My name is ,Carmen Garcia and I'm 22 years old. I was diagnosed with vitiligo at the age of 12. At the time, I thought, "eh," and I just proceeded on with my life as normal. I was still going to school, crushing on boys, playing sports, played in the band/chorus, etc. The vitiligo progressed pretty quickly onto my arms and my face. As soon as people began to notice the vitiligo on my arms and my face, I started covering up with long sleeves. After that, it was years until my arms felt the breeze on them again. While it got easier in high school, I still always kept wearing long sleeves undern ..read more

Melissa Van Gent Miss December Vitiligo Awareness Calendar 2021 When I was sixteen years old, I got diagnosed with Vitiligo. You know… The thing that Made Michael Jackson turn white. It started out with just a few white spots on my hands, but within a year, so-called lesions formed around my eyes. Throughout the years, vitiligo has been spreading all over my body. In my case it is paired with a thyroid condition, so I need medication every day to keep my body functioning normally. The thing about vitiligo is, that even though it’s a skin disease, it is mostly a mental condition. Luckily the w ..read more

This time of the year always has me nostalgic and at the same time very grateful. I have to admit that it hasn't been easy and I have been learning how let go and not to be so hard on myself. I usually have the habit of overwhelming myself. Always with things to do, classes to attend, overloading my self with work, etc. but a couple of days ago I decided that a little break and deep breath was very necessary. I wish I could say that I put my self first and that is why I decided it was time to do so, but no. It was actually something that somebody said to me that made me realize that I had to ..read more

A couple of days ago I had a dream where I saw my grandmother again. I was telling her all about my Vitiligo project and how amazed I was with the way it connected me with people, and just living my condition in a way I never imagined before. But now that I think about it, I am not sure it was just a dream. I want to believe she was actually here and that it was a real conversation, even if it was just in my head. Having her this present in my mind, reminded me about something somebody told me before. But first, I have to share with you that my grandmother also had Vitiligo. I am not sure at w ..read more

Roses are red violets are blue You don’t know me But I have a cure for you I know I’m not the only one who has been advised by random strangers - and just about everyone else- of a way to “get rid of that”. Vitiligo. *Pause for dramatic effect on the awkward moment when you tell them you actually like it. Vitiligo is something I have had and tried to “cure” since ‘97. And when I finally accepted that I couldn’t “fix it”, I made it a mission to cover wherever vitiligo was visible, and it began to be the deciding factor on a lot of things. The last few years is when I started to understand the ..read more

I have lived my vitiligo mostly with love and acceptance. I grew up with the most amazing people who made me feel awesome everyday and believed that my uniqueness was something to be proud of. To be honest, most of the time I don’t pay attention to people staring or making any comments to my skin. I can’t say it doesn’t happen, but I just don’t notice it. I really don’t think about it too much, I even forget sometimes it's there. But since I got a new spot on my neck, a lot of insecurities and feelings came back that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I know that feeling happy and positive all the ..read more

I have been noticing new patches of vitiligo appearing on my skin lately. At first, I admit I was a little annoyed – I just got used to all the other ones after 20 odd years – but I named him Frankie and I’m feeling a little better now. Even after having vitiligo all these years, there are still times where I wear clothing that is covering the patches, so I can avoid conversations or interactions of any kind. Sometimes I still revert to the little girl who hid herself. It’s a constant battle. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you everything is fine now and I live my life without insecuritie ..read more

These couple of weeks with summer being back, I realized something different within me and I believe it reflects on how other people look at my vitiligo. I have to be honest and say that there were days during summer that I would struggle with people staring at my legs while wearing a dress or shorts. Of course, there are days that I can’t care less, but I also have days where I feel like turning around and asking, “what are you looking at?!” Eventhough, I know that its giving more importance to people than needed. But I realized lately that something within me changed. Maybe being more consc ..read more

Today we will share a beautiful catching vitiligo story by Nóra Kertész. Nóra (20) is a young woman living in the beautiful city Érd in Hungary. Today she will share her personal vitiligo story with the intention to inspire every reader, no matter where you are located! I was only 6 years old when me and my family realised that white patches appeared on my skin. Plenty of doctors tried to help, but they said it is a very new thing and the medicine is yet undeveloped. It was really hard during kindergarten and after that in school as well. My classmates did not understand what this is. I was s ..read more

Living with vitiligo since 1997, I have been advised of many types of therapies to help deal with the issues that followed; whether that be physically, emotionally, mentally etc. The one thing I found that helped the most was through art. Falling in love with art wasn’t hard to do; my mother was always singing and writing poetry, my grandfather was a journalist, an author and always sang to us, my grandmother a seamstress, and lets not get started with the art of food – our home always smelled of love! I have been so blessed to be born in a family full of creative minds and hands that build. I ..read more