The indirect consequences of braces over the course of 30 years

I think my friend "Snoops" is almost a classic case of what happens when you wore braces as a teen.

My best friend from my childhood is a guy that I nickname “Snoops”.

We were best friends from about the age of eight until we both went off to college.

And we grew apart but always stayed in touch. Even today.

And I think his life in many ways reflects the life of your average person that did braces as a teen.

Now let me explain.

Me and Snoops as kids

When me and Snoops were about 8 years old we were unseparable. He was a charismatic and very energetic kid who liked to get into trouble.

We’d grown up on the border of Queens and Long Island in New York and both his parents were immigrants from Italy. Years later I’d joke that we were a bit like Jack and Fabrizio from Titanic.

Anyway we were in the same third grade class and from memory he seemed about average to me in terms of his grades.

On the flipside I was always a bit of a nerd and teacher’s pet.

This is not a real picture of ‘Snoops’

When Snoops was an early teen he wore braces

I don’t remember exactly when it was but I wanna say he put them on around the age of 12 or so. And he wore them for a couple of years.

Now when I reflect on those years I’m pretty sure he’d regressed in terms of his abilities in school.

He went from being an average student at 8 years old to far below average from about 14-17 yrs old. They did a school ranking of our class of ~280 and I finished #5 whereas he finished something like 275.

So it was always a bit hilarious that we were such great friends. And at the time I just assumed he was always like that. A bit ‘slower’.

From the time he was about 14 or so he went to the remedial classes where the slower learners went. It became his ‘image’ in a way and he accepted it.

It wasn’t till i reflected recently on some memories i had from third grade and realized that he wasn’t in remedial classes at that time and I do no think he was even below average.

Anyway the story moves on.

After college Snoops struggled to stick with a career

He had graduated from an ok college as a ‘hotel management’ major and got a job, but he always seemed to quit within 3-6 months.

He went from job to job to job.

And just couldn’t control his temper or what he’d say to his manager or colleagues. This despite the fact that he was a pretty good people person when it was a non-work situation.

It was as if his attention span just wasn’t strong enough to follow directions and stay disciplined.

He came to the conclusion that holding a job just wasn’t for him. And instead spent most of his adult life teaching tennis at various tennis clubs.

In reality if it were today I think doctors would have diagnosed him with ADHD. And I like to call this ‘orthodontic-induced ADHD’ for the reasons I talked about here:

The 'REAL' Root Cause of ADHD

There are a whole bunch of young folks in our Skool community now who have ADHD and surprise surprise… they pretty much all did braces! :)

Snoops as a husband and parent

After getting married when he was in early 30’s he stayed married for like 7-8 years and then got divorced sometime around 2020.

He and his wife were living in Sonoma, California at the time and they’d had a child, which he very much loved.

He was a good father but not a great husband. And the divorce was triggered by him cheating.

The problem was that his wife was the responsible, stable one in the family. She was a professor at a local college and was the main breadwinner in the family.

He, on the otherhand, would be playing lots of golf during the week and felt perfectly fine being reliant on her. It is as if he had zero ambition.

So when they divorced she kept the house and he moved in with his father and sister who had moved to live nearby following the passing of his mother.

He hated it. He had almost no savings and had been fired at the tennis country club where he was working originally for having had a fling with a customer.

Snoops falling apart

So by about 2022 he was working at a second rate club and barely made enough to cover his bills. It felt to him like his life had fallen apart.

When he was married they had a great house, a great life, and he got to see his daughter everyday. Now his ex was living with a new, much more responsible guy and he was living with his family while seeing his daugher only occasionally.

For awhile he was coming apart at the seams and having extremely negative, almost suicidal thoughts. He would call me and just repeat to me over and over again about how he screwed up and how his life was over.

For like 1-2 years it was like this. I avoided some of the phone calls even because it just felt like the same loop over and over again.

It was at this time that I remembered that he wore braces as an early teen. And so i’d tell him my story and encourage him to try wearing a mouthguard but he wasn’t having it.

Then finally in early 2024 he opened up to the idea after hearing about my progress, and began wearing one that I sent to him. His thoughts and emotions normalized a lot and he started moving on with his life.

Just the other day I talked to him and he’d been dating a girl, was enjoying his job and life, and seemed like a completely different person to the one i remember in early 2022.

What I think happened

I think what happened to Snoops is a classic example of what happens to many people over the course of a lifetime following braces as a teen.

They look and ‘seem’ normal, but in reality their brain has been slightly crushed by their skull. Which makes it a lot harder to get on a steady, successful path in life.

I ask myself some questions of what I think would be different if he had not worn braces:

Question: Would he have been in remedial classes in high school?
Answer: No. I have a feeling he would have continued to be an average student as he was in third grade.

Question: Would he have acquired the self-perception that he wasn’t cut out for studying?
Answer: Absolutely not. The perception was driven by how he struggled in high school.

Question: Could he have held down a normal career in something like hotel management?
Answer: Absolutely. Most likely his emotions were erratic because of what was happening to his skull, making it hard to hold down jobs. And that was probably only happening because of the instability caused by the braces.

Question: Would he have been such an unstable husband, which resulted in the divorce?
Answer: Again I don’t think so. He grew up in very tightknit, Italian, family and had far more family values instilled in him than I did. And yet i’m still married and he’s not.

Closing thoughts

To some of you I probably sound like some conspiracy theorist who wants to blame everything on braces.

Maybe the guy that shot JFK had worn braces? And that is the real reason JFK was killed? Hmmmm i’ll need to research this theory. Hahaha

Kidding

I’ve just seen the same pattern like Snoops play out on many folks over the years.

And have felt the effects of the collapse of the skull on my own brain numerous times, and then saw what it was like to reverse out.

You see and experience the world differently. Far more stably.

And yet if you accept what I am saying as potentially having a kernel of truth… then you need to remember that to this day Snoops looks like your average 47 year old American.

Yes he’s got a bit of a belly now and looks a fair bit older, but he did not completely collapse and fall into some type of neurological disease or something.

Which is why people have generally regarded braces as being ‘ok’. Because everybody knows someone that did braces as a kid and they seem normal.

But I bet if you did the analysis starting before they wore the braces like i’ve done today with Snoops.. it will start to tell a different story on many of them. A story of a path that diverged and ended up being a lot rockier than it had to be.