The Sociological Problems THE STEPS OF OVERCOMING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

17 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

Sociology is a science that given a valuable part of giving the self- understanding and self-improvement in various situation, but for the vitiligo victims mostly having sociological problems in their life and it gave really bad self-understanding and self-improvement for themselves. Sociology becomes a fail science for the vitiligo victims as mostly they have sociological problems in 18 their life, as like life style, having communication or interaction with people, and also a social life around society. People cannot understand the real feeling of the vitiligo victims have in their life. Mostly friends and family members support to be always act common towards people. The vitiligo victims are trying to do it, but sometimes it is hard for them to act natural towards people especially for the vitiligo victims who have vitiligo on their face. The feeling of bad is there on their mind, the feeling of being the center of attention is real. Monika Solone commented one of the vitiligo victim’ status on Facebook. Monika Solone says, “I have vitiligo for eight years and still getting used to change everyday. It is taking over my body faster. I still have same feeling as in beginning when people look at me what they see. Is it me or my colorless’ skin. I am not going to lie. It does bother me. But there is nothing I can do to make it go away. I will have to live with it for rest of my life. I will have to get used to all the locks and curiosity. Most people stare at me I tell myself they are not aware or education for vitiligo. No one has right to judge. Because they are also not perfect. Worst part of autoimmune is so many side effects and vitiligo is just one of them. I comfort myself saying it could me life threatening decease, what I have is just social decease. I hope you stay strong. Welcome to the group.” See, on Monika Solone statement, there is a statement a distress and depression of her feeling “But there is nothing I can do to make it go away.” A deep feeling inside of her is want to get cure from vitiligo is always what the vitiligo victims expecting, but vitiligo is a hard skin disease to get cure, need a very high patient to cure it. 19 Many the vitiligo victims choose to avoid crowded or people who gathering in one place because they think that it will hurt themselves by getting much awkward attention and being the topic of talking off. This, of course, makes the vitiligo victims far away from the highest purposes of sociology itself. Some people are even scare to see the vitiligo victims, maybe because some think that the skin disease will be getting spread by having contact them. The vitiligo victims do understand others feeling that do not want to get affected too as like the changing of the skin color, but all of people mostly have a point of view is a misconception. Vitiligo is not spreading kind of disease by having contact with. It is just spreading on the body of the sufferer. As one of the vitiligo victims’ statement that he shared off on community of VitiligoWorldDay in Facebook, Anandharaj Ganesan says, “Though I suffered a lot with vitiligo, I respect, love and care for people who genuinely accept me as one amongst them and I never bother about people who comment on my features. I always wanted to be unique in whatever I do. I am a volunteer of “For Being Better India” project to serve rural people. Social service gives me a positive energy to build myself. I would like to convey that vitiligo is a de-pigmentation of skin, it is just a disorder. It won’t spread by accepting foods, physical touch or working with vitiligo affected people .” So, do not run away from the vitiligo victims. The vitiligo victims are not people who need to be distanced off, they are still as like normal people. The vitiligo victims are different just because of the white pale patches of the skin color on the body. It is just about the skin not more than that. “We are not the skin 20 we live in, we are so much more. We live in a body that contains the real person we truly are. Our skin and all that is behind our physical holders is just a carrier. We have a soul that represents our true essence.”- Anonyms. The vitiligo victims need to blend and have to gather with other people. So, act normal towards the vitiligo victims is the best thing that readers can do. As the second problem of study on this paper, the author uses a question of what the vitiligians have done to manage and overcome the skin disease and the problems. A stressful condition will only be reduced when a person successfully copes with it. Successful coping is engaged with a number of factors, including engage in problem-focused coping, use positive self-talk, seek social support, and practice relaxation. These engage in psychology part.

3.3 The Steps of Managing the Skin Disease