26-year-old Tina Beznec has been in the practice of shaving her face every single day for the past 10 years. Ever since Beznec was 16, she's experienced problems with "excessive hair and sweating, irregular periods, and depression." She originally brushed her symptoms off as being "normal."
Now, however, Beznec admits she hadn't known any better at the time. She's since developed a better understanding of her condition.
Beznec suffers from a medical condition called polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), where a woman's ovaries are enlarged and contain follicles that affect hormone production. Women who have PCOS generally have irregular periods, excess hair growth, and hormonal acne.
PCOS isn't well known, but this isn't because it's an uncommon disease.
Rather, as Beznec tries to emphasize in her post, PCOS and many other medical diseases and conditions are incredibly common among women, and people in general. The only reason why many of these conditions aren't more widely known is because people are too ashamed to talk about them.
Beznec uses herself as an example, explaining that her PCOS made her feel incredibly "unfeminine" for many years. She's always been "super self conscious" about it and only recently decided to speak out about her experiences in hopes that it will positively impact other people's lives.
In her post, Beznec stresses the importance of withholding judgment, of not stereotyping and assuming someone's background without the context of the other's story.
The power of Beznec post comes from her acknowledgement of the other side, "I know it's only natural for some of us to judge someone based on how they look but remember we are all fighting our own battles and you can never understand if you aren't willing to learn and listen.."
Beznec's post and photos have been shared over 3,000 times since she posted it online. It's our hope that everyone who's seen and shared this woman's important message is actually carrying out in their day-to-day lives.
You can read the original post here:
