Facebook doesn’t reject many ads.

But over the summer, it turned down one from Lisa Goodman-Helfand, who was trying to raise awareness of scleroderma. The autoimmune disease can cause hardening of the skin and organ failure. The ad showed a picture of Goodman-Helfand, whose skin is mottled in red and blue spots from the disease, and a picture of another woman with scleroderma, who looks perfectly healthy but is facing multiple organ failure.

Although Facebook ultimately relented and accepted the ad, from that experience, Goodman-Helfand, who is Jewish, was inspired to begin an online campaign. In August, Face Off for Scleroderma (#SclerodermaSelfies), which she kicked off at Congregation Solel in Highland Park went viral.

Goodman-Helfand has been asking people–whether they have scleroderma or not–to take a selfie of themselves without makeup and post it any social media website, from Twitter to Facebook and Instagram. She is also asking people to make a donation for scleroderma medical research and nominate others to post their own selfies.

“I not only want to raise awareness and funding for research,” said Goodman-Helfand, who lives in Highland Park and is married with two children. “I also want to spread the notion that all faces deserve a place in this world. I want people to honor difference and a person’s inner beauty.”

Goodman-Helfand was first diagnosed with when she was 10, although she began having symptoms of the disease when she was 7. Her mother wanted to shield her from the disease and made the decision not to share too much information with her, she recalled. For many years, she didn’t understand the impact it would have on her life. It wasn’t until she was 19 and underwent some routine tests that she finally learned. She immediately headed for the Skokie Public Library and looked up scleroderma.

“I learned that the life expectancy was 7 years,” said Helfand, who now works as a reading specialist at a Skokie school. “It was a huge blow.”

“I went through adolescence looking so different,” she said. “Even at 40, I am still learning to embrace how I look and who I am on the inside, and the role of friendship, faith, and family.”

Goodman-Helfand said she has been incredibly lucky that the disease has largely left her internal organs alone. In her 30s, though, when she was pregnant with her second child, scleroderma masked the symptoms of preeclampsia and she wound up in the hospital near death for more than 200 days. In a mystical ceremony, her Hebrew name was changed from Laya to Chaya (life in Hebrew) to thwart the angel of death. She wrote about this experience in her book titled “Does This Hospital Gown Come With Sequins? (and Other Questions Asked During My 218-Day Hospital Stay).”

She has grown from the Facebook experience, as well. For 28 years, Goodman-Helfand never went out of the house without heavy makeup. She never shared a picture of herself without makeup. She never even took the trash to the curb without makeup.

“Essentially, because I don’t want to receive looks of horror from people thinking I’m contagious or that there’s something wrong with me. Already I feel that I look different,” she said. “Nobody wants to be stared at or questioned.”

In the last few months, she has taken what she calls baby steps toward showing people her true face.

She will now leave the house without makeup to walk around the neighborhood, to answer the door to someone she knows, to pick up something from a friend’s house.

“I don’t know for sure but I hope one day I’ll be able to tackle this and go out in public,” Goodman-Helfand said. “This is a journey for me, too.” n

Find out more details about Face Off for Scleroderma at Goodman-Helfand’s website at http://comfortableinmythickskin.com .