A woman named Jessica McDaniels has lived her entire life being bullied about her smile. Most of the bullying took place when she was a child — she was devastated to find that it was starting all over again.
A photo of her smiling went viral among online bullies — she was completely mortified.
McDaniels was unaware that the picture was taken in the first place. It wasn’t until the bullying had resurfaced that she realized what had happened she was devastated.
What’s heartbreaking, is that in the photo, she is smiling because she’s so happy for her friend. She was standing in the background while her friend was being proposed to — she decided to film the romantic moment.
As she’s beaming with joy for her friend, a bystander snapped a photo that would be traumatizing for her. The photo was zoomed in to focus on McDaniel’s face and then cropped — from there; it began circulating.
Once the photo began making its rounds on the internet — the cruel and hateful comments started flooding in.
When McDaniels found out about the photo, it was a double blow — not only was she incredibly hurt, but the hateful comments were taking away from her friend’s once-in-a-lifetime moment.
McDaniels has been teased her entire life because of her teeth; however, oral surgery to fix it would be well into the thousands of dollars. She’d give anything to fix it — it’s just been completely out of reach.
As a child, her adult teeth didn’t start coming in until 12 years old — they came in crooked with a severe overbite.
In addition to this, between the ages of 2 and 12, she had multiple surgeries to correct a hearing issue.
“I didn’t care about them talking about me – I just wanted to protect my kids,” said McDaniels, a 32-year-old single mother, and hairdresser, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
A past schoolmate from high school found out about the taunting and decided to step in to do something.
Her name was Krystal Starks and she could just stand by and do nothing — even though the two hadn’t been close in high school.
“For a person doing something innocent, for them to be caught off-guard and taken advantage of like this is horrible,” Starks said. And, “For what? For likes on Facebook?”
Starts launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for McDaniels’ oral surgery.
So far, the account has almost reached its goal of $10,000, but one doctor decided to do one better — an oral surgeon named Dr. Maryann Udy offered to fix her smile completely free of charge.
The entire process will take time, and it will need to be done in steps, however, after her first visit — she’s almost unrecognizable. She looks absolutely incredible, and the happiness can be seen in her eyes.
Bullying should never be tolerated. It is stories like this that bring the hurt and pain caused by bullying to light. Share this story, stop the hate, and spread the love.
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The money raised from her GoFundMe account will go to paying off some of her debt along with other household items. She plans on starting a nonprofit to help others like her.
(h/t): InspireMore
