The author circa 1988. Courtesy of Christina Wyman I am 43 years old and, until recently, I was seriously considering a fourth round of orthodontia. I was born with a severe overbite and deformed jaw, a condition known as a Class II malocclusion and skeletal imbalance.
I had standard metal brackets placed on my teeth when I was 12. The second round of treatment involved sturdy plastic trays — popularly known as Invisalign — at 25. With the third round at 33, I wore metal brackets again , only this time it was topped off with orthognathic (double jaw) surgery and my jaw was wired shut for weeks.
Advertisement By then, I’d spent nearly $15,000 and almost one-third of my life actively trying to reshape the lower half of my face. Ten years later, I still believed that my teeth were not socially acceptable or eye-pleasing and that I needed to undergo more dental work to fix them. My teeth have always looked as though they were running a race against my face and, because of it, the bullying I’ve endured has been relentless.
It was so bad that sometimes, when I was out doing errands for my mom in our Brooklyn neighborhood, kids would shout at me from their windows as I passed. It was traumatizing. Advertisement What I didn’t understand until many years later, when I began writing books for children, was just how life-altering some of those experiences were.
Something changes in you when an entire neighborhood of children chants cruelties in your direction every time they s.
