Black tooth & braces

This week I was given a golden opportunity to learn more about myself, and how much I attribute my own self-worth on beauty & appearance. I’ve always thought of myself as down to earth and yes while we’re all naturally concerned by how we look, most days I get by without wearing makeup and my favourite attire is a pair of daggy tracksuit pants and a singlet. I didn’t think my appearance played as much bearing on my own sense of self as this week taught me, it did.

Since I was a little girl, I have had a slightly black front tooth from a boating accident which killed the nerve inside the tooth – when I was young I didn’t notice it too much, it didn’t bother me that I was a little pirate child and it had no effect on the way I played with the other kids. That innocence didn’t last too long as I got older and became more self conscious – I remember undergoing the nasty experience of root canal therapy to try and bring the dead tooth back to some kind of life, or at least change it’s colour from back to white. The whole procedure was expensive, painful, long and pointless, because it failed and actually exacerbated the original problem by making the tooth even darker (long story, bad dentist!)

All throughout school I had a grey front tooth and slowly it ate away at me. I was painfully aware of it when I smiled or saw pictures of myself, when I met boys I liked and who I wanted to like me, when anybody looked at my mouth for longer than a second… Eventually at the end of my school career, I’d had enough and opted for a porcelain veneer to be put over the tooth. $3,000 later, I was smiling, my tooth was as white as it’s neighbour, but it still wasn’t perfect – the dark root of my tooth still shone through my gum, making my gum appear grey too and whenever I smiled you could see it. Even so it was better than before and I still managed to model, win Miss Australia and get boyfriends, but people still noticed & they would ask me what was wrong and the organisers of the pageant warned me that ‘I would never win Miss World with a tooth like that’ and I should have it fixed, but more powerfully, I noticed, and it continued to wear down my self esteem.

Recently I went to the dentist because the plug at the back of the dead tooth (where I’d had root canal) had fallen out and the tooth had started to decay. He was quite shocked at its state and proceeded to tell me that it needed to come out ASAP not only for aesthetic reasons but also health reasons as it was now crumbling in my jaw bone and risked getting infected, a dangerous scenario. I steeled myself and thought about the implications.

With so much dental work of my own over time, I’ve become preoccupied by teeth, I notice my own, and I notice other people’s, in fact if a man has great teeth, I’ll probably fall in lust with him just for his pearly whites! Expanders, extractions, braces, retainers, fillings, root canal therapy & veneers will do that to you (I’m now going to blame my English pommy genes for my bad luck with teeth) But when you’ve seemingly spent more time in a reclined dentist chair than you have on your own couch, you start to notice teeth.

I realised I valued teeth and I wanted perfect teeth. If the root canal therapy and the veneer and the thousands I’d already forked out still hadn’t saved this tooth that was now rotting away and posing a health risk in my head, I was going to go all out. I wanted a dazzling hollywood smile. I sat and chatted to my amazing cosmetic dentist (Dr Michael Tam http://www.cosmeticdentistryaustralia.com.au) about what our options were. Getting an implant was out, too risky as the gum line had already receded too much with all the prior pokes and prods so we settled on creating a bridge, meaning the two teeth next to the dead one would also need to be redone. I figured, right if I’m going to have to bridge three, then I might as well do the front four, and if I do the front four, I might as well do the full monty and get the whole top line of teeth veneered… my motivations upgraded from health to vanity in a quick, small leap!

So yesterday I started out on my 6 month journey in the chair… with the hardest appointment up first, I was about to wave goodbye to the little tooth that had started all of this drama – oh if only I’d ducked so many years ago when the boom on the yacht was swinging at a furious rate toward my face!

As I drove to the dentist, I was filled with anxiety, I knew I was going to be hideous, that it would take at least 3 months for the bone graft to heal enough for us to even make a start on the cosmetic work.  I had horror images running through my mind of a big gaping smile, with a bloody hole in the front of my mouth, or of me at work, on camera, and my Grandma denture giving me an awful lisp or falling out on air! All of this anxiety around my appearance! I was scared of being ugly, even just temporarily and even in spite of me knowing that I was in safe hands and Dr Tam would most likely fit a small temporary bridge – which although, can’t be expected to look as good as my natural teeth or the finished product will – it looks pretty good for a temporary and and will certainly get me by for the next few months, my anxiety raged on and showed me just how much energy and power I have in the story of being physically attractive.

I am now sitting on my couch writing this and recovering, and I still have plenty of power in that story of being unattractive. My face is so swollen it looks like I swallowed a wasps nest and then took on a bear, and I chose to cancel a trip to Melbourne and a luncheon today because I look so awful, I was even self conscious about going down the street to the pharmacy to pick up my dosage of daily drugs. I guess I’m more concerned with my appearance than I once believed.

A big part of the purpose of me telling you this story, is that it all seems a bit hypocritical, after all I am the girl that runs workshops on real body image, encouraging people to embrace themselves and feel beautiful for who they are, yet I obviously have my own issues with beauty as I sit here overly conscious of being unattractive and I am now committed to undergo a 6 month cosmetic procedure which isn’t “real” in any sense of the word for aesthetic reasons. Yes I have chosen to have this done partly because I needed to for my health but I am going all out because of my own self-esteem and vanity. So instead of feeling hypocritical or guilty I’ve decided to use it to educate us all about what is actually involved in creating a Hollywood smile. That perfect white teeth take hours of work by a very skilled, qualified dentist, that it costs a serious amount of money and that very few of us are born with a shimmering white Colgate smile.

Just like when we see Hollywood Blockbusters, we watch the special effects in awe, but we don’t beat ourselves up for not being able to jump off buildings like Catwoman can, nor do we compare our strength to the latest action hero who just knocked out 25 ninjas single handedly.  We know it is ‘created’ and we love to see the ‘How it was made’ documentaries. Well just like that, I am showing you the ‘How it is made’ documentary of Hollywood smiles. My teeth won’t be real, but at least if I’m transparent about that fact, and use them as an example to show you how we created them and what went into that process, those with perfectly healthy teeth won’t sit there and wonder why theirs aren’t as white or as straight, or as perfectly proportioned as Hollywood celebrities. If we have the power of knowledge we are less likely to fall into the trap of feeling like we don’t measure up as we are. I guess I’m trying to get the best out of a bad situation and use it as a tool to promote having a healthy and realistic body image rather than just being seen as a hypocrite.

It’s a little like what I do when I show my audiences the wonders of digital retouching in my Real Body Image workshops. I’m very clear that I’m not against photoshopping, in fact I think it is an amazing tool, I just believe that everyone should be aware of how widely it is used and just how much we can change and ‘create’ with it. That way they are less likely to compare the reality of themselves with the fantasy of the bodies on the billboards and consequently feel awful when the reality doesn’t measure up. Well, the same theory applies to what I am doing here. I’m not against cosmetic surgery or procedures in anyway, I think it’s amazing technology especially when something has a seriously negative effect on someone’s self esteem – I’d rather see them have it fixed cosmetically than them continue to feel awful and trapped by it. I just think it’s important we are aware of how these tools and techniques are used, what results are achieved with them, and how to spot them so we don’t muddle up special effects with reality and expect our everyday selves to be able to climb buildings like Catwoman or smile with the brightness of the sun.
With gratitude, Caroline

…ohhh 10% off this summers lipstick shades…

…bronzed goddess tanning lotion, streakless and odour free, wow!…

…a double spread on this weeks “hottest” fashion…

I finally come to the editorial which after a skim read, under-delivered on it’s catchy headline and turned out to be just another beauty editor trying to persuade me to join the masses on the latest detox diet that is guaranteed to leave me slim for summer and is all the rage in Hollywood.

I take to my wardrobe and pull out my jeans. I dutifully wiggle and squeeze into them basically cutting off the circulation to my lower legs (I swear it’s the washing machine that makes them smaller) and regardless of the little love handles on my hips, fondly referred to as a muffin top, creeping out I’d rather not admit it’s time to move up a dreaded size. I walk to the mirror and proceed to poke my muffin top and my mind starts it’s barrage of insults. “You’re getting so fat” “You need to lose some weight” “Geeezzz Girl” Logic should win this one and I should just buy a new pair of jeans but I don’t ever work up the courage to go and try on 15 pairs to just be disappointed in front of those unforgiving change room mirrors, to me shopping is a very scary idea of fun.

I jump on the net to check my email but get side-tracked along the way with a pop-up window — a glamorous blonde with luxuriant locks is offering me FREE hair extensions* — I finally log-on and watch as my inbox steadily fills with spam — offers for penis and breast enlargements are the familiar regulars, along with speccy pharmaceutical weightloss pills and a plea from a 21 year old Russian beauty who has inherited millions and needs my bank account details. Yawn.

Off to a casual meet with a girlfriend, as I wait for her at the café I flick through some magazines, gorgeous models smile up at me from the pages with their fit bodies and perfect white teeth — the gossip magazines are once again slamming celebrities caught without their makeup on, and how poor Jessica Simpson has gone from fit to fat!

“You look amazing, have you lost weight” my girlfriend greets me with, I assure her that “No, most definitely not, if anything I’ve put it on and I’m having such a bad hair day I am now considering extensions” We are both level headed, intelligent women but our quick catch up is dominated by conversations about our weight and appearance.

I get back into my car and look down at my stomach rolls as I fasten the seatbelt — guilt comes over me — why did I eat that muffin??…that voice in my head arks up and tells me quick, pedal to the metal get to the gym and burn some calories, NOW WOMAN!

I meet my trainer who gently persuades me to check my weight before we start — the anxiety around stepping up onto the scales is unbelievable! My heart rate rises, my cheeks flush hot, I feel as if I’m naked with nothing to hide behind… It’s almost humiliating and it’s definitely not good news… time to hit the bike… with renewed motivation and self-loathing I sweat, swear and hope that I’ve burned off more than this mornings muffin!

The televisions around the gym keep my attention off the pain as I watch music videos with petite women scantily clad gyrating up against each other. During the ad breaks I’m sold everything from makeup to anti-wrinkle cream to calorie controlled living programs! I look around at the other women in the gym sweating and fighting their own body demons. I’m reminded of rats on a play wheel and I question myself about the hundreds of dollars a year I fork out for this “privilege” to fight an uphill, endless body battle.

I finally drive home and can’t understand why I feel so frustrated, exhausted and low today. Meanwhile billboards of picture-perfect women and men flash by remind me that I’m not yet what I should be — that there’s weight to be lost, hair to be glossed, teeth to be brightened and wrinkles to be smoothed.. and it’s not even lunch time

… does my day sound familiar?…

My name is Caroline Pemberton and I am like you… There isn’t a part of my body that I can’t find fault with and I spend more time each day wishing it was different than loving it for what it is. It’s tragic that this incredible instrument nature blessed me with, which silently wards off disease, turns food into energy, engages and co-ordinates hundreds of muscles to allow me to stand, walk and run whilst seamlessly addressing the needs of some one trillion cells it is made up of, has become the subject of my ungrateful disappointment.

So my question to you is:

Is it time we question not only ourselves but also where the pressure to conform to an ideal comes from? Do particular industries actually profit from this negative relationship we foster with our bodies? Could they have a motivation in ensuring we are all very much aware that we don’t look like the models on the billboards? After all everything I don’t like about my body the market seems to have a body solution for and at a certain dollar figure, my body, like an object, can be honed and worked on…