Hello im m17 and i am writing this in a depressive state as of now.I recently just saw professional photos of me and my girlfriend and all i can think of is how beautiful she is and how disgusting i look next to her,and it always just makes me wonder why she picked me.She calls me her handsome boy and her sweet boy but i cant fathom she chose a person with my defect.Both of her previous exes were taller than me,more wealthier and alot more handsome than i could ever be and i cant help but feel like shes only with me because she knows i dont want to hurt her.It kills me to write this because she doesnt deserve any of this,she deserves a person who wont have to always worry about their speech or nose or even fucking introducing themselves.I hate my smile because its uneven and it brings so much attention to my cleft palate and lip and i hate it,and i hate the fact that she has to deal with it even more.She often makes jokes about me that hurt and even if thats not her intention she feels bad because she can see i get hurt by everything.I want fo change so badly i want to accept that im a defect and move on.I want to feel good about myself for the first time in my 17 years of life,i want people to love me.Not out of pity.I dont think i deserve love or can get it from a person whos not blind and not deaf.i know im not extremely ugly but the sight of myself in photos enrages me.I just saw this post about a woman who had to leave her boyfriend due to how his cleft palate led him to get cheated on,bullied and isolated which led him to become angry and insecure,and i got so terrified because thats me.Im the fucking problem in my family,my parents spend so fucking much on my surgeries for me to just not be able to speak properly.I wasnt meant to be loved,i was meant to be aborted i one day hope my girlfriend realises how pathetic I actually am and i hope my friends replace me with someone better.I dont deserve to be loved,i dont deserve to be respected and i dont want to spend the rest of my life with this.Ive tried speech therapy ive tried trying to accept it but nothing works.No one will ever understand me.Frances if youre reading this,i love you more than anything and i am so sorry that i had to be a burden on you and i still probably am in our relationship.I am sorry for the insecurity and im so fucking sorry for failing you over and over as a boyfriend.I dont want to be full of anger but i am,im angry at my parents for not aborting me.I wish they didnt have to put me through this suffering.Maybe when i reincarnate ill be someone worth loving.i dont plan on ending the suffering but the thought is constant.

When I was a kid, I was happy and didn’t care much about my cleft, my looks, or my speech, but growing up changed all that. Surviving the bullying was tough, and going through painful surgeries up until I was 17 was absolute hell. Now I'm 18, and after failing my college entrance exams despite knowing my potential, my parents forcefully put me in a college thinking I'm incapable, leaving me traveling 3 hours every day feeling completely worthless. My biggest struggle is my speech—literally the first thing people ask is my name, and because I have trouble pronouncing the 'l' sound in it, I have to write it down almost every time, which just breaks me from the inside. Feeling ugly is manageable, but having people constantly ask me to repeat myself is what hurts the most, and hearing my own recorded voice is just shit. I have some good offline friends who drifted away, and now I feel completely alone, like a side character in everyone's life, or like people only tolerate me out of pity for my cleft. I've accepted I'll probably never get a girlfriend because I don't look good, I have a cleft, and girls really don't like a weak man who opens up—she won't understand, I know that. But something is there inside me which don't let me go of that idea of having a girlfriend. Still, it hurts when people make fun of me in a "respectful" way by asking if I have one, even today, I wanted to talk to someone I like, but my speech stopped me. I have no purpose or interests, I sleep too much to escape this life, and I can't talk to my parents because they just scold me to "go talk to people" without actually understanding my reality. I'm so sad, directionless, and tired of feeling like I'm the unfixable root of all my problems, to the point where I've found a solution to just end all this mental pain and suffering—Reddit will remove it if I say it, but you know what I mean.

Thanks for reading.

/userith would be soon ⚰️

I’m m23 and I know my title is quite harsh but i genuinely feel like love is so hard to find, i feel insecure everytime i step out the house and it eats me up inside i want to really believe it is possible to find love but i just don’t know, I know I ain’t the best looking but i try to work on everything else but I’ve tried dating etc and i just feel theirs no point anymore, i know im youngish and people say to not worry about stuff like that but how can i not. Idk i feel im just venting but Yh it is what it is i guess.

Parent here. My son needs to decide between using orthodontics and implanting two missing teeth OR getting jaw surgery to correct an underbite. For context, he has bollard plates, which have actually helped a ton, but his top teeth are still sitting right behind his bottom teeth. If he picks jaw surgery, it would still be a few years before he did it. If he goes the other route, they could start on that sooner. The main difference the ortho explained was that jaw surgery would have more of an impact on his face structure (bring his cheeks forward more). Anyone had to make a similar decision? Any advice?

I love music, I love putting a cd on in my car and vibbing to work, I love singing whilst washing up or playing games. But my God I just hate how I sound, to myself I think I'm alright but I dont want to fathom how others hear me.

I have a speech assessment coming up so I sincerely hope It'll go well, fingers crossed!

Hi all. My baby was diagnosed (first time mom here) was a complete unilateral right sided cleft lip and palate, cleft lip measuring 8.3 mm and palate measuring 4.3mm. They would not tell me how severe is this - but shes only 21 weeks and has lots of time to grow. Can anyone provide some background on just how bad this is? please be honest

Yk, i am 20 from Germany, and since forever i am counting years until i get my nose fixed. I always told my self, that it isnt so bad, however at my darkest moments, its always the cleft and my nose. They make me feel haloed down- Like me myslef experiences the halo. Its funny, cause it happened multiple times, when i was with my freinds, they got asked wheter they go to uni and i got asked wheter i work already. Its like impling snce i am not attractive and deforemed, that i am less educated. and it really gets me. i dont wanna look this way anymore. i am tired of it.

I’m 48 and was born a duel-cleft. It’s a weird circumstance that’s kind of ruined my whole life. I’ve had one or two major surgeries every year since birth up until I was about 12… then it was once a year into my early 20s…

The best part was the myriad of “professionals” they would call into the room to see me… it was like being a specimen on a table; never referring to you by your name, or even like you were in the room with them… All if a sudden, (pulls up your lip) “if you look here, you’ll see…” blah blah blah… when you’re 3, you remember but don’t understand, when you’re 8, you’re polite and quiet, when you’re 12, you’re angry but still respectful… after, something just dies and you don’t feel human anymore.

Anyhow, 48 years later and I’m always considered the funniest, most kind, and somehow… “attractive” person in the room… but I always walk away and head home alone. I have my three cats and three dogs and I really don’t trust anyone else. Divorced once, ex-fiancé, and a handful of ex girlfriends is it. Always been happy, but wondering… maybe it’s me?

Somehow, no matter what happens, I still feel like that little kid that heard all the other kids (and more grownups than you would believe) laughing at me and calling me ugly or retarded, just because of a small defect that happened because of circumstances beyond my control.

A little bitter tonight, but tomorrow will be better. It always is. Thanks for listening.

Do you guys think I need any more surgeries? My old rhinoplasty doctor recently called me asking if I wanted to come in for lip injections. Curious to hear everyone's thoughts or experiences with fillers vs. revision surgery

Hey all, just wondering how many of you guys also have ear issues, specifically one ear that’s always clogging or getting infected, losing hearing temporarily. For me it’s always been my left ear, and it’s always been explained to be because of my cleft lip. Every few years it gets bad enough to where I can’t hear much out of my left ear, and this is what I found inside today. At urgent care today because even though we got most of it out, and it seemed to be better, I woke up today with it feeling worse. Super annoying, I clean my ears with eardrops as often as I can but it never helps. Funny thing is my right ear is often dirtier but never gives me issues.

Update: got it all flushed out but my eardrum is perforated and water got behind, so I’m in more pain now 🫩

I had fat injections on my upper lip and they were moderately successful in lifting the middle of my lip, but I have practically no visible lip line on the corners, common in cleft lip patients. My surgeon has given me the option of alloderm, which is uncommon compared to conventional lip filler, but more permanent and maybe more suitable for reconstruction.

Do you have alloderm? Do you like it and are you open to sharing photos?

I know I am not a good looking person but I just would like to make my cleft less visible for now until I get a repair for less dirty looks and bad club weekend conversations.

Hi! I was born with a left side cleft lip and palate and have had quite a few surgeries over the years which have left increasing amounts of scar tissue at the tip of my nose. My nose is hard and my nostrils are small and don’t want to stretch. Has anyone successfully had this type of issue repaired?

eu não tenho um relacionamento se fazem 4 anos, os poucos relacionamentos que eu tive eu escondia a fissura labial usando uma máscara, e de todos apenas um deles o término não foi relacionado a meu lábios leporino, eu sou do brasil então não sei como isso ocorre com vocês, creio que cada país tem sua porcentagem de descriminação com deficiências, eu não acho que minha personalidade é um problema, se não fosse o lábios leporino creio que eu não seria uma pessoa feia no meu país (agora talvez pois ganhei 12 quilos mas estou no processo de perder), eu enxergo como se eu não tivesse fazendo nada de errado, mas não dá pra eu ter a certeza pois cada pessoa me olha de um jeito, eu sinto saudade de ter um relacionamento, é um sentimento que eu gosto muito, os dias passavam mais rápido quando eu namorava, mas não sei como isso vai funcionar no futuro, eu fiz minha rinoplastia, o nariz daqui um ano vai afinar mais segundo o médico, é uma melhora, mas a minha fala afetada ainda atrapalha, minhas cicatrizes tambem, fora que meu lábios leporino afetou meus dentes e eu não consegui terminar o aparelho pois não levaram pra frente, oque eu devo fazer? não sei se estou procurando amor no lugar errado

Soft launching my cleft lip questionnaire with this one.

What did I say wrong in this I just wanted to know

Hi I am 57 years old woman with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. I have have numerous surgeries I’ve the years. As of late I have been experiencing issues with my breathing. I still have a large open hole in my palate. They tried to close it when I was younger but it failed. Last year I had the last of my upper teeth removed because of bone loss. I decided to revisit closing my palate and possibly having a new denture made. I live in Ontario Canada we have decent health care coverage through our provincial health care system. I found out today if you are over the age of 25 you no longer are eligible for funding. The quoted price to do the minimum starts at 60k. I am like what the hell. What do people do when they can’t afford to fix things? Has anyone else experienced this ?

🚩 Leadership & Culture

• Leaders constantly blame employees for problems they created
• Micromanagement and lack of trust
• Leadership takes credit for successes but blames staff for failures
• Favoritism, nepotism, or an obvious “inner circle”
• Employees are afraid to disagree with leadership
• Leaders create a culture of fear, guilt, or intimidation
• Executives talk constantly about the mission but treat employees poorly

🚩 Transparency & Accountability

• Leadership refuses to explain major decisions
• Staff are kept in the dark about finances or organizational changes
• Problems are covered up rather than addressed
• Leaders discourage employees from raising concerns
• No meaningful consequences when executives make serious mistakes
• Policies seem to apply to everyone except leadership

🚩 Money & Resources

• Lavish executive spending while staff are underpaid or overworked
• Constant fundraising emergencies despite significant revenue
• Donor money being used inefficiently
• Leadership prioritizes appearances and fundraising numbers over actual impact

🚩 Mission vs. Reality

• The organization talks about helping others but doesn't treat its own people well
• Mission creep with no clear strategy
• Programs are maintained because they look good to donors rather than because they're effective
• Success is measured by publicity instead of meaningful impact

🚩 Employee Experience

• Chronic understaffing and unrealistic workloads
• “We’re a family” used to justify poor boundaries or low pay
• Constant reorganizations with no clear explanation
• No clear paths for advancement
• HR exists primarily to protect leadership
• Employees who speak up suddenly get pushed out
• People routinely leave and leadership acts like the employees were the problem

Hey everyone!

I’m having surgery on 15 October and honestly I’m a little nervous, so I’m hoping to hear from people who’ve been through something similar.

I have a cleft area and I’ll be having alveolar bone grafting, plus full dental clearance — basically all of my remaining teeth/root fragments are going to be removed. I’ll also be getting full dentures, and the whole thing will be done under general anaesthesia.

This is my first time going through something this major, so I’d really appreciate some real-life advice on what to expect after surgery.

For anyone who has had an alveolar bone graft, full-mouth extraction, or immediate/full dentures:

- What was the first few days like?

- What did you actually eat during the first week?

- How bad was the swelling/pain?

- Any tips that made recovery easier?

- Anything I should prepare at home before going into surgery?

- How was it getting used to the dentures after having all your teeth removed?

- And is there anything you wish someone had told you before your surgery?

I’m mostly looking for practical tips from people who have actually been through it.

Thanks! 🙏

i’m 22f and i’ve never received any romantic interest or attention. tbh i put up with the idea of staying single even before 18. it just emerged in my head naturally, i’ve never felt attractive and never attracted anyone. boys either avoided me or made fun of me. now the only interaction with males i have is communication at work and it never continues outside the office.

not that i consider myself unlovable or don’t deserve love, no, i know i’m a nice sociable enough person and i have some really good friends who love me. but attractive.. no, i guess in this world, where people accept difference as ugliness, never. relationships are not the only value in life, some people live all their lives without any romantic experience, i think i’m just one of them. but…((