View Full Version : Low self esteem thanks to crooked jaw
I'm a regular poster in the health anxiety forum but I feel strongly enough about this to post in this section. I'm nto sure if it's right but I saw other people talking about themselves so I felt it right to air this once.
I used to think I was a decent looking chap because, as I'm sure all parents do, my parents told me I was.
Then I got self-conscious about my crooked teeth. I suffered for about 18 months, during which time I also noticed my nose is generously sized. While not massive, it's hardly a model's nose.
Last October I cracked and asked my mum for braces. She said of course and wanted to make me happy, and the next mont they went in. I have ceramics that are so unnoticeable one of my friends didn't notice them til last week.
Unfortuantely, a few weeks later I noticed a new source of shame. I jaw is tilted, or crooked, whatever. Thanks to years of **** teeth the joints have become compressed so now I look utterly stupid. My self-consciousness about my nose evapourated as soon as I made this discovery.
It's not that obvious in the mirror, which surely must be an accurate portrayal of how people will perceive me. Unfortunartely, in photos it's extremely obvious.
My self-esteem is nearly zero as I'm sure everyone I meet notices immediately. I'm sure it puts girls off too. I'm 19 in a couple of months and I've never had a girlfriend; in fact I've never kissed a girl. There are 5 year olds who have had more action than me.
The amazing thing is the first thing my orthodontist did was X-ray and photograph my jaw, then conclude it was fine there and then and set about arranging my braces. I always hated my smile but couldn't put my finger on why mine never looked quite right. The eyes of the beholder have a funny way of imaginging perfection and concealing the flaws of their owner.
Does anyone else have a wonky jaw and do they have any encouraging stories they could share? I need this, I'm crying about it as I type.
Hi boy,
What you have to remember is no-one is perfect we all have parts of us that we don't like, and that we are all different, it is what makes us the people we are. You have to accept the way that you are, and learn to be happy with it, not everything in life is about the way you look, personality counts for a lot more in a genuine persons eyes.
Learn to like yourself and then others will like you for the person that you are too.
Take care
Trac xx
'Live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten'
I agree with trac, we all have things about us that we do not like, but to everyone else they wouldn't notice! They just don't see that. As we grow older our looks change anyway - so if it's all about looks that would be sad but thankfully it isn't its about who we are inside. I know you feel low at the moment but look inside yourself and see what you have to give, you are a unique individual, there is no-one else like you, you have a special purpose and you are of worth you just need to realise it.
Take care
Daisybun
'This too will pass'
godsdarcangel
13-06-06, 16:41
hey boy,
i too have a crooked jaw as a result of a car accident just before i began my freshman year of high school. i graduated a couple weeks ago and i just found out a few days ago from talking to a cousin whose husband is in dentistry that that is the cause of it. ive always been really self conscious about it when it comes to pictures too because it IS noticable. and embarassing... it just makes you look dumb i guess.
my teeth have always been fabulous, ive never needed braces or anything in the least bit, but those few seconds ****ed everything up for what SHOULD have been my model-worthy smile.
the dentist has always asked me to bite down so they can look at it, probably because they notice it more than anyone, but they've never said anything about it, or that i should get it fixed somehow. however, id like to. but i think they only way they could do it is by a surgery of some sort.
does your jaw feel like it pops out of place on one side if you open it really wide? yeah, id like to get that fixed too...
so just so you know, you're not the only one dealing with this.
best wishes.
I wonder why my orthodontist and dentist have never said anything? Looking back at pictures I've had this since I was 10 at least! :s And you're right, it is only correctable by surgery, If I come into money, I'll get that done privately.
Although on a happier note, I've now had my first kiss and she's extremely hot. She's a model and I'd have though she was out of my league. We'll be taking it further too... so maybe it's not a hindrance afterall?
Also, there are lots of famous people with this; Elvis being the most famous I think. And look how much female adulation he got :p I have also noticed quite a number of models in big pictures on the wall of fashionable clothes shops with this.
Congratulations on your catch, boy! One for success stories, perhaps?
My upper and lower jaws are out of alignment, but I don't think it alters my looks. But I don't like showing my teeth..
Interestingly, I am put off by so-called 'perfect' women. Maybe its my cynical nature that tells me that they may have some kind of surgery. That's why you'll never see me dating a celebrity lol.
And yes, remember looks are only skin deep. Fortunately, those with even severe deformities still find love. It's all around...
Ray
http://www.anxietyrelease.org.uk/
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.
~Mark Sanders and Tia Sillers
Wannabeloved85
23-07-06, 12:25
Not heard anything from you in yonks!! How is all? so you have a problem getting action huh? you can join my club!!!! Im 21 soon and i have no action! never had action! Infact the 14 year old neighbour has more than me! shes pregnant! Isnt it just terrible?! actually no! This used to bother me for ages! infact i was so obsessed with getting no loving attraction, i had no anxiety! my mind was else where! But im not the only person my age to not have relationships. Theres many reasons why people dont, illness's, religion, simple choice! Dont let it bother you, at all! besides if you ask me, i think when the time comes, it wont even be an issue! Age is just a number, theres no rule saying virginity has to be 'lost' by the time your 17 or 18. When it happens, it happens.
Becci x
argh you poor love, listen none of us is perfect, you really must try and like yourself for who and what you are because you are special , one day you will find a girl who will like you for you warts andall .enjoy life you deserve to, big hugs to an handsome boy sue
You probably think things look worse than they do. Sometimes we are our worse critic. do your thoughts of how bad you "think" you look make you an introvert, or are you still outgoing? Maybe it's you who shys away from others. If people think you don't want to be bothered, they won't approach you. I have one jaw that is a little different too. Never heard anybody mention it. It is really not noticible to others. Only if I point it out do others notice. No one looks exactly the same on one side as they do on the other. My daughter said she has one side of her face different too. I never noticed that either! Once you have dental work (particularily extractions)your face shape can be altered. I am sure there are millions of people with crooked faces and that we don't notice. There are people that are still considered attractive, even though they have a slightly large nose. Some of those people are movie celebrities. It's all about how you feel about yourself.
Well yea it's the fear of people thinking "who's that ugly git flirting with me?" (basically rejection) that makes me an introvert. Every time I read a gossip mag I see how many people have what I have. The highest profile one I saw recently was Heather Mills. And she's a model! So maybe it's not that much of a hindrance. I do notice that if I act more confident people warm to me. What you said about people not approaching if they think someone looks like they don't want to be approached is absolutely right. I'll work on it I guess.
You will do just fine. Treat yourself to a new haircut and some new clothes and step out. Have a good time!:D
Mia
in need of a friend
24-08-06, 14:39
can i ask how old you are?
piranhaman
04-09-06, 12:05
I have been reading this post with quite a bit of interest.
At the age of 15 i was bullied by almost my whole school on how ugly i was. i was very tall and skinny with a very very large head. apparently i had huge eyes and bouncy castle lips and big ears etc.
I went through a lot of depression and contemplated suicide on a number of occasions.
All my future dreams and career plans went out the window and i became very very very shy.
I resigned myself to the fact that i would be single for ever and so joined the army.
15 years on i can look back over all of this and i see how much it has changed my life.
I became obsessed with attracting the opposite sex and being a young man that meant being like the lifeguards on baywatch or the soldier in some war movie etc etc etc. Before you know iwas a body building nut who did martial arts etc. i went on from that and became an outdoor pursuits instructor and lifeguard. I then bought a flashy car and yet i still wasnt happy.
When I finally left the army i got together with my best friend in the world. She was wonderful and i was sooooooo happy. Within 6 months i started thinking that if she fancied me perhaps other girls might like me too.
I went from a shy insecure yet nice guy to an arrogant insecure man who cheated on his girlfriend any chance he got.
I still felt ugly but instead of comparing my self to the average guy in the street, i focused solely on male models and aesthetics. If a girl said i was goodlooking, i had to know how goodlooking and if it wasn't the answer i was looking for, i would go in to months of deep depression.
As i have aged and learnt from lifes lessons, i can see i had a bad case of body dysmorphic disorder. I realise now, there will always be someone taller, slimmer, more intelligent, better looking and happier.
My nickname always ends up as SHREK even if i have only just met some new people yet you soon realise that looks aren't the be all and end all at all. Infact my current fiancee is an ex model and she cant see why im called shrek by people.
My point to all of the above waffling is, i wasted a large chunk of my life trying to change the cards i was dealt. I feel lucky that i have finally seen sense. am i good looking? i dont know! what i do know is this. i love who i am, i feel the traumas i have been through have made me stronger and wiser and help me cope with life a lot better.
And if i do look like Shrek at least i can say i look like a movie star!!!!
At 19 i know that being attractive to the opposite sex is very important so what i would say is this.
piranhaman
04-09-06, 12:17
When i did a psychology module on self esteem as part of a degree iwas doing, I came across a piece of work.
A psychologist back in the 1970s i think chose a school and conducted some interviews.
He found the most unpopular person in the school who turned out to be an overweight girl. Apparently she was bullied a lot and was very shy.
He also found some of the most popular children in the school.
His test involved the popular children showing that they liked the unpopular girl and hung out with her. This was all without the overweight girl and the rest of the school being aware.
Within a few weeks, not only did the popular children genuinally like the overweight girl, most of the school also classed her as one of the popular kids. On top of this the overweight girl became less shy and even lost weight.
The point to this is, how you see yourself is also how other people see you. If you believe that you are ugly and unpopular with women, that does have an affect on how they will behave. If however you focus on your great points and see that people will accept you for all the great things you are, People will see you accordingly.
At the end of the day, the average looking but confident man will win out over the goodlooking but arrogant one.
I really hope that makes sense to you as i do have a tendency to waffle mate.
Wow looks like you've been through a lot :o Thanks, that helps :) And by the looks of it I'm a borderline BDD as well, crikey :o Never contemplated suicide but everything else sounds right!
I have displaced the cartilege in my nose and have a very noticeable cleft in the end which has destroyed my confidence, it looks horrible. It's very noticeable and because of it, I stay indoors as much as possible and feel that I'm disgustingly ugly and that people couldn't possibly like me because of it.
I was bullied right through primary school for having a big nose [V]. Was never physical but still hurt all the same! I was called Pinnochio, Gonzo, Big nose, snuffles (mamoth in seseame st) ect. I was that miserable that my mum took me to the docs to see about Rhinoplasty (nose job). The doctor agreed and when I was 12 I went in for the surgery, my doctor wasnt' keen as your nose is still growing at that age, it's better to have it done after the age of 16, but I was insistant. For some reason I thought that having this surgery would change me completely and make me beautiful!
Well a fortnight later when the cast came off, I looked in the doctors mirror and cried, cause I was still the same!!! When I went back to school I had people coming up and talking to me who hadn't given me a second look before. One girl even asked me 'is your nose plastic now? are you like cher and can't go out in the sun?' ffs lol!!!
After a while I came to realise that these people that were now talking to me weren't talking to me cause they liked me or thought I was prettier, but just cause they thought it was cool and exciting that I'd had a nose job! I had a few of the girls I'd made friends with comment 'your actually quite sound', well why in hell wouldn't I be?! Does a big nose inhibit your personality!!
What I'm trying to say is, whats on the inside and who you are matters sooooooo much more than what you look like. If someone is that shallow as to not be able to see past your big nose, big ears, squint jaw, spots, frekles, birth mark ect then they aint worth knowing! Even the shallow people must have something that makes them feel bad about themselfs! no one is perfect!
Take Carexx
Claire
onwards and upwards
modelgirluk
28-04-09, 17:43
Ive just noticed this post! How weird, I typed it in. Im a model and so VERY conciences about my look.
It first started with my bags under my eyes, I say bags, more like circles.
Then it was my nose, then my eyes one being bigger then the other and now my chin, which i actually thought was my chin.
As it is slightly further down on one side. It makes me feel bloody inbred lol!
I then after a few years looked at my jaw, and Its not aligned. I was really upset as I new there was nothing that could be done.
But... My teeth are not alighned at the bottom and I was meant to get 4 out when I was younger and didnt and wondered if this is why this has happened and if there is I get them out now itwill change my jaw.
Its really upsetting me and doesnt help my chin.
NeverThink93
12-08-09, 19:56
[quote=boy;10620] Yes I have a wonky jaw. It makes me feel like complete well you know what. Im 16, I've never had a proper boyfriend and same about the kiss thing which feels very horrid to admit.
I know how it feels, I constantly feel ugly. I hate smiling, I'm a generally happy person which kinda makes it suck for me.
I've been told I should model because of my height but my crooked jaw makes me feel so insecure, im not as confident around guys as I used to be. I think my jaws getting worse. I would like to feel pretty but I cant.
I've been told I cant have braces to sort it and must have an operation - which I dont want, because if something went wrong, it would be worse and I would feel more ugly than already do. And also I wouldn't be able to eat or talk properly for months.
Someone on here replied on here and said nobodys perfect. Ok, thats true, but if it makes you feel so down and makes you feel like nobody could ever love you for the way you look, then if you can do something about it, why not do it?
Reply to me if you agree.
I dont know what to do about it either.
I too have very low self-esteem due to my crooked jaw... it doesn't help I had other self-esteem problems growing up that beat down my confidence, but my spots have gone, I got braces on my teeth, now the only thing that bothers me is my damn jaw.
It's so crooked that when I look at myself the whole right side of my face is malformed compared to the other... because I had 3 teeth congenitally missing that bone didn't come in (bone grows in your face as your permanent teeth grow) my right eyelid droops, I smile crooked, my back teeth don't touch, my jaw clicks and pops, everything. I feel like one side of my face is pretty and the other is ugly. Forgive me for offensive use of this word but I have no other explanation.. I feel like I look like a retard with my shoved to one side. go look in the mirror and move your lower jaw as far right as you can and tell me how you'd feel posing for pictures. And no. Manually forcing it to the left when I want to smile doesn't hide it. :(
I look okay in the mirror to myself but I was told once that most people are used to seeing only mirror images of themselves and a photograph is not a mirror image, thus everything's reversed and we look totally different to ourselves. similar to being freaked out hearing out voices on tape recorders. When I see me in pictures... I want to tear the picture up.. and then if god willing tear my flesh apart, i get so angry
I've had people ask my friends behind my back what happened to my jaw... was I in a car accident? I wish I had an excuse like that
I thought getting braces would fix it... i thought getting a second opinon from the best ortho in the city would.. when he told me my problem could not be fixed without surgery it was the hardest thing in the world not to burst into tears in front of him
The simple thing of it is that I want this surgery badly... so badly.. and you are right... it may only truly matter what's on the inside, and **** anyone if they judge you otherwise so superficially, but all of the complications and risks, and for how paranoid a person I am about my health, seem a damn small price to pay for crying myself to sleep every night.
30 minutes from now I walk into the oral surgeon's office for a consultation. I hope my dreams aren't crushed.
I too have very low self-esteem due to my crooked jaw... it doesn't help I had other self-esteem problems growing up that beat down my confidence, but my spots have gone, I got braces on my teeth, now the only thing that bothers me is my damn jaw.
It's so crooked that when I look at myself the whole right side of my face is malformed compared to the other... because I had 3 teeth congenitally missing that bone didn't come in (bone grows in your face as your permanent teeth grow) my right eyelid droops, I smile crooked, my back teeth don't touch, my jaw clicks and pops, everything. I feel like one side of my face is pretty and the other is ugly. Forgive me for offensive use of this word but I have no other explanation.. I feel like I look like a retard with my shoved to one side. go look in the mirror and move your lower jaw as far right as you can and tell me how you'd feel posing for pictures. And no. Manually forcing it to the left when I want to smile doesn't hide it. :(
I look okay in the mirror to myself but I was told once that most people are used to seeing only mirror images of themselves and a photograph is not a mirror image, thus everything's reversed and we look totally different to ourselves. similar to being freaked out hearing out voices on tape recorders. When I see me in pictures... I want to tear the picture up.. and then if god willing tear my flesh apart, i get so angry
I've had people ask my friends behind my back what happened to my jaw... was I in a car accident? I wish I had an excuse like that
I thought getting braces would fix it... i thought getting a second opinon from the best ortho in the city would.. when he told me my problem could not be fixed without surgery it was the hardest thing in the world not to burst into tears in front of him
The simple thing of it is that I want this surgery badly... so badly.. and you are right... it may only truly matter what's on the inside, and **** anyone if they judge you otherwise so superficially, but all of the complications and risks, and for how paranoid a person I am about my health, seem a damn small price to pay for crying myself to sleep every night.
30 minutes from now I walk into the oral surgeon's office for a consultation. I hope my dreams aren't crushed.
could you please tell me how you're doing lately with that problem? I know i ask you 2 years after the post, but I would be grateful if you answered!! xx
due to a motorcycle accident a few years back I landed up with all my front teeth smashed out and a huge scar on left cheek people take me as they find me or its there problem.......lentils
liammaurice11
20-05-14, 11:31
Hey, i have ****ed teeth also and i find when i look in a mirror my jaw isn't crooked but when i take a photo on my iPhone camera my face is crooked. I've suffered from anxiety most of my life and i often find myself so depressed about this matter. None of my friends say they can notice it but i can. I think they just don't want to hurt my feelings. I really hate my face and really can't be happy until i get facial surgery or braces.
livinginacave
20-05-14, 12:24
Crooked teeth here too, I dont honestly think my jaw is crooked but I do have sore one where my lower jaw meets my upper one beside my ear. I think mine is caused with arthritis but my head is telling me it is some form of aggressive bone cancer which will eventually contort my face till I really cant go out in case I disgust people so much.
Boy am I glad I'm not the only one with the hole crooked jaw prob.it has come to the point where I hate smiling with teeth because I feel like evlaeryone is looking at me like I'm some weirdo with my chin going off to one side. Therefore I always cover my mouth when I laugh or smile when I'm around other people and I don't smile in pictures with teeth. Not only because the hole jaw situation but because I got my braces off too early and I once again have gaps between my teeth. But not so bad. I still look pretty decent. I'm 17 and this has tooken a tole on my teenage life ;-; but atleast I'm not alone. Maybe you should email me one day and we could vent to eachother about the struggle. Haha well thanks for letting me know I'm not alone. c:
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