The book
VISIBLE by Kris Nolan is a memoir about growing up with a facial port-wine stain birthmark — and what it means to live openly in your own skin.
It follows the lived experience of moving through childhood, adolescence, relationships, and adulthood while visibly different — not through medical detail, but through identity, confidence, belonging, and the quiet work of becoming comfortable being seen.
While there is no shortage of information about visible differences, there is very little about what it actually feels like to live with one — to navigate stares, questions, love, self-doubt, reinvention, and growth over time.
VISIBLE offers that perspective.
From the book:
For a long time, I moved through the world braced.
Not dramatically. Not consciously. Just subtly—shoulders slightly tense, attention always scanning, a quiet readiness for reaction. I didn’t know I was doing it. I just thought that was how life felt.
Growing up visibly different meant the world noticed me before it knew me. Over time, I learned to manage that—to anticipate it, to carry it, to move through rooms without drawing more attention than necessary. I thought that was strength.
But something shifts when you realise that surviving isn’t the same as living.
Living visibly different trains you early. You learn to read rooms. To sense energy. To notice who is comfortable with difference—and who isn’t. For years, I thought my birthmark was something I had to overcome.
Eventually, I realised it had been a teacher.
This book was written for anyone who has grown up feeling watched, different, or unsure of where they belong — and for those trying to better understand that experience from the outside.
VISIBLE
is now available worldwide.
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