Support Vitiligo 

Hello, I am SushAmita Pradeep (Sushmita) Jain.
#SupportVitiligo, picturizes my experience with Vitiligo which is commonly called as white patches.
This might be the experiences faced by many people who have Vitiligo or any skin condition which directly impacts their appearance in some or the other way. It might be considered as autoimmune. Most importantly, it’s misinterpreted/stigmatized and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come up with something which would put forward a message that reaches out to all of you. I have given my best in gathering the facts out of my own experience. Hope it helps.
I did not realize what Vitiligo was and did not take it much seriously as a kid (10yrs old) but I realized it was impacting my self-image in certain ways and definitely the way others looked at me or sympathized with me made me feel very low at times. I personally felt weird and funny by the way people would stare at me and pose questions for which I had no proper answer as a kid. I didn’t take it seriously but what made me serious was it was impacting my family in a certain way. My parents and brother did everything to get me cured. We also visited many religious places and offered prayers. In my family, there has been no family history of Vitiligo The people whom I have known closely were always supportive.
Most of the times, I felt as if I was unnecessarily sympathized and after one point I couldn’t stand sympathy. I soon realized my own worth and it changed my perspective entirely. I started focusing on improving myself in every way possible and adopted new habits like cycling, meditation and swimming which gave me a lot of relaxation though am still a work in progress.
I had unexpected life changes too. I faced rejections, stigma and I faced a very major loss. I lost my brother. What I am trying to say here is that, I have faced certain situations very closely. I felt, when I can survive certain aspects then why should I let anything bother me anyway. We all are blessed in many ways and I decided to focus on what I can do.
I bet you, If Vitiligo wouldn’t have happened to me then I wouldn’t have been this strong of a person which I have become over the years. It gave me an entire new perspective about life and more importantly a beautiful perspective of how I look at myself and everyone around me.
I decided and wanted to self-advocate Vitiligo. This video is very special to me and I have put a lot of effort into this. It has taken me around 3 years to implement. I am thankful to everyone who were part of this.
Co-incidentally, I met my husband just 2 weeks after the completion of the shoot of this video and we got married within the next 6 months. He doesn't have Vitiligo. It was an arranged marriage and this exactly happened when I completely stopped worrying about anything much and my complete focus was finding what I wanted to do in my life. Everything naturally fell into place. I did have my doubts which is very natural but I kept going with a hope that everything is for a reason.
Hope this strikes the right chord with you. This video was shot an year ago.
To add further,
I have undergone many treatments and my parents have tried all sorts of treatments.
To name a few- Phototherapy (Narrowband UVB/UVA) - Partially successful in my case.
Skin Grafting, Punch Grafting, Melanocyte Transplantation and many more treatments including Homeopathy, Ayurveda & Allopathy. Success of most of the treatments depends on an individual and varies from one person to another.
Facts
• Vitiligo affects around 1-2% of the world’s population.
• Vitiligo is often mistaken with Albinism.
• The difference in vitiligo and Leucoderma is only their onset. Vitiligo is self-generated while Leucoderma can occur after a cut, a burn or after allergy from some chemical.
Famous Personalities who had/have vitiligo - Source (Wikipedia)
To name a few, Michael Jackson. (“King of Pop”),Justice P.Sathasivam (23rd Governor of Kerala), Winnie Harlow (Canadian Fashion Model).
“Life will bless you, test you and get you through many experiences just to build you, so that you can fulfill the purpose of your life.”
For Credits, refer the video.
Music |
FairyTale Waltz by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
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