I’m sorry to hear about your struggles, and if it makes you feel better I can relate so much to your post. I got braces about a year ago and I’m an adult with a life outside of the kink / fantasy land.
On the kink side, getting braces and having tightening appointments and new wires has all been amazing. It has truly been an amazing year and I love my braces and how they feel on my teeth. But the reality is I still have a life where I see friends, go to events, things like that and I do still feel a bit self conscious even after a year.
I went to a friend’s birthday party where I saw a bunch of people I knew and I felt very embarrassed having a bunch of people looking at my braces and asking me about them. To be honest, I think it’s BECAUSE of my kink that I feel more embarrassed about the braces when people notice them, if that makes sense. Objectively a lot of adults are getting braces nowadays and it’s not actually a big deal. It’s just some metal on your teeth.
I think what makes me feel better is that to most people, braces are just like any other accessory. It’s just like getting glasses, or a tattoo, or a new haircut. So to everyone else, they’re not gonna care too much about it and they’ll forget about it in like a few minutes. Even though to us it’s a huge kink and kind of embarrassing, everyone else literally won’t care. And that helps a bit.
The other thing is that even if we have to deal with some self consciousness, the pros outweigh the cons, like being able to stare at them in the mirror and feel them throughout the day. And enjoying the whole tightening process where you get new shiny wires and maybe even things like a power chain or elastics
I would just try to focus on the kinky positives and even if we feel self conscious sometimes, we make it a much bigger deal to ourselves. Other people won’t care much.
Hope this helps! Good luck with your bottom braces. On a side note when I got braces as a kid (the first time), they put on just the top braces in my first appointment and then my bottom braces on my second appointment. My teeth hurt way more once I got my bottom braces on for some reason. So just be mentally prepared for the soreness (it goes away in like 5 days though). It is very nice getting brackets on every tooth though, it’s a huge turn on knowing that every single tooth is braced
