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Courtney Blackmore, 20, was born with a facial tumor called cystic hygroma, a condition that begins when a child is still developing in the womb. Over time, a person with cystic hygroma will have cysts growing and expanding across their face, head, and neck.
Blackmore’s cysts cluster mostly around her chin, making the bottom half of her face swell to an incredible amount. Blackmore has trouble speaking because of her cysts and is unable to close her mouth because of how her face is shaped.
Over the years, Blackmore has undergone over 20 surgeries, all of which attempted to remove or reduce her large tumor, but none of them were completely successful. Blackmore can continue to go under the knife, but because she is “comfortable” with how she looks now, she has opted out of having more surgeries – unless they’re “a medical necessity.”
While Blackmore was undergoing and recovering from these surgeries, she also attended years of language and speech therapy, in hopes of improving her speaking ability. But even today, Blackmore still struggles to speak “normally” and continues to endure others’ rude comments.
The bullying began when Blackmore was just a child and has never stopped – even after she began posting videos of herself singing on YouTube.
Despite Blackmore’s difficulty speaking, she’s pitch-perfect and has an incredible singing voice. So many people online love her and are vocal about their support – but others still leave “nasty” comments about her appearance.
Blackmore, however, has learned to ignore these comments. “If I was being bullied or going through a rough patch, it is the way I found to express myself.”
She explained, “It can be kind of hard with YouTube comments because there are times when I want to reply back and I have done in the past. But I just try to remember that if they are going to be hating there really is no point replying because that's what they want - they are hating to get a reaction.”
Some people ask her why she continues to upload, even when this will require her to gird herself for the negative response. Her response: “[Singing is] an expression of me and it doesn't matter what people say. It is my choice and if people don't like it, they can just click the next video.
“It's been really, really hard to accept myself and accept the way I look. I always wanted to look "normal", but there really is no normal.”
