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Besides that, Cooley 19221902 says that individual’s personality is not simply who that person actually are or what people actually think about; it is
based on the perception of how other people think of that person. As the first problem of study on this paper, the author uses a question of what the problems of
the vitiligo victims from the psychological and sociological aspects. Here, the author would like to describe into two parts.
3.1 The Psychological Problems
As the author has explained on the background of study, mostly the vitiligo victims have the same problems of psychology aspect as on condition of
mentally down, that is a condition of lose the self-confidence in front of other, very depressed as a condition of having a very low spirit in mind, very stressful,
and feeling very bad among other people. Bhaskar says, “Vitiligo gave an awkward feeling when I was in a public place. I found myself nowhere. Selecting
clothes was a tough job, getting a good photograph was even tougher. It becomes stressful when it comes to issues like finding a partner, meeting people in a new
environment, etc. Though it is not contagious at times find it difficult to accept us. We are just as common as other people.” The vitiligo victims feel that people are
focusing on their skin color disease on their body when talk with them. And the author believes that sometimes this perception was simply wrong and sometimes
is simply right. The most commonly part that happened in the vitiligo victims as
psychological problem is stress.
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Stress affects human in many ways. And indeed, all of people must have ever faced or are facing stress in life. It can be a condition on being over-loaded
with work, dealing with a difficult situation, or being frustrated in an unhappy relationship, and many other things, including the affecting of vitiligo. It may
increase the risk to get ill, or even it may directly cause illness, or it may make less able to recover from a disease, and it may reduce the ability to cope with
future stress. And that is something threaten or challenge that human need to get over through as wise as people could do. For example, without stress, human
might not be sufficiently motivated to complete the activities they need to accomplish. However, it is also clear that too much stress can take a victim on
physical and psychological health. Sometimes, stress is useful but extreme stress often leads to serious health
problems. Stress is a normal part of life—and, of course, an absolutely poor part of life.
As like the author has described that the immune systems are responsible for the condition of vitiligo. The vitiligo victims often fell stressful with a
condition that happened on them. Indeed, stress and the immune system are closely related. Stress is the causing of the weakened of the immune system.
When a person is in the alarm or exhaustion stage, for example, the immune system functions poorly, and, of course, in this stage the strange material, such as
bacteria and viruses are likelier to multiply and cause disease. Among the vitiligo victims there is the most psychology problem as a
personality factor in making them become so much stress with the unusual skin
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condition. In psychology, it is called as the Type A behavior. One of the Type A
behaviors is mostly having by the vitiligo victims is impatient. The vitiligo
victims expects the repigmentation, the process of getting back the normal skin color as soon as possible, but indeed, it takes a very long time to get
repigmentation fully for the skin color for vitiligo, this is, of course, causing the more stressful condition for them for the expectation is opposite with the reality.
Look at this statement one of the vitiligians on World Vitiligo Day-June 25
th
page on facebook, Christina Alvarado. Christina Alvarado says, “I have a hard time accepting my condition, when I see others that are accepting it changes
my outlook on life. Thank you to all who share your photos and information. It is helpful to others like me.” On this statement, of course, it shows that Christina
Alvarado has a very hard psychology problem in her life of accepting her condition which leads her on a very high stressful condition.
Rotua Meyly gave her experience to be shared on this paper. Rotua Meyly did not have vitiligo since was born until junior high school. But when entered
senior high school, grade one, semester two at the age of fifteenth, the vitiligo started to appear on her upper lip, until now in college at the age of twentiethone.
It has been for almost 6 years Rotua Meyly suffering vitiligo. And after three years of having vitiligo, it got spreading on my face from little to the big one, but
it has been stopped spreading on my face until now.
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Here is what she said: “What will you feel if you are trying not to be yourself? I meant trying to hide from what you are not, by covering something to
hide your imperfection? It is all about the tiredness that comes up on the fury heart. Everybody does not want to be someone that they are not, because the best
way to know ourselves is to be ourselves, just the way we are. I had been ever on a mentally down, do not want to go outside on a crowded place, I make space for
myself, I build up a big and tall wall between me and the world. I do not love myself, the condition that I have, the skin that I have on my face. But the time is
let me learn and my family father, mother, and brother, my friends, and my bestfriend who always give support to me. And the most powerful hand that help
and strengthen me when I am afraid, when I am weak, when I feel bad about myself, He always there for me, God is strengthen me. He loves me so much, that
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I never saw for long time that make me lost of myself. It is exist for myself, I got tired to be not myself, to cover my skin disease, to get it blurt by something that
can make it same as like my normal skin color, I hated it much, I hated to cover it up. I cannot do that along and always every time I want to go somewhere, every
time I want to look more confident in front of others, and every time I try harder to hide it, at that time also I get more and more tired to do that. I sometimes feel to
have an escaping the world of me, me, me, and only me, is there such as that world? Sadly, there is no that kind of world in reality such as like that. Sometimes
people whisper near to me and accidentally made me hear what they are talking about. They are talking about what is wrong with my face. And it makes me sad
inside of my heart, it makes me uncomfortable towards people. Vitiligo victims are a very sensitive one. Just act normally towards us. I don’t need to have a life-
threatening experience to start bringing meaning into my life, but something that I have to do is to know it itself. Trying to have more positive than negative
emotions is the best way that I have done for myself, although it is not so easy as we thought, but live in meaningful life is better, indeed. Avoiding covering my
vitiligo is the best part that I have done for myself.”
3.2 The Sociological Problems
