Challenging the Status Quo with Musician Austin Halls

On this month's myFace, myStory podcast episode, host Dina Zuckerberg is joined by Austin Halls born with Moebius Syndrome.  He has incorporated his psychology degree, his journey, and his music to promote that you can love yourself and overcome any challenge that comes your way.  Austin will share his journey to the musician and now model that he is today.

 

- [Announcer] Welcome to My Face, My Story, Voices from the Craniofacial community, with your host, Dina Zuckerberg.

- Hello and welcome to My Face, My Story, Voices from the Craniofacial Community. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on Apple Podcasts, click subscribe now so you'll never miss a future episode. And if you're a fan of My Face, My Story, rate and review the program on Apple's podcast so we can get our message of inclusivity and empowerment to more people. I'm your host, Dana Zuckerberg, the Director of Family Programs at My Face. I was born with a cleft lip, a hearing loss, and no vision in my left eye. My face, My story is about people like us being seen and heard, about sharing stories within the craniofacial community and with others. Today I will be joined by Austin Halls. Austin is a positive force changing how people view themselves and the world around them. Austin was born with a rare syndrome called Moebius syndrome making him born with facial paralysis. At the age of 25, he has been through four facial surgeries just to smile. The doctor said he would never be able to eat orally, and at the age of three, he has proven the doctors wrong. He has carried this attitude with every aspect of his life. Austin's strives to incorporate his degree in psychology, his story and his music to promote that you can love yourself and you can overcome any obstacle that comes your way. Austin has been a lover of fashion, style and art since he was young due to him not being able to show expression through his face. Being a professional recording artist, he has since released two albums and a powerful pop dance song called "Disabled" reclaiming the identity of being disabled. Welcome, Austin.

- Hello. I'm so happy to be here.

- Yes, I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

- Me too.

- Yes. So for those who may not know, can you tell us about your facial difference and how, well, you've talked about how many surgeries you've had, but tell us a little bit more about your facial difference and what it means.

- Yes. So Moebius syndrome is a super rare syndrome. The chances of getting this syndrome are two people out of a million. That's what I say, I'm two in a million. But with this syndrome, it is where the sixth and seventh cranial nerves are under developed. So I cannot move my face really at all. And I also cannot move my eyes laterally. So my face and my eyes are paralyzed. I also cannot blink. So I used to win all the staring contests in my school.

- Love that.

- But yeah, it's mostly facial paralysis. And just like any other disability, there's a spectrum and I'm very happy to have a more milder face. Some people have missing limbs, some people have tracheas. I had to have a feeding tube, like you said. So it just depends on the person. But facial paralysis is the biggest thing with Moebius syndrome.

- Okay. So just outta curiosity, when you sleep at night, are you able to close your eyes?

- So people have told me, because obviously I can't know myself, but my eyes close about like 90% of the way. So like, I think when I am, I can't really blink, so my eyes look super, super dry. I have eyedrops on me at all times. But when I am sleeping, people have confirmed I'm not sleeping with my eyes open and I'm happy because that sounds a little scary if I was just sleeping like this. So, yeah. So I think at night, it's closed like 90% of the time. I do wake up and I'm always like, my eyes are always burning, which is like just a classic case of Moebius.

- Right, right. So can you share with us your personal journey, what it was like for you growing up?

- I feel like my childhood was very, very, very normal. And I hate that word normal because everybody is normal, normal is literally just a made up word. But I feel like, the first three years of my life, I was in the hospital, it was back and forth. I was just really having a hard time adapting to, you know, this world. And after I got my feeding tube out and I kind of became, you know, stable in all medical issues, I kind of just lived the life that everyone else lived. I really didn't talk about my disability. It wasn't really in the forefront. I knew that I was different because I didn't see anyone with a facial difference. So I knew that I did have a disability, but I just lived, you know, my life knowing that I am just Austin. And I'm very happy that I grew up in a small school of 26th people, kindergarten through sixth grade. And it was just a really nice, like, they don't care