One Month Later: Your Friends Still See You as You

Before you got your brace, you may have worried that everything was about to change.

Not just your daily routine.

Not just school.

Your friendships.

You may have wondered whether your friends would see you differently. You may have worried that the brace would become the first thing people noticed about you. You may have imagined conversations becoming awkward or friendships feeling different.

Those fears are incredibly common.

For many teens, one of the biggest worries before bracing has nothing to do with the brace itself.

It has to do with other people.

Friends matter.

Their opinions matter.

Their acceptance matters.

Nobody wants to feel different from the people they care about.

That's why getting a brace can feel so scary at first.

A month ago, you may have spent hours wondering what would happen when your friends found out.

You may have imagined worst-case scenarios.

You may have worried about questions, comments, stares, or awkward moments.

You may have wondered whether people would still see the real you.

Then something interesting probably happened.

Life kept moving forward.

Your friends kept being your friends.

The conversations kept happening.

The jokes kept being told.

The group chats kept buzzing.

The friendship continued.

Many teens are surprised by how little actually changes.

The brace feels huge to you because you wear it every day.

You think about it constantly.

You feel it constantly.

You notice every little thing about it.

Your friends don't experience it that way.

To them, you are still you.

The same person they laughed with before.

The same person they sat with at lunch before.

The same person they texted before.

The same person they cared about before.

A brace may be something new about you.

But it is not all of you.

Sometimes teens accidentally convince themselves that everyone is thinking about their brace as much as they are.

That usually isn't true.

Most friends spend very little time thinking about it.

Not because they don't care.

Because they have gotten used to it.

Just like they got used to your backpack.

Just like they got used to your hairstyle.

Just like they got used to everything else that is simply part of who you are.

One of the best signs that friendships are staying strong is when your friends stop talking about the brace altogether.

At first, that