Vanessa Davis, 27, Batley
Fighting back the tears, I clung to my mum.
‘Why won’t they leave me alone?’ I cried.
Already 6ft aged 12, I towered over my classmates, and they’d bully me incessantly with remarks about my height, and kept calling me ‘specky four eyes’ because of my glasses.
‘Ignore them, love,’ my mum Andrea, then 40, said.
But it was hard.
At 4 years old, I’d been diagnosed with Marfan syndrome – a connectivetissue disorder – and my health problems ran much deeper than just being taller than the rest of my class.
As a baby, I’d often have seizures, collapse.
Nobody could tell Mum what was wrong with me.
I’d spontaneously go limp, my lips turning blue.
Mum would resuscitate me, rush me to hospital, but…
