Model Lyric Mariah Heard is on a mission to destigmatize limb differences.
The 28-year-old from Chicago was born with amniotic band syndrome, a condition that has led to limb abnormalities in her right hand and right leg. She is embracing her differences through fun and humorous videos on social media.
She has particularly gone viral several times on TikTok for casually changing between prosthetic legs, which she's named Bertha and Tina.
Man shares his life on TikTok to celebrate limb differences
Tina is her high heel prosthetic and Bertha is her everyday prosthetic.
"Bertha makes me feel more confident in everyday life, while Tina makes me feel more confident in fashion life," she told "Good Morning America."
She added, "Bertha and Tina are their own trend. I can hardly keep up with them to be fair, they're just too iconic on accident."
Heard, who has walked in New York Fashion Week, the 2020 Savage X Fenty show and has modeled for other fashion brands, said that when she was in the womb, amniotic bands wrapped around both of her hands and her right leg, which restricted circulation.
In the instances of ABS, the arms and legs are most often affected, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders. Organs can also be affected.
In Heard's case, she's said that she was born without some of her fingers and without her right leg.
Despite her condition, she says laughter and humor has been a way for her to live her life without being so serious.
"I don't need people's sympathy," she said. "I need people's understanding in the sense of, don't put everybody in the same box and think that everybody who has a limb difference or who has a disability is somebody who needs sympathy."
"I don't want to live my life miserable," she added. "I don't want to live my life sad. I want to be joyful. I want to be happy."
Heard's confidence that she has now isn't something that she's always had. When she was a kid, Heard said she was bullied by her peers for the way her hands looked.
She added that when she was in middle school and high school, kids would throw her prosthetic leg "through the basketball hoop."
She said she also faced body image issues.
"I just wanted to look a certain body type, where my leg and my hand were the least of my worries," she said. "I just wanted to look a certain way."
Now as an adult, Heard said that the biggest bully she ever faced was herself.
Mom celebrates 1-year-old with limb difference in emotional video
"I think that I taught other people how to bully me from the start," she said, adding that she would hide her hands "well before anybody ever made fun of me.
"They knew that I wasn't comfortable with who I was. They knew that I didn't like it and I didn't understand being a limb difference girl," she added. "I was wearing jeans in the summer, well before anybody ever even noticed that I had a prosthetic. And I think I showed people that it was something to be ashamed of. And certain people took that and they decided to make an example out of it."
She said what she's learned from that experience as an adult is that, "if you're going to make an example out of my insecurities, then allow me to take that insecurity and make it into something else."
She added, "The less you hide yourself, the less people feel like you are something to be hidden."
