Real stories
Read or listen to real stories from people affected by visible difference, their parents and families, as well as Changing Faces staff and volunteers.
If you or a family member have personal experience of living with a visible difference, we want to support you to share your story.
Sharing your story can help others who have a visible difference feel less alone and find support if they need it. Real stories are at the heart of our campaigns for equality and help us reach more people from across the visible difference community.
If you have a story to share, we’d love to hear it.
Top tips for writing your story
We’ve put together some tips to help you plan your story before you send it to us.
- Aim for around 500-600 words.
- People like personal stories they can relate to, so try to tell us as much as you can about how your visible difference has changed how you live. For example, if a stranger said something to you, what was the scenario and how did it affect you emotionally and practically?
- If you’ve been on a journey of lows and highs, let us know what those moments were. What have you learned and what has helped you at different points?
- Use your own voice, avoid medical terminology and don’t worry about grammar and spelling – we’re here to help with that.
- Get inspired by looking at real stories that other people with a visible difference have already shared.
Submit your story
You can share your story using the form below. Once you’ve submitted, it will be reviewed by our communications team and we will contact you to talk about your story and how it might be shared.
How your story could be used
Your story could feature on the real stories section of our website and we share many of these stories on our social media platforms too.
We include real-life experiences when we talk to companies, schools, colleges and health professionals about how they can better represent and talk about visible differences.
Sometimes your story might be suitable for a news or magazine article or be part of a Changing Faces campaign. We’ll always talk to you about this first and if that’s something you’d like to do, we’ll support you with those opportunities.
If you have any questions you’d like answering before completing the above form, please email [email protected]
Finally, please remember that Changing Faces only works in the United Kingdom and so we regret we’re unable to work with people who are overseas.