My Vitiligo and Scientific Reasoning

How does vitiligo influence the everyday life of an ordinary 16-year-old girl living in New York? Is there any scientific reasoning behind it?

While the first question may seem oddly specific to ask, it had run through my brain a thousand times as a kid—I just changed the number each year. It never occurred to me that people couldn’t see the outsiders splayed on my lower body like a wretched snow tattoo. In my mind, these patches didn’t exist. I had almost forgotten about them completely.

At some point, my vitiligo became just another part of me, like the freckles on someone else’s skin or the birthmark on my cousin’s arm. It wasn’t something I thought about every day, nor was it something I actively tried to hide. And for a while, it stayed that way—until someone reminded me of its existence.

It always started the same way: a casual comment, an offhand observation, something that wasn’t meant to be mean but still made me hyper-aware of the thing I had worked so hard to ignore.

“Oh, your hair is turning grey?”

“Is that a bruise on your leg?”

“What happened to your skin?”

The words themselves weren’t cruel, but they carried a weight I wasn’t ready to hold. I’d laugh, shrug, or pretend I didn’t hear. But internally, it was like a mirror I had turned away from was suddenly shoved back in my face. My mind would spiral, replaying the moment over and over until embarrassment settled into something deeper—detachment.

At first, I thought I was just becoming indifferent. Maybe I had finally grown out of caring what people thought. But it wasn’t indifference. It was something else entirely: a conscious choice to ignore a part of myself because acknowledging it meant reopening wounds I didn’t want to deal with.

The Science Behind Ignoring What Hurts

Psychologists call this perceptual habituation, a process where the brain gradually stops responding to stimuli that are repeatedly experienced. It’s why you stop noticing the ticking of a clock in your room or the feeling of your socks against your skin. Your brain decides that the information isn’t important, so it pushes it to the background.

The same thing happens with emotional experiences. When we are repeatedly exposed to something distressing—whether it's a painful memory, a personal insecurity, or even an unwanted aspect of ourselves—our brains can train us to ignore it. This is a coping mechanism known as emotional numbing, often seen in people who experience chronic stress, anxiety, or trauma.

For me, ignoring my vitiligo wasn’t just about not seeing the patches on my skin. It was about not thinking about what they meant. It was about not dwelling on the way people looked at me a second longer than necessary or the unspoken questions they might have had. My brain had learned that acknowledging my condition meant dealing with discomfort, so it did what it was wired to do—it tuned it out.

But the thing about emotional numbing is that it doesn’t just make you ignore the bad. It makes you ignore the good, too.

From Embarrassment to Detachment

At some point, I realized I was detaching from more than just my vitiligo. I was detaching from the curiosity I once had about it, from the way I used to search for answers about my condition, hoping to understand it better. I was detaching from conversations where I could have explained what vitiligo was instead of brushing it off with a joke.

I had stopped looking at myself too closely in mirrors. I didn’t spend time staring at the patches, trying to see if they had changed. I had built an entire system around not thinking about it, and for a while, I convinced myself that it was working.

But the truth is, ignoring something doesn’t make it go away. It just gives it more power over you.

The Biology of Vitiligo: Why Does It Happen?

Vitiligo is an autoimmune disorder, which means my immune system mistakenly attacks the melanocytes responsible for producing pigment in my skin. Scientists still don’t fully understand why this happens, but they suspect it’s a combination of genetics, environmental triggers, and immune system dysfunction.

Some theories suggest that vitiligo could be linked to oxidative stress, a condition where the body has an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants, leading to cellular damage. Others point to a connection between vitiligo and the nervous system, with some researchers believing that certain stress-related chemicals may contribute to the destruction of melanocytes.

Interestingly, stress itself can make vitiligo worse. Cortisol, the hormone released when we’re anxious or under pressure, has been shown to impact immune function, potentially accelerating depigmentation. It’s a frustrating cycle: stress about vitiligo can worsen vitiligo, which in turn creates more stress.

But while science can explain the mechanisms behind vitiligo, it doesn’t prepare you for the emotional impact. It doesn’t tell you how to handle the stares or the unsolicited comments. It doesn’t teach you how to exist in a world where people are wired to notice differences.

Learning to Acknowledge, Not Ignore

I’m still figuring out what it means to live with vitiligo—not just physically, but mentally. Some days, I feel completely at peace with it. Other days, I catch my reflection and feel a pang of something I can’t quite name.

But what I do know is that pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t the answer. Ignoring something doesn’t erase it. It just delays the moment you’ll have to face it. And maybe facing it is the only way to truly move forward.

I don’t want to live my life constantly flinching at the thought of someone pointing out my vitiligo. Instead, I want to reclaim the narrative. I want to be able to explain what vitiligo is with confidence, not embarrassment.

I want to reach a point where my vitiligo isn’t something I have to remind myself to accept—it’s just something that exists, like my eye color or the shape of my hands.

Science can explain why my skin looks the way it does. Psychology can explain why I react the way I do. But in the end, the way I choose to see myself is up to me.

And maybe that’s the most important thing of all.