When I went home for Thanksgiving, my parents panicked—that's how bad I looked. My mother took me straight to a doctor, who said I had a flesh-eating bacteria. She explained that I could have contracted it when I drank alcohol while sick with strep. She mentioned the word psoriasis in passing, but I was so fixated on the flesh-eating bacteria that I didn't second-guess her diagnosis. It did look like something was attacking my face.

Liz Salemme, 24
Riverdale, N.J.