feel when you’ve had a flare-up?
So I asked my community on Instagram, “how do setbacks or skin flare-ups make you feel?”, they responded with…
- Sad
- Hopeless… you wonder what it must be like to just live your life without skin issues
- Anxious, frustrated, defeated
- Despondent
- Low and frustrated
- Frustrated, hopeless, sad, angry, like giving up
- Extremely discouraged
- It completely floors me, feelings of hopelessness and no way out!
- Debilitated
- Exhausted, what’s the point in trying to get better, ugly
My follow-up question asked how you’ve felt going to the doctors only to be dismissed, or told to stop googling.
Their responses were pretty typical of what clients tell me – things like:
- Like I’m being robbed of an opportunity to heal
- Gaslit
- They don’t know the answers
- Like I just wasted time and money
- It makes me feel insignificant and like a scolded child who is misbehaving
- I stop trusting or seeing the doctor as knowledgeable
- Abandoned
- Like I never want to go back
- Unheard, frustrated, like I’m going mad, misunderstood, angry
This is heartbreaking. I don’t know how else to describe it because I know you are only trying to do whatever you can to help your situation.
One of the hardest parts of going through this journey is how alone you feel. You want to feel like someone is in the boat with you, right?
But most commonly, those hopes are dashed. You’ve got this highly uncontrollable skin situation going on where you don’t even know what skin your skin will do on any given day.
Lots of unpredictability, right?
And when you reach out for help, you end up potentially even regretting having asked for that help because none was found, OR it wasn’t a good fit for you and what you’re comfortable with on your journey. And it turned into a sort of “my way or the highway” type of situation.
What’s Your Response Type?
In my years of clinical experience working with clients who specifically have skin problems as their primary health concern, the responses are pretty specific. I’ve commonly seen people react in one of three ways…
The first type of response is the – I’ll figure it out. You dig in, and start researching online for new information. You’re motivated and become maybe even passionate about seeking answers. You dive headfirst into everything you can get your hands on… You’re hungry for information, and even think about maybe helping others down the road once you figure this all out. I tend to find that clients who are in this group tend to have hope burning pretty darn strong.
The second type of response is – I’m doomed + defeated. You might not feel very hopeful or very easily become hopeless. It’s like you’re a sailboat lost at sea with no wind or current to move you. At times, you can become pretty consumed with or even paralyzed with fear, depression or anxiety. You might struggle with motivation or your nervous system has shifted to a place where it is all about survival so every suggestion (even from those you trust) is met with a no. Sometimes people will hit this point after a long, sustained attempt to try to figure it all out without success, or from having a huge setback even though you’re doing everything you can think of doing for your skin.
And the third is typically somewhere in the middle. I call it the realist approach. Wanting answers and starting to get curious about what could be going on. You’re trying to balance feeling bummed with trying to stay positive. You might still be a bit more focused on trying to manage your skin rather than setting your hopes on ever really having clear skin again. You’re not sure you want to risk that type of disappointment if it doesn’t work out. You have a guarded level of hope – not too little, not too much, just right in the middle that helps move you forward.
Why you would respond any particular way isn’t something I have an answer for you about. I’m not trained in psychology, but my guess is that how you process information and experiences AND the stress and trauma of everything may have something to do with it.
What I can tell you is that you might identify as one of these or see yourself in parts of more than one. And you might notice that you started as one type of response, but with time, it’s turned into something entirely different.
How To Stoke The Flames Of Hope That You Can Heal
So now that we’ve talked about the three different types – the “I’ll figure it out,” the “Doomed + defeated,” and the Realist approach – I want to help you reclaim hope because, as I shared in the beginning of this episode, it’s extremely common for people to lose hope from feeling so alone on their journey and unheard by their provider.
This is why stocking the fire of hope is extremely important – you need to get it back!
If you don’t truly have any hope in your situation, your journey is going to be quite challenging because of how you view your circumstances.
I don’t say that to be defeating. If you don’t believe that there’s any chance of improvement, you’re very unlikely to take actions that could be helpful. And you would have an extremely hard time staying the course. Any slight issue that pops up will throw you off and be proof that it’s all pointless.
So if there is even a shred of hope burning in you that there’s something that you could do, the next step is crucial.
And that’s developing your sense of curiosity.
Yes, curiosity. While this certainly isn’t some sexy cleanse or fancy solution, it’s a powerful lens through which to view your situation.
When I was deep in the throes of dyshidrotic eczema and feeling extremely down on myself, the spark that eventually relit my hope came from asking better and more specific questions.
In realizing that the conventional narrative and toolkit are potent and limited, I realized that if I wanted to discover answers, I’d have to accept that those answers might not be fully explored, and the process of doing this might even be dismissed. The conventional route doesn’t often focus on the minutiae or the grey areas of exploring root causes from a perspective that seeks to fully resolve them.
The best example I can give is the use of various medications such as biologic or JAK inhibitor drugs that impact or block inflammatory messengers (called cytokines) that are often increased in certain skin conditions. While these medications may help to reduce symptoms, they do not stop or “heal” the root cause.
These inflammatory cytokine messengers are triggered in response to something.
My curiosity got me thinking about what it is that triggers them.
And then I started to wonder if you worked on or addressed THOSE TRIGGERS (you know, the issues that are hidden or called root causes), could you drop the inflammatory cytokine messengers and thus reduce the resulting skin issues?
I keep asking these questions, which have become the basis for how I work with clients, and they’ve also led to various presentations I’ve shared at conferences with other health professionals.
Curiosity is what continues to drive me and my most successful clients every day, and it fuels the hope that helps you dig in.
When you combine it with a healthy dose of skepticism, that’s when you hit your stride and start asking better questions.
You begin to seek more grounded, nuanced answers. You focus on what is best for you with your eyes wide open, knowing the pros and cons of a choice, rather than looking before you leap from one magic pill to another silver bullet that you discover online.
And with all this said, I’m not putting the conventional approach down. My father was a medical doctor and surgeon, and I have many amazing friends and colleagues who are physicians who’ve joined me on the Healthy Skin Show. So there’s certainly a time and place for a conventional perspective, but you would do well to accept that the deeper, hidden answers you’re looking for are unlikely to be found there.
Now that you have permission to start asking WHY – I want to show you how to apply this to your own case in the next episode.
Curiosity sparks hope, AND it also sparks LOADS of questions. Not all questions will get you helpful information so asking the right questions is crucial to get answers that will ultimately inform what actions will be best to take.
In the meantime, I’ve got a special invitation for you, especially since this is the last time I’ll share my deep dive presentation on Skin Rash Mistakes (and how you can identify your root causes and work on them).
I’ve got limited seats available for my community, so head to RebuildHealthySkin.com and claim your spot. It doesn’t matter where you live because the entire presentation will be online. And if you can’t make it for any of the times available, I’ll send you the replay as long as you’ve registered.
Again, save your seat at RebuildHealthySkin.com!
