Lichen sclerosus

The skin grows thinner. It turns pale, almost white, as if the colour is draining from it. Itching, tension, sometimes fissures — in places of your body that are profoundly intimate. Lichen sclerosus transforms the tissue as if it is contracting, hardening, closing. Medicine speaks of a chronic inflammatory skin condition, of autoimmune processes, of tissue changes that should be monitored and treated.

But when you look deeper, a pattern reveals itself that goes beyond the skin's surface. Your skin — especially in these vulnerable places — is responding to something that has been at work within you for a long time. Not as punishment, not as coincidence, but as a signal that wants to be heard.