High school wasn’t easy for Ash Soto.
But things started changing as she grew up.
When Soto was 12, she noticed a spot of discoloredskinon her neck.
Ash Soto/Instagram
Vitiligo triggers when someone’s immune system starts destroying their melanocytes (the cells that produce pigment).
The condition isn’t contagious or dangerous, and its causes are largely unknown.
Because of this, Soto spent much of her adolescence hiding her body, afraid to go outside.
She developed socialanxiety, lost friends, and constantly worried about not fitting in with her classmates.
A few months ago, Soto started doing something she calls “Marker Chronicles.”
She grabbed a marker and traced the lines of her vitiligoturning her skin into a beautiful work of art.
“It’s like having natural tie-dye,“she wrotein her first Marker Chronicles post.
Once again, the encouragement rolled in.
“I started getting so many messages of people doing the same thing,” Soto says.
And that desire to promote self-love is really what drives each of Soto’s posts.
“I wasn’t fitting in.
Peoplemade fun of meto the point where I would cry myself to sleep every night.”
“I’d go outside, and I think everyone was staring at me,” she says.
“I pretty much didn’t want to do anything.”
Herdepressiongot so bad she even contemplatedsuicide.
“I just didn’t want to be in the skin that I was in,” she says.
But one day, she began to accept the fact that her vitiligo was a permanent part of her.
So I started doing little things.”
Soto would take out a piece of paper and write down three thingsshe loved about herselfeach day.
She stopped comparing herself to the seemingly flawless girls and women she was seeing on Instagram.
She would look in the mirror and tell herself she was beautiful, and she started wearing shorts outside.
“It’s part of me.”
These days, Soto says she can go outside and feel freer than she has in a while.
“I can be myself,” she says.
“Before, I didn’t even want to look anyone in the eye,” she says.
“If you feel beautiful, that’s what matters,” she says.
“No one can say anything if you feel happy with yourself.”
See some of Soto’s stunning Instagrams below.
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