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Even though we are fraternal twins, we do still look very different
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I was born with a condition called Golden Heart Syndrome. I'm missing an ear
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My right eye is underdeveloped. My jaw is very underdeveloped. As a little kid, I never registered that Liz looked different until we got to school
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Other kids had no idea why she looked the way she did. That's when I really realized, oh gosh, I look really different
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I get the question a lot, what's wrong with my face? Why did you look like that
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Why were you born? really nasty comments. Sometimes kindness is not easy and we need to find that
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courage within ourselves to spread kindness and make the world a better
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place. I don't know if I'd be here if I didn't have Maddie as a sister and I
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think she was meant to be my twin to help me out
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My eyes are a little bit of a catch-22 because they're so... they are different. I have
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I have like scar tissue on this eye and I have a little dot right there
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So they're very noticeable. Hi, I'm Maddie. And I'm Liz. And we're twin sisters
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We're 19 years old and we're from New York. When you think about twins, you have this image in your mind of two people that looked exactly alike, which is not true
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There are fraternal twins out there that look different. But especially in our case, even though we are fraternal twins, we do still look very different
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I feel like makeup was never something that either one of us felt like we had to wear
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It really was just kind of something we could play with and have fun with You shouldn feel like you have to do any sort of correcting or fixing to your face if you don want to Right wear it because you want to wear it Right exactly
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I was born with a condition called Golden Heart Syndrome. It's classified as a craniofacial birth defect, meaning craniohead facial face
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I'm missing an ear on my right side. My right eye is underdeveloped
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My jaw is very underdeveloped. I'm missing part of my mandible. As a little kid, I never registered that Liz looked different until we got to school
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And I realized that other kids had no idea why she looked the way she did or what the story was
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We always used to play princesses, all the girls in my class. And there wasn't a princess for me to play
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Getting hit with questions like, what's wrong with your face? Or why do you look like that
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When I was four years old, I did not know how to answer that. Kids don't know how to include people that look so different
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And that's when I really realized, oh gosh, I look really different
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I really didn't start to have a lot of self-confidence until high school
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I found theater. I loved being on stage. I'm so used to people staring at me
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But the beautiful thing about being on a stage is that they're staring at you for a good reason
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So that's where my confidence came from. You've got my computer here, which you can't see, a notebook at all times
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or big into note taking. Together we run courageously kind podcasts to promote kindness acceptance and inclusivity Typically we do a little journey for us and we come together and brainstorm what we been thinking about for a week We started Courageous of Kind back in August of 2020
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Liz did a video for Face Equality International in the spring of 2020
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Say hi. Be friendly. People who look different just want to be treated equally
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I kind of saw this like spark in her. She got really excited when she went to film this interview
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And I kind of said to her, maybe you should think about really speaking up and being an advocate for this
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I was so scared to put my voice on tape. I worked really hard to have a clear voice
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I went to speech therapy for years. I've had lots of surgeries
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So just putting my voice out on the Internet for anyone to listen to was terrifying
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I had a topic in mind that we've been talking about a lot, and that's imposter syndrome
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which I think we all feel and can be really detrimental to our image of ourselves
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The ultimate goal is to get some positive and accurate representation of people with facial differences into mainstream media
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Most of the questions we get are really well-intentioned, but sometimes, particularly on live streams
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we get a lot of questions that are not so kind and are kind of like trolling comments
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I get the question a lot, what's wrong with my face? And that might seem like a harmless question
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but just the connotation that different equals wrong. Why did you look like that
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Why were you born? Really nasty comments like that We try and turn everything into like a teaching moment or a learning moment if we can Sometimes people are not open to receiving that sort of feedback and in that case
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we just kind of move on and go on with our lives. We've gotten so many messages from people who have
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facial differences or just have disabilities in general and it's really heartwarming to read
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messages of people saying that they feel a little bit more confident or a little bit more comfortable
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with themselves because of what we're doing. I wish people would know that people with facial differences can live happy lives
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We can be happy with the way that we look. I think beauty is a feeling rather than a characteristic
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It's not about what you're wearing or how you look. It's about how you feel
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I admire Liz's courage. I admire her perseverance and also her outlook on life
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Eventually, I think we will branch out and do different things. But I think in a perfect world, we would work together in some capacity
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I think we just make a really great team. I don't know if I'd be here if I didn't have Maddie as a sister
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She has been my best friend, my therapist. She has just walked through life with me the whole time
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And I'm so, so grateful. And to have such a fierce advocate and protector next to me
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has made this condition so much easier. I think everything happens for a reason
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and I think she was meant to be my twin to help me out
