Living with Vitiligo, Ramya J Christina from Chennai, India is inspiring people to rise above their insecurities and be comfortable in their own skin.
As she has embraced vitiligo as a part of her life and not afraid anymore to show off her patchy skin, now she is on a mission to help those who are still struggling to come to terms with vitiligo.
Having studied visual communication, she is a short filmmaker and aspires to be a director. She has always been passionate about filmmaking and aspires to educate, entertain and inspire the viewers with her films to help create a more thriving society that welcomes diversity and inclusion.
But, along with that, she is up for trying her hands with modeling as well because it is such a powerful tool to raise awareness about vitiligo and to motivate the fellow vitiligo community.
“When I saw Willie Harlow for the first time, I felt incredibly empowered. Also, I can see the positive impact of her rise in world fashion in normalizing vitiligo. My close friends believe that I can also create a similar kind of impact and trust me, there would be nothing more satisfying to me if I can help people gain confidence. So, I am considering modeling as a career option to spread love and confidence among all. 10 years down the line, you should not be surprised if I become a successful entrepreneur, filmmaker and a famous model.”
Her childhood was painful due to lack of vitiligo awareness
Vitiligo affects around 1% of the world’s population and is often a misjudged skin condition. Due to the ignorance and lack of awareness surrounding it, many people have the notion of it being contagious.
During childhood, many of the parents would not allow their children to play with her fearing vitiligo being a communicable issue. Even the teachers used to discriminate with me. I was not allowed to have opportunities just like other children in the school. When travelling in the bus, I would see people adjusting their dress to avoid having a skin contact with me.
“As a small child, I just didn’t know that I should share about these incidences with my family. Even when I grew up, I avoided sharing much with the family fearing negative consequences or just because of my own insecurities.”
Ramya went through a lot of treatments of all kinds
Her family started treatments when she was just around 5 years old. She or her family had no idea that what happened or why this happened in the first place.
She recalls that when she would take a treatment, the vitiligo spreading would stop for some time and once she stop taking treatment, vitiligo would start spreading at a faster speed. So, basically the treatments were suppressing the symptoms temporarily.
In short, none of the treatments worked for her.
Instead, all these kinds of ‘experiments’ with her body caused some serious side effects. Now, that she has stopped taking medicines for a long time, she is still dealing with some of the side effects. For instance, her digestive health is not up to the mark and she does struggle with gut issues sometimes.
When medicines and creams didn’t work, she tried UV light therapy continuously for 2 years. Gradually, she started feeling weaker and weaker. When she visited a doctor for help, it was revealed that her body’s hemoglobin level was quite low certainly due to the prolonged expose to UV light.
That was the last thing she tried to treat vitiligo and thereafter, she decided not to harm her body anymore with more experiments.
According to Ramya, the UV light treatment was the most painful among all the stuffs she tried to treat vitiligo. She would visit the hospital twice a week for this 5 minute treatment and it was something like putting her skin literally on fire. It used to hurt a lot.
Ramya refuses to take vitiligo as a problem or disease
For her, the vitiligo patches make her unique, special and beautifully different as she stand out from the rest.
View this post on Instagram
When asked if she have ever wondered or wished for a solution, her answer gives a glimpse of her positive mindset and level of self-acceptance.
“Let me put it this way. I already have two hands just like everybody else. What if I want one more hand? Or another leg or ear? There’s no solution for such a wish, right? Just like the case with my skin. I’m just this way, just like anybody else but with a patchy skin and I am completely comfortable being this way. So I don’t really want a solution for this to be honest.”
Modeling to promote vitiligo awareness and body positivity
It took a lot of effort and time for her to let go of the emotional baggage of the past and accept herself. Now that she has realized that true beauty lies in loving yourself unconditionally, there is no looking back for her.
When she saw unique models like Winnie Harlow and others representing their skin conditions in a positive light, she decided to become a model as well because she can be a source of inspiration for many for sure.
Encouraged by the appreciation she has received so far, she is taking modeling as a serious career option.
When I walked on the ramp for the first time, I can remember some of the people looked at me awkwardly, you know like giving me that stare. But those negative things didn’t bother me as I have learnt the art of ignoring them for good. But then some people came to me and personally appreciated me and my ‘flawless’ beautiful skin, I just felt like I’m on the moon. I was like ‘oh yeah, give me more of these appreciations.’ 🙂
Ramya aspires to be as influential as Winnie Harlow, and become an outspoken activist for the vitiligo community spreading self-love and motivation.
No matter how different a person looks, no one else has the right to make that person feel ugly or unattractive. Let’s be supportive of each other; if you cannot motivate, at least don’t demotivate someone!
Meet all the Kings and Queens with Skin Conditions
Get access to the life stories of amazing people with skin conditions
Thank you for joining the community.
Something went wrong.
[…] is not your average model you casually see on the billboards, but he himself is a work of […]