How a young man with a facial deformity overcame suicidal thoughts to be happy for first time in his life

"People shouldn’t be treated worse than others if they fall out with what is regarded to look ‘socially acceptable’ or ‘normal’"

23-year-old Rory McGuire was born with an unusual birthmark that led to his childhood being tainted by bullying.

He was called “sausage face” and told he looked like an alien because of his rare deformity, and the nasty remarks got so bad that at one point McGuire considered taking his own life.

Now, however, he’s had corrective surgery and says he’s happy for the first time in his life.

McGuire, from Ayr, Scotland was born with a venous malformation (VM), which is an abnormality of the larger, deep vessels. They usually grow as one ages.

His VM was treated with surgery and a procedure called sclerotherapy - he had around 16 operations from the ages of 17 to 22 to reduce the size of his birthmark - and McGuire is now trying to raise awareness of the condition.

Alongside a picture of him aged ten, McGuire shared some of the things that were said to him, including “I’d kill myself if I looked like you” and “Did your parents beat you up?”

He explained that although he was smiling in the picture, he did so because he didn’t want people to feel sorry for him: “But at home I wasn’t doing much smiling or laughing - I was doing a lot of crying, questioning and thinking.

“Each and every comment that was made to me when I was younger severely hurt me, made me hate the way that I looked and made me feel inferior to others even to the point where at one time I felt that dying wouldn’t be a bad option,” he wrote on Twitter.

McGuire is encouraging people to move past prejudices though:

“Everyone looks different, we don’t get to choose what we look like when we’re born and people shouldn’t be treated worse than others if they fall out with what is regarded to look ‘socially acceptable’ or ‘normal.’

“If we teach our children from an early age that everyone is different and that everyone should be treated equally regardless their skin colour, their religion, their sexuality, their weight, their social class etc,” McGuire believes fewer people will have to suffer like he did.

On his Twitter and Instagram accounts, McGuire has shared a video as part of the disfigurement charity Changing Faces' online Face Equality campaign.

He also posts pictures of himself enjoying life with mates or in the gym having recovered from his final operation.

“I’m happy for the first time in my life,” he says.