Confessions of An Ex-Tanorexic

As an ex-tanorexic, I can admit that I do miss those daily 10 minutes on a cold winter's day where I would lay in the tanning bed like a caged lizard on a rock under a heating lamp. I started tanning when I was at the end of my sophomore year in high school and was invited to the senior prom. All of the seniors were tanning and heaven forbid I was the only one left with a stark-white complexion.

With the permission of my mother, I frequented tanning booths at least four times a week. The prom was in May and my Sweet 16 was in late June, so I tanned well after the prom. I was as dark as I had ever been, not orange, just dark; darker even then when I went on vacation to Bermuda for a week. The sensation was addicting, it was relaxing, it was warm and on top of that, I looked great.

After time, freckles began to develop more prominently on one side of my face than on the other and a scar from a dog bite had darkened. Every time I emerged from one of those "stand-up" tanning booths, I looked in the mirror to make sure I was darker and noticed that my face looked an odd mixture of red and brown. Not to worry...I knew the next day I would wake up with perfectly bronzed skin. Tanning became an addiction; an addiction that I knew had to be put to an end, but didn't want it to.

Nobody wants pale, translucent skin, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to look good. However, what shocks me is how people can continue using indoor tanning booths when it has been reported that indoor tanning can, in fact, lead to a number of different skin cancers.