Thread by @Cernovich

9 years ago, almost to the day, is me on the left and on the right is me today.

Here’s what I learned by having a horrific autoimmune disease which made my skin tear merely by moving:

Throughout my life, beginning in about the third grade, I developed eczema. I'd get red patches of skin on my face, kids would call me "herpes face." I got into a lot of fights. Anyhow we couldn't afford a dermatologist, so I live with it and then outgrew. Or so I thought....

In my early 20's I developed small red patches again. They didn't bother me, but the person I dated insisted on my going to a dermatologist.

I'd get topical steroids, started mild at 2% cortisone.

The patches would go away and I'd stop using cream.

Once I started training BJJ in a gi (late 20's), I'd get red patches all over my body.

No big deal, the dermatologist gave me creams. I used them. Red patches went away.

No side effects were mentioned....

The more I used the creams, the more staph infections I'd get. I had to stop training BJJ as I would get little "bullet holes" in my skin. The stronger antibiotics worked less. I saw a picture of Kevin Randleman after MRSA and that was it.

I'd still use cortisone, and then...

The topical steroids stopped working.

I’d get stronger prescriptions.

I’d apply the cream under my eyes and on my eyelids, the creams worked.

Until my skin would get more red than BEFORE using the creams.

What was going on?

I would shed what felt my entire scalp a day. Chunks of dead dry skin.

Dermatologists (at this point I kept seeing different ones) put me on Clobetasol shampoo.

I almost screamed in pain as it felt like needles went through every part of my scalp. Entire head was buring.

When you can't sleep because you claw through your skin and wake up with blood on the sheets, you go to every doctor and allergist you can find.

One eventually put me on the strongest topical steroids and oral prednisone.

I felt AMAZING.

Until I lost my vision.

Driving home from work at 8 p.m., and by then it was dark out, the entire road blurred. I couldn't see cars in front of me. My vision was failing.

What the hell was happening?

I went online and saw side effects of prednisone

- Night blindness.

No dermatologist told me prednisone could make me lose my vision or affect my mood. Nor did they tell me that moving on to stronger topical steroids would make my skin require even stronger ones. Forever.

I was miserable, tried everything, nothing worked.

My skin got worse.

I then found a website about Topical Steroid Withdrawal, also called Red Skin Syndrome.

I checked every box
- Mild eczema to moderate then severe,
- Told "you have allergies but we don't know which one,"
- Stronger topical steroids prescribed,
- Prednisone,
- Redder skin.

The only cure for Red Skin Syndrome?

Complete cessation of all topical steroids.

I read it would get "bad," but had no idea that this would happen:

Before I stopped all topical steroids, I tried everything:

- Every "remedy" you can suggest,
- Dietary restriction, even total fasting,
- Wet wrap (where you double layer in wet clothes),
- Gloves on hands,
- Bleach baths.

Nothing worked.

Hence the drastic remedy of cessation.

What's it like when your skin peels off when you move?

This isn't an exaggeration.

Here's what my next would look like after I lifted weights.

And then the sweat would pour into that...

I remember my last workout after I stopped using the medications. I felt "off." Went home, woke up, couldn't get out of bed. Every part of my body ached. My skin started pulsating.

We all start off in a place in life, some higher and others lower. When I got sick, I was on top of the world. Had lots of money, handsome,

Then I lost my health and looked like a ghoul.

Before people would smile at me, people would look through me, or away from me.

When you are horrifically ugly, as I objectively was, people don't point or laugh. They look away or down. It's as if you don't exist. You're invisible, as if you shouldn't exist or don't exist.

What did I do?

Honestly, and Shauna can tell you this.... I did what I tell others to do.

I couldn't go to the gym, but I could walk down one flight of stairs, and take the elevator back up.

That's how I got out of bed, by walking down one set of stairs.

One set of stairs down, elevator up.

Then two sets of stairs down, elevator up.

Finally more flights of stairs down, then I'd walk up a flight, and elevator up.

For about 4 weeks, that was my "training."

From there I started walking around the block.

The trick was that I couldn't sweat, because my entire body had tears in them.

Ever hear about "salt in the wound."

Sweat contains salt, and my entire body was an open wound.

Then I got a weight vest, walked early in the morning when it was cold outside. That solved the problem of sweating into an open full body sore. It got me some movement, and I listened to audiobooks. (Ben Franklin by Walter Issacon is good.)

My skin was f-cked up to varying degrees for years, and flares would come and go. Randomly. I might wake up looking almost normal. Three hours later I'd be a Red Man Syndrome again.

What would you choose - excruciating pain or an itch that feels it's below your skin, and that you have to claw through your arms to get?

I chose pain.

Hot showers would release endorphins.

I leaned into the water, and whimpered.

Oh it hurt.

While going through the pain and losing my health, I asked myself why God was doing this. And what I could learn from it.

One day it came to me, "Spiritual growth is physically painful."

This was a lesson to me, a mockery of all of my vanity and narcissism and glibness.

I used to judge people harshly. Everyone in my world is strong or weak.

That's how I saw the world. You are strong and persevere, or you are weak and you are overcome.

God showed me what it meant to be weak, and I felt great humiliation for the disdain I felt towards others.

God showed me that when you lose your body, you can lose your mind, too. Or you can focus on the spiritual message.

Hardship isn't fair, it's randomly distributed, and no amount of crying will solve it.

We must look within.

Not to break the fourth wall, I like that people don't like me and consider me a villain, but the vanity stuff I post now is all an act. I pretend to be the guy I used to be. A fuck boi with a lot of money.

It's a lot of fun to watch people fall for it.

It's my inside joke. "You people really think I care about this stuff. Oh my God." Maybe that's my own remaining immaturity. Maybe I should play a different role. Or maybe I can enjoy finding joy reflecting on my past suffering.

When we suffer, that's objective. It's out of our hands. Pain is real. At some level we all break.

How we suffer, that is our choice.

How I chose to suffer involved a conversation with God, and a look at my haughtiness. I judged others are weak, and here I was, weak. Pathetic, unable to move. And before so quick to judge, as if we ever know what others are going through.

Suffering was, for me, an opportunity for reflection and spiritual growth.

- "Spiritual growth is physically painful."

I'd repeat that over and over as my skin tore and pain refused to relent.

In some ways being in excruciating pain made life easier.

Going to the gym hurts, f*ck it I hurt anyway, who cares lol.

I never thought I'd say *this*.

There is value in Surrender.

Surrendering to the pain, to the moment, to our lack of choice.

And to keep going.

How do you surrender to God's will while living in Man's world?

That's not something I've figured out yet, and think of it often.

God doesn't want us to suffer, but does want us to learn from suffering, to evolve, to find Spirt.

We must Surrender yet find a way to Move.

Even if you don't think God is real (you're wrong but that's OK I was once wrong, too), there's a place within you called Spirit.

Something deep inside, most of us never have to go there, because only great physical pain can lead the way.

You find yourself there - in Spirit.

Spirit is a place most of us don't find in this life, because the path there is one of pain, not of a broken bone, but of deep agony and sorrow. The kind of pain we don't wish on others. The kind of pain we avoid. The kind of pain we should avoid.

I'm can't reconcile the problem of evil, read C.S. Lewis for that.

What I know is that you have inside yourself Spirit.

Somewhere Godly or ancestral, call it what you like.

I hope you never feel the kind of pain it takes to get there, and pray for your strength if you do.