I was born with a disease known as albinism. It's when your body has a lack
of melanin. If you don't know what melanin is, it's a thing that gives you
your hair color, your skin color, and your eye color, which, since I didn't have any,
that means my hair color was white, my skin color was white, and my eyes were purple.
So, when I was a kid, I got picked on a lot. People used to call me a witch, a ghost,
a vampire. Once I started getting older,
the jokes turned physical. They started punching me and beating me up,
and one time I even had to go to the hospital it was so bad. I was bleeding
everywhere. What my mom decided to do, she tried to
give me a melanin transfer. It gave my hair a little bit more of a tint, it was
more grey, but other than that it didn't help at all. So my mom let me dye my hair
brown and my skin color and my eyes. I wore contacts but that didn't work out
too well so I just stopped wearing them. But since I looked like a normal person,
people didn't pick on me. So I went to a different school so no one knew what I
looked like. But when I went to high school, there was
this one other girl. She was in my middle school - my original middle school - so she
knew what I used to look like. She knew I was albino.
She had a pool party for her birthday. When I went there, I knew I didn't want
to swim since all the foundation and hair dye will probably come out. I decided to
just sit there on the poolside and watch my friends. So I remember hearing
giggling behind me and I knew something was up, so I turned around and I stood up
and said, "What are you guys giggling about?" And they pushed me. When I was in
the water, I didn't know what to do. All my foundation was coming off and I
didn't know how to swim. I was drowning. I remember hearing
screaming and ambulances, and then I woke up in the hospital. My mom hugged me and
told me what happened. I was astonished. I had no clue anyone would ever do that to me.
But I guess some friends just aren't truly friends. So fast forward to a few
years later. Everyone knew what I truly looked like. I didn't wear makeup or
anything. I went to the store, and I remember one of my friends was with me,
and then she said come on we should go. Someone from school is here. So we
walked out, but then they blocked us. They started, like, cornering us in an alley.
I didn't know what to do. They pulled out knives on us, so I just ran. A few years
later, I moved to my hometown, which is Norway. I went with my cousin and my
cousin also had albinism, so I was known as ghost girl and she was known as
vampire. But I didn't really mind it cuz it wasn't, like, a rude name - they were
just calling us that. It wasn't mean. They didn't pick on us or anything. So I guess
that's my story of albinism. If anyone else has albinism, know that you're not
alone.