This MMA fighter is completely comfortable with his white spots

MMA fighter Scott Jorgensen is a fighter in the real world also. He is living with vitiligo, a chronic skin condition that affects 0.5% to 2% population of the world. Jorgensen has been a true example of how fighting with your insecurities and believing in yourself always leads to the path of success.

Living with a visible health condition like vitiligo brings stigma due to lack of knowledge and awareness in the society. Vitiligo is neither contagious nor painful, but the low prevalence and lack of social awareness make the society behave differently to the people with vitiligo sometimes.

Interesting read: Pro Wrestler Bryan Danielson is not bothered by Vitiligo

In today’s digital era, access to credible news is easier than ever before and it is such a blessing for ‘ignored’ health challenges like vitiligo. In this internet friendly world, a lot of people with vitiligo have realized that instead of keeping a mum, they need to come forward and educate the general public about its ‘innocent’ nature. As these vitiligo acceptance and awareness advocates are making the world a vitiligo friendly place to live, they are healing their own deep psychological wounds as well. Now, when someone famous like Scott Jorgensen gets public with vitiligo, it is a huge boost for the whole vitiligo community to rise above the “what-society-says” mindset and live life at their own terms.

Scott Jorgensen hasn’t let these social stigmas and societal standards affect him in any way and hence made his name in the MMA arena. MMA male players usually have to fight in their shorts without covering their upper bodies. With widespread vitiligo lesions on the body, he looks so confident in the ring and easily becomes a perfect role model for body positivity.

Scott Jorgensen was first diagnosed with vitiligo when he was around 13-14 years old. As Vitiligo rapidly spreads due to stress (emotional and physical, both), Jorgensen’s vitiligo spread profoundly in the areas he was grabbed repeatedly during college wrestling and training. With his eyes set on the dream, Scott didn’t care much about the aesthetics and by the time he was a senior, the patches had spread, covering much of his both arms.

When he was a junior in college, his mother fought with the insurance company to get them to cover his laser treatment. The laser treatment was supposed to help with his Vitiligo, but it caused him so much pain that he decided not to go.

“I went once (for the laser treatment), and the pain was worse than getting tattooed.”

Doctors rightly told him that he had a pretty aggressive case of Vitiligo because by the time he reached his thirties, Vitiligo pretty much took all over his body.

People would wonder and ask if he had done some skin treatment like bleaching aka the ‘Michael Jackson effect’, but in reality, Jorgensen did nothing. He just allowed the skin to lose pigment without any resistance. He just let the de-pigmentation run rampant and now he is left with pale white skin without much pigmentation. 

For Scott, vitiligo adds beauty to his tattoos

Do you think that he got so many tattoos on the body to cover up vitiligo? Well, he started getting tattoos while he still had dark skin because he loves colorful art on the body.

“After the complete loss of skin pigment, the tattoos look even better now, brighter and colorful. It’s like colorful art on a white piece of paper.”

Uriah Faber, a former WEC featherweight champion, and a good friend of Jorgensen found him a cool-looking colorful dude, something like a little work of art, who has embraced his skin condition and it’s not an issue for him anymore. 

As an inspiration to the vitiligo community

Being a pro MMA fighter, Scott’s matches are viewed across the world and people with vitiligo feel empowered to see him so much comfortable in his skin. 

Sometimes, parents ask Jorgensen to write messages and small letters to motivate their kids to embrace themselves just the way they are.

“I want to help and uplift people. If me having vitiligo can inspire and help somebody, it’s great.”

But just like everyone else with vitiligo, he too sometimes faces insensitive remarks and questions from the people.

“After my win against John Albert, I got far more queries about my skin de-pigmentation than my fight performance. It was annoying that people cared more about vitiligo than my performance.”

But just like the tattoo on his right forearm- “no mind”, Jorgensen doesn’t give too much attention to such incidences. His level of vitiligo acceptance and commitment to live life on his own terms is such a confidence booster. Let’s take some inspiration from him and fill colors in our lives too.

“With all these years of training, wrestling and confidence building measures, I know that it’s not your appearance or skin color but your work that matters. Just follow your passion and keep doing your work, everything else will happen automatically.”