SELF Magazine
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For Tonja Johnson, 53, the emotional toll of living with vitiligo was once so intense and distressing that she would scrape into her skin with her fingers, a nail file, or whatever she had on hand, in an attempt to remove the depigmented patches on her body. “I hated to go out in public without being covered with clothing and makeup because of the stares, whispers, and pointing,” Johnson tells SELF. “I remember paying for items at my local gas station and the cashier dropping my change on the counter as if I were contagious.”