The Truth About What Other Students Are Thinking

If you're wearing a brace at school, you've probably spent a lot of time wondering what other students are thinking.

Do they notice?

Do they think it's weird?

Do they feel sorry for me?

Do they talk about me when I'm not around?

Do they think I look different?

Those questions can take up a tremendous amount of space in your mind.

Especially when confidence is low.

Especially when the brace is still relatively new.

The challenge is that most of those questions have something in common.

You don't actually know the answers.

You're guessing.

And when people are anxious, their guesses tend to be pretty negative.

That's how the human brain works.

When information is missing, anxiety fills in the blanks.

Usually with worst-case scenarios.

The problem is that worst-case scenarios are often terrible predictions of reality.

Many teens assume that other students are spending a lot of time thinking about their brace.

The truth is much simpler.

Most students are spending most of their time thinking about themselves.

Not because they're selfish.

Because they're human.

Think about your average school day.

How much time do you spend analyzing every student around you?

Probably very little.

You're focused on your own life.

Your friends.

Your classes.

Your activities.

Your insecurities.

The people around you are doing exactly the same thing.

One of the biggest confidence lessons many teens eventually learn is that everyone feels like they're being watched.

Not just teens with braces.

Everyone.

The student worried about acne.

The student worried about their weight.

The student worried about their grades.

The student worried about fitting in.

Everyone has something.

Everyone feels self-conscious sometimes.

Everyone worries about what other people think.

That's why most students are far too busy thinking about themselves to spend much time analyzing you.

This idea can feel hard to believe at first.

After all, you think about your brace constantly.

You feel it.

Notice it.

Worry about it.

Of course it seems important.

The key thing to remember is that your relationship with the brace is completely different from everyone else's.

You live with it.

They don't.

To you, it is a daily experience.

To them, it is a small detail.

A detail they may notice briefly and then forget about.

Another thing many teens misunderstand is the difference between noticing and judging.

Someone might notice your brace.

That doesn't automatically mean they're thinking something negative.

Human beings notice things all the time.

New shoes.

New hairstyles.

A cast.

A backpack.

A brace.

Notice is normal.

Judgment is much less common than anxiety likes to pretend.

Many students who notice your brace are simply curious.

Some may wonder what it is.

Some may ask questions.

Some may not think about it again.

Curiosity is very different from criticism.

Another truth worth remembering is that other students usually know far less about your insecurities than you do.

You know every fear.

Every worry.

Every self-conscious thought.

They don't.

They're seeing the outside.

You're experiencing the inside.

That's why your brace often feels much bigger to you than it does to anyone else.

One thing that helps is asking yourself:

What evidence do I actually have?

Not assumptions.

Not fears.

Evidence.

Most teens discover there isn't much evidence supporting the scary stories they've been telling themselves.

The stories feel convincing.

But they aren't necessarily true.

Another thing many former brace-wearers realize years later is how much time they spent worrying about things that never happened.

People talking.

People judging.

People staring.

People caring.

Most of those fears turned out to be much larger than reality.

Not because the feelings weren't real.

Because the predictions weren't accurate.

If you're spending a lot of time wondering what other students are thinking, try remembering something important.

You cannot control other people's thoughts.

And honestly, you don't need to.

Most of those thoughts are much less dramatic than your fears suggest.

Most students are trying to survive their own school day.

Their own worries.

Their own insecurities.

Just like you.

The truth about what other students are thinking is often surprisingly boring.

They're thinking about lunch.

Homework.

Friends.

Sports.

Weekend plans.

Themselves.

And while your brace may occasionally cross their minds, it is almost never taking up as much space in their heads as it is in yours.

That's actually good news.

Because it means the spotlight you're feeling isn't nearly as bright as it seems.

And once you begin understanding that, school starts feeling a little less intimidating.

A little less stressful.

And a lot more manageable.