Anyone else notice the pity stare?

[dantocanada]

I started this journey in July 2014 with lower braces only. The first 6 months was a breeze - barely anybody noticed I had braces. In December I had upper braces installed along with a bonded Rapid Palate Expander (following WIlckodontics surgery) and most recently (10 days ago) elastics. The elastics, coupled with the RPE unfortunately cause me to have a minor lisp. It's more than slight, less than major, but definitely noticeable. All of my friends / family comment on it immediately.

The problem is when I'm in a professional environment and I'm talking to colleagues, I can feel people staring at my mouth and I become very uncomfortable, and I think my discomfort causes my lisp to become more pronounced. I've noticed an expression on people's face, and I realized today, finally, what I think is a 'pity' stare. Almost as if they are saying, "Aww...you poor thing" but nobody ever says anything. I'd rather they bring it up than to look at me like I'm a lost puppy dog.

Anyways, wondering if anyone else has noticed this if they have a mouth full of hardware. And has anyone found any clever, yet professional comment to make that can lighten up the moment?

[Featheryy1221]

I felt the same way during the time with my expander. People always either gave me pity faces or gave me weird looks. I had a Spanish class during that time and it was awful; we had to do presentations in front of the class and people gave me weird looks and laughed when I spoke. Only one of my classmates knew what I had in my mouth (and the professor knew, she just never said anything). You at least have braces visible to blame it on. Lol.

My go to thing was either ignoring it or just saying "I have a palatal expander in, I sound weird, sorry." Or just giving a death stare if people laughed. I'm pretty good at those. Hahah.

I wish I was clever with what I could have said in those situations.
I'm sure others will post witty remarks. I just wanted to let you know that you aren't alone in having felt that way!

[djspeece]

With all due respect, I have to wonder if perhaps your facial expression or other non-verbals are communicating something that would cause people to have this "pity stare." But, people are always looking for ways to feel better about themselves at the expense of others. Who knows.
My only "profound" comment with which you may be familiar because I cite it so often is the comeback to the question about "Why braces at your age?" is "Because I wanted to have the nicest smile in the cemetery."

[jaime]

I never noticed any kind of staring after SARPE even though I had a big ol' gap and nothing visible like braces to explain. I got used to telling people, "I'm having some dental work done," and then continuing on with the conversation. People were pretty understanding and only my coworkers made jokes about it (apparently I slurped spit a lot).

[dantocanada]

Hey Dan, what you are saying could be true once in a while, but it happens all the time and I'm not generally walking around trying to look pitiful. However, I did confirm my suspicion today: I finally had a colleague (who I hadn't seen in a while, but knows me quite well) actually say something. He was talking to my boss, and I was asked to weigh in on their conversation and within about 15 seconds of my starting to speak, he looked at me with the same "pity" expression and said, "What's up with your mouth?". To which I mumbled something about surgery and braces, and the conversation continued without another mention. Anyways, not the end of the world and certainly not going to get me to give up on my mission - I just thought it was interesting.

[BraceFace2115]

I'm a professional working public facing... I can relate to this! It's the one thing I hate! I'm always attending meetings and face to face with public daily and all of a sudden I feel as if my braces stand out more than normal. I normally get it over and done with and draw attention to my brace by saying something like "Oh I'm having dental work and my brace hurts today, bare with me" even thou my brace doesn't hurt. I feel much more comfortable breaking the ice with a silly line gets the glares over and done with!!!

[Leeshlund]

Only from my husband lol

[djspeece]

Hey Dan, what you are saying could be true once in a while, but it happens all the time and I'm not generally walking around trying to look pitiful. However, I did confirm my suspicion today: I finally had a colleague (who I hadn't seen in a while, but knows me quite well) actually say something. He was talking to my boss, and I was asked to weigh in on their conversation and within about 15 seconds of my starting to speak, he looked at me with the same "pity" expression and said, "What's up with your mouth?". To which I mumbled something about surgery and braces, and the conversation continued without another mention. Anyways, not the end of the world and certainly not going to get me to give up on my mission - I just thought it was interesting.

I don't know about you Danto, but I am ready to get these things off!

[YellowDogTooth]

I haven't noticed that yet. Rarely I notice someone staring at my mouth...but even that is actually pretty rare.

I was worried about comments but I don't get many. I work with kids and they comment but no one else really does. The kids will also stare. They still do even now after 2 months and they see me almost every day! Even worse was when I had to put elastics in after my breaks and I'd forget so end up having to do it in the classroom and the kids I work with would literally like settle in to watch. They're obviously interested...and they aren't typical kids either...but still haha.

I just went to a family dinner recently and no one said anything. It was really weird. I'm pretty close with all of them, one of them I personally already told, my husband *thinks* he mentioned it to his dad (it was his family) and I was around his dad once before since getting them (he didn't mention it then either).

It was weird though, not only did not one person say anything about it AT ALL, but no one even seemed to stare. They aren't really the type of people to even talk about things like that when the person isn't actually around, so I'm sure several of them didn't know I had gotten braces. I literally started to wonder if it just wasn't noticeable...so then it left me trying not to smile too much because I didn't know if they literally just hadn't seen them or if they just weren't going to mention it hahaha.

I was glad it wasn't mentioned though. I dunno...I don't know why but it kinda bothers me in a way, like I get embarrassed or something. But still weird, someone got a hair cut and everyone talked about that. So maybe instead of the pity stare I'm getting some other form of pity....like oh that must suck to get braces at 28, she probably feels self concious about it, lets pretend we can't even see them!

[Leeshlund]

Lol I send pics of me smiling huge with my braces just to make people uncomfortable not talking about it lol at my age I'm just happy to be doing this for myself!!!

[brooks]

I work in the beauty industry, and I haven't had any of my clients stare when I am speaking with them and working. We talk about everything, and I go into big details about my braces and cosmetic dentistry. Nothing is taboo when you work in a beauty related field, everyone understands your struggle lol. I do sometimes get odd looks when I am other places though, like when I order at starbucks or something, they stare at my mouth instead of my eyes. That drives me crazy. It doesn't help that I have elastics.

I will tell you though, vain as this may be, I had my girl put a little botox above my upper lip, just about 1 unit. It's the same thing they can do for people with "gummy" smiles. It keeps your lip from raising much when you are speaking and it definitely makes the braces MUCH less noticeable. If you are seriously worried in your professional environment, that is definitely an option. I realize some people will think that is too extreme, but it's honestly no big deal at all

[Amanda88]

I just completed my first week of work with my new braces on! It went better than expected, but I definitely felt like I had to say something, like "Ya, over the weekend I got braces"...No one really mentioned it but I could tell they noticed the braces and didn't want to bring it up. As soon as I brought it up, I felt like I opened the conversation up a bit and definitely welcomed questions and comments. I felt I needed to address the "elephant in the room" (that's how it felt to me anyways), especially since I work in the speech therapy field and kids and adults are staring at my mouth all day! I talked about it with my students as well, since I could feel them looking at my teeth and probably wondering what the heck was all over them! Now that I've broken the ice and everyone knows I got braces, I feel like the next week of work will be easier with all the braces discussion out of the way!!

[Featheryy1221]

I think it's a very different situation for people with expanders in to be honest. You get a lot more of a pity stare when you can't even pronounce words like "you," "speak," or "week" properly at all, and sound like you have marbles in your mouth.

I haven't gotten a pity stare at all with braces. I strictly only had that problem with the expander.

[Prometheus]

I haven't seen any pity stares yet, but I have a bite splint on the top and metal braces on the bottom so my speech is a bit off, not quite a lisp but I tend to slur my words. Somehow I think people give me a look like I've had too much to drink when they hear me talk, then on further consideration they ask what's up with my mouth. I think once I'm done with the splint and top top gets wired things will get better, at least I hope so.