Lupus Advocate Jokiva Bellard Shares Why She Feels Most Beautiful When She's Sick

Allure
Updated
Jokiva Bellard has struggled with discoid lupus, which gives her painful skin rashes, for years. After struggling with her confidence too, she says she now knows her own beauty.

When 23-year-old Jokiva Bellard was diagnosed with discoid lupus five years ago, she was devastated. "I felt as if my identity had been [stripped] away from me when I first found out I had it," she tells Allure. Bellard's struggle with the chronic autoimmune disease, in which a sufferer's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue, touched every part of her life. As she shares in our video, her fatigue led her to withdraw with friends and loved ones, while painful skin lesions only made her feel more isolated.

Her illness affected her relationship with her husband, too: Since she was unconvinced of her own beauty, she says, she couldn't fathom what he valued in her. "I would tell him, 'Why are you with me? Why do love me? Why do you take time and just tell me I'm beautiful when I feel that I'm not?'"

"You have no control over lupus," Bellard continues. "I felt suicidal, and then I thought to myself, 'You're wasting your life just sitting there thinking that life is going to wait on your because you want to hide in this shell because you feel that you're ugly.'" Slowly, Bellard realized she didn't have to wait for her health status to change before rebuilding her confidence and discovering her own beauty.

One major tool in this process? Social media. Bellard has amassed an Instagram following of 112,000 as she's shared selfies, raised awareness of lupus, and connected with other chronic illness sufferers. "My platform helped me inspire so many beautiful people," she says. "These beautiful people helped me build my confidence back, also."

Today, Bellard says, coping with her illness reminds her of her own resilience. "Now, I feel the most beautiful and most strong when I'm sick," she explains. "In the hospital, for you to get any better, I feel you have to fight it, and to fight...you have to be strong." She also shares some spot-on confidence tips: One, she makes sure to swipe on a lip product when she's in the hospital for an instant boost; and two, she carries herself with assertiveness. "You walk with that sass, honey, you better sizzle, you better let it burn," she advises. "When you walk, you better smell a fire from your footsteps, because, guess what, you are beautiful, and nobody should make you feel un-beautiful."

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See the video.

Credits:

Featuring: Jokiva Bellard

Director: Caroline Conrad
Executive Producer: Maya Margolina
Executive Producer Traci Carlson
Executive Producer Richard Peete
Producer: Brittany Reeber
DP: Aly Migliori
B-Camera / 1st AC: Zander Fife
Gaffer: Greg Antonopolous
Set Dresser: Allie Lane
Sound Mixer: Zachary Bishop
PA: Zhané Parker

Editor: Carlos Perez
Production: Neighborhood Watch
Post-Production Supervisor: Katrina Bayoneto
Color Grade: TBC