When I was younger, I was horribly self-conscious about my teeth because both of my permanent lateral incisors never formed so my canine teeth are in their place, and I have two hidden baby teeth near the back on my lower jaw. I struggled with overcrowding and it took four years of braces alone to fix it, and two with spacers and the awful metal expander before the braces so I always hid my teeth. I have what is called congenitally missing teeth, or in my case, hypodontia, since I have fewer than six missing teeth. "Congenitally missing" just means that I got it from my grandma (my mom's mom), because it skipped over my mom and came to me. There is little research about it as of right now, because only about 0.1-0.2% of the known global population has it but researchers are learning more and more about it.

You would not believe the things I heard said to my face and behind my back because of this. A commonly heard joke, "You're from West Virginia and you're missing your teeth! Isn't that funny?!"

No, it isn't.

A personal favorite one-liner I overheard my brother's orthodontist say to him when we had a joint appointment, "You are so lucky you aren't like your sister and you have all your teeth. Your teeth will look so nice when your braces come off." You are so lucky that I have since gotten over that juvenile, backhanded compliment and am just writing about you in a lighthearted, slightly sarcastic article, while you still have a job.

Needlesstosay, I hated my teeth. No matter how many people told me that they could not tell I had missing teeth, I still loathed them. It infuriated me that people echoed America's standard for looking good told me to 'fix my teeth because they were imperfect, but I could still be thankful that people could not tell they were anything but a little "different looking" if I did not "fix" them because I had a choice in the end... But I really should consider getting dental surgery'.

I heard from so many professionals and my parents to consider getting surgery but I knew that I had no room for it in my mouth whatsoever so it would really cause more damage than "reconstruction". Not to mention the fact that I straight up did not want surgery. I felt like I could not do what everyone wanted even if I did myself. So hatred for my teeth moved to disappointment, which gradually shifted to indifference.

I still struggle with my teeth, if I am going to be honest. But at the time, I would never smile with my teeth in pictures and it took me months after my braces to start too. The only thing that helped me feel better about my teeth and continue to become more comfortable with them is the BBC.

American TV has rigorous standards for what someone should be in order to make it on a show (much like teeth, part of it is that everyone should be white and straight). Everyone is tall, thin, generically/conventionally good-looking, and everyone has perfect teeth. I only had the fact that I am naturally pretty thin going for me so I had a nonexistent self-image.

I stopped watching American TV altogether because of the distaste (hehe) I had for it. But one day, I watched a BBC period drama called Cranford and everything changed. Some of the people did have straight teeth, but even then, they were not obnoxiously perfect. Even better, a lot of them had crooked, normal-looking teeth, and they were not gross, stupid, or villainous right off the bat like in American TV.

And there were no jokes made about their teeth either, these characters were funny, human, and heroic people who just had teeth that came in the way they did and that was that. After I finished Cranford (which is an amazing show that I highly recommend you look up on Hulu), I searched for more BBC shows. I found Sherlock's pilot in 2011 and I was hooked.

I found Doctor Who, the Pride and Prejudice mini-series, and North & South, and so many more that all had people who were not all conventionally attractive and had teeth like mine. I kept consistently seeing imperfect, yet enchanting smiles, so I began to smile more and learn to love my crooked smile because it joined me to the brave, beautiful, witty, and heroic people I saw in the shows that I loved so much.

Because I finally saw people who had a quality I was taught to hate, I began to believe that I could be somebody because these people with imperfect teeth were. Thank you to the BBC for making stunning series that showed me that what my teeth look like does not define me.

Keep fighting and making noise for representation in media because if seeing teeth like mine once did this much for me, imagine what finally seeing themselves after years of being told to hate their appearance or a characteristic about their appearance will do for someone who is used to never getting to see anyone like them in media at all.