Hailey Borg’s skin has “disgusted” her, and she has hated everything about it for her 15 years of life – until she recently found the courage to post raw and revealing images of her eczema on Instagram.

The student has been suffering from the skin condition, characterised by patches of roughness, inflammation, blisters, itching and blood, since she was six months old.

But it goes beyond the physical scars. Throughout her life, eczema has made her lonely. “I felt I was the only one struggling with it. It made me hate everything I have. It made me despise looking at myself in the mirror,” she said.

The struggle with eczema is that, some days, it is like you have nothing, and the next, you have a flare-up, Hailey explains.

There have been periods where the condition has improved, but it was either due to the steroids or antibiotics.

Mention any remedy and she has been there, done that. In 15 years, she has tried everything under the sun to improve her condition. And at some points, she has also given up on using anything – so tired was she of trying to treat it and seeing no progress at all. 

“My skin has made me feel disgusted about myself. It has made me hate everything about it since it was such a hopeless case,” Hailey admits.

“I think my lowest point was covering my eczema with clothes; trying to avoid wearing anything that would expose it and hating the fact that others could wear what I was unable to.

“It meant that, even in school, I had to wear the uniform trousers and not the skirt. I thought it was something no one should ever see, because if they did, they would judge and shame me.”

Hailey was in lockdown during the pandemic – a period that did not do wonders for her mental health – when she decided to post the warts-and-all pictures.

“I suffer from anxiety and it made me scratch even more. Eventually, I had to take steroids since my skin also got infected.”

That day, she was going through Instagram and her whole feed was just the usual string of bikini models, with perfect skin.

I was terrified to press ‘share’ because I was scared people would judge me, but to my surprise, they didn’t

“I wanted to change this,” she recalls.

Something came over her and she decided to try to take some pictures of her eczema. Later, she opted to post them.

But it was not a decision she took lightly.

On the contrary, it was a huge step for her self-confidence as she pushed herself out of her comfort zone, exposing her biggest insecurity for everyone to see.

“I wanted to change for myself and maybe for others,” she said.

“I wanted to spread awareness that people like me should not feel the way I did.”

It took Hailey a while to take the plunge.

She went back and forth on the idea of posting the pictures. And when she did, she expected a normal reaction, meaning a few ‘likes’ and comments before calling it a day.

“I was terrified to press ‘share’ because I was scared people would judge me, but to my surprise, they didn’t,” she said.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. Hailey says she was flooded with messages from people struggling with the same condition.

In her own words in that first life-changing Instagram post @hailey.bailey101: “I am not doing this to gain followers or ‘likes’; I’m doing it for myself… yes, I have eczema and, yes, it is hard to live with, but it is a part of who I am and because of that I am going to love it too.”

Since then, she has embarked on the journey towards self-love she never thought she would; and it is still mind-blowing to her that people are following this.

“I intend to help them too,” she said.

The feedback has encouraged Hailey to keep on posting pictures, spread awareness and talk about taboo subjects. She has also started a blog about the road to self-love, mental health and other “topics that society has told us to keep quiet about”.