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Appearance is everything. In job interviews, casual meetings, and even within your own reflection. Along with appearance comes your smile. It’s meant to show your joy and happiness, as well as providing a warm greeting to strangers and friends. It is the difference between being approached or avoided.
So what if you don’t have the perfect smile? What if your teeth are grayed or crooked? Does that make your joy any less palpable to others? Does it leave the impression that you can’t be approached in a friendly conversation?
Take Jon Torsch. A Twitter user that stepped out of his comfort zone to talk about how it felt to have crooked teeth. He posted a smiling picture of his face, showing what he looked like before Invisalign and then after.
The reason? To show how his bad teeth caused severe depression, effecting his mental well-being.
Hello. I have just what you wanted – a thread on teeth and being poor and depression: pic.twitter.com/cCVzMy1eb5
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 26, 2019
This may be vain to some, but really his experience sparked something deeper. He explains that he recently shelled out $4,000 for Invisalign (after insurance). He was forced to wait until adulthood to fix his teeth because growing up poor did not allow him the luxury. It’s a shame that insurance companies view perfect teeth as “cosmetic”, which means they rarely—if at all—cover such a procedure.
Being poor means poor (or no) dental health care (or health care in general). I moved out at 17 and didn't have insurance again until 27. Even with a new stable job and insurance, spending on "cosmetics" felt uncomfortable, vain, and against all that I was taught growing up poor.
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 26, 2019
What prompted the photo?
Torch explains that he’d sifted through photos of very joyous and memorable moments in his life, only to find he wasn’t openly smiling. He trained himself early on to mask his teeth and only smile with his lips. That’s sad because he is a handsome person.
Here's me the day I proposed to my (now ex) fiance, the day I took out papers to run for city council, and me with my late best friend, Frappy: pic.twitter.com/ime41HRwOy
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 26, 2019
This shame had been carried with him for a long time…
In carrying all of that shame, and training myself to not smile "all the way," and having all of that shame brought up every time I felt like smiling in public or in pictures, I've fed a much deeper (and, to be fair, broader) depression.
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 26, 2019
After fixing up his long-term embarrassment, he never expected to feel whole again and happy.
I'm still processing it all; going through old photos to find comparisons bred this post. It feels great, I'm glad I did it. It also sucks to see what I had to do just to get to a very basic place and to finally see all of it tied together as interwoven as it's all been.
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 26, 2019
And he sums it up perfectly here:
Dental care is health care is mental care; it's all connected. Locking people out of care and profiting off of needs are pillars of capitalism, and have no defense. We need a #Medicare4All that includes dental, vision, mental, reproductive care, et al. Anything less is inhumane.
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 26, 2019
After reading his thoughtful thread, other Twitter folks shared their thoughts.
ACAB: All Chompers Are Beautiful
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 26, 2019
And Jon responded…
Same on the student debt trap just to have income. I also had crowding on the bottom!! So bad they actually just pulled a whole tooth out to make space.
— Jon Torsch (@JonTorsch) July 27, 2019
So maybe good dental health can go beyond the wellness of the body. It can cure the emotional stressors of mental health.
