WEBVTT

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I would describe myself as caring, as funny and

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I've always been out there ever since I was younger

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. My name is Jenn McAllister and I'm a youtuber

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and an actress. I started making YouTube videos when

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I was 12 years old. It was pretty early

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on to the whole platform. I share my entire

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life with essentially strangers. I feel like I have

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this connection with these people, but I've definitely experienced

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some negative comments that people can beat me online.

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Everyone on the internet puts out this perfect version of

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themselves. There are some things that I like to

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keep to myself. I feel like it's important to

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have that boundary line. Something that people might not

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know about me is that I have psoriasis, psoriasis

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is an autoimmune disease that basically causes these red patchy

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scaly areas on your skin. I tend to get

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these patches on my joints, like my elbows,

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my knees, I haven't run my ankles. It's

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really closely linked to stress. I think I noticed

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it for the first time around three or four years

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ago, I didn't really think it was like anything

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until it started becoming painful. It just became an

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insecurity of mine insecurities can be so big. It

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feels like when you don't like something about yourself that

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every single person you interact with is noticing it.

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About two years after I first found out that I

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have psoriasis, I decided to reply to someone's comment

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. Someone basically asked me why are your elbows so

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red and I replied and I said I have psoriasis

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. The replies to that comment weren't as bad as

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I thought. Instead, I had people telling me

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that they also had psoriasis. It was nice to

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have this support and like a group of people that

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you can talk to who have a shared experience when

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my psoriasis flares up, it feels like my body

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is sounding an alarm too. Take care of myself

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. There's a lot of things that I do to

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manage stress. I meditate, I have a better

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diet now. I also try and get a lot

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of sleep. I realized how important it is to

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really spend time with yourself, have time where you're

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not always connected to social media, having self compassion

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with myself and understanding that at the end of the

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day it is an autoimmune disease, can't really control

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that coming on. I think it's important to talk

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about it and educate people and the stigma. I

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just hope that we can all be a little bit

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more compassionate with one another.