By Sahana

Dealing with Smile Dysmorphia

I come from a family filled with genetic overbites and huge smiles. The idea of straighter teeth was something I did not associate with until I started realising that my smile was not as pretty as it could be. 

It started with the nickname I got in my new school - “dirty mouth” We were a bunch of kids in the second grade and up until then, I’d never realised that my teeth weren’t naturally white and perfectly aligned. In fact, my teeth made me so conscious that when the pandemic hit, I was so glad to be wearing a mask all the time. 

As a kid who loved to be captured by the camera, I grew into a teenager who was reluctant and awkward to smile when asked to. This wasn’t just a concern that I shared alone though. My parents would take me to the dentist occasionally and I would even brush twice a day, sometimes thrice. But then my overbite posed a problem to my dental hygiene. It was even something beyond that. 

My photos got fewer and fewer for the next couple of years as I struggled to know what I was to do with my mouth. It’s said that smiling takes lesser muscle movement, but I simply did not want to respond to that “Say Cheese.” I was smiling lesser each day. I was so absorbed by my smile being “ugly”, that I grew wary of the mirror.  

Then the alignment of my teeth had gradually gotten worse to the point that I was not able to close my lips when I slept. This lead to the blackening of my teeth, and with that it led to a frenzy of me trying out new toothpastes with the wildest claims of giving the whitest teeth out there. My obsession lasted up until I finally was able to get braces after taking out a hefty amount from my parents pockets. 

Till then I was only dealing with not smiling too much, but the process of getting braces and maintaing dental hygeine was also extremely painful. Whatever the dentist would suggest, I would go leaps and bounds to fulfill that. Because eating pained so much with the braces on, I would often skip meals for the same. Hard substances were to be avoided at any cost, and I was absolutely okay if that meant sacrificing pizza for a year or two. 

In due time, I had lost more weight than I ever had. I felt weak and exhausted on most days, but the dream of a perfect smile persisted. At the end of my braces journey, my mental health had already taken a toll. I realised that my overbite had not been corrected to the extent of a perfect smile just a perfect “periodontum” as my dentist suggested. By ignoring all the things I found positive in me, I had sabotaged everything there was for the perfect smile. 

When I shared with my dentist that I wanted to completely correct my overbite, she told me that that would alter my entire face structure and was not necessary. I still told her I’d want it and what she asked really brought sense in me. She said- “Why? You already look so pretty.” 

It was from then on that the way I saw my teeth was different. It wasn’t perfect, but that’s how most of the things are supposed to be. They aren’t supposed to be flawless, because nothing or no one can ever be that. Recently, I’ve been smiling a whole lot more. Not just because now I know that my teeth are “pretty,” but more importantly because a smile hasn’t gotten anything to do with beauty. A smile is about being happy. And, I am happy. Happier with each smile:) 

to read more about facial dysmorphia click here 

Tags: #smile #bodyinsecurities #lowconfidence #mentalhealth #positiveselftalk #recoverhealing #bodyinsecurities #selfhate #Bodyshaming