She Underwent ‘Smile Surgery’ at 11. After Looking in the Mirror, the Results Left Her

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When Tayla Clement was 11, all she wanted was to be able to smile
Clement, a 28-year-old from New Zealand, was born with Moebius syndrome, an incredibly rare neurological condition that causes facial paralysis — meaning that her eyebrows and upper lip can’t move and her eyes don’t track from left to right
As a pre-teen, she underwent an operation — dubbed the “smile surgery” — but the operation was unsuccessful

When Tayla Clement was 11, all she wanted was to be able to smile.

Clement, a 28-year-old from New Zealand, was born with Moebius syndrome, an incredibly rare neurological condition that causes facial paralysis — meaning that her eyebrows and upper lip can’t move and her eyes don’t track from left to right. In essence, she is unable to form a smile.

“There’s not a time in my life where I don’t remember being bullied,” she tells PEOPLE in an interview. By 11, she had even attempted suicide. So when doctors told her and her parents that there was a surgery that could change her face, she immediately knew she wanted to get it.

“In my head, I’m like, ‘If I can smile, then I’m going to be accepted,’ ” she recalls. “‘I’m going to have friends. I’m not going to have to go to school and be scared. I’m not going to have to go to school and pretend that I’m sick to go home.’ ”

Clement remembers the surgeons going over the risk that the operation — dubbed the “smile surgery” — could be unsuccessful, but at 11, she had already made up her mind. So she underwent the operation: a 10-hour procedure where doctors removed tissue from her leg and inserted it into various places on her face to create the appearance of a smile.

After the surgery, there was a four-day window before it was really clear whether it had been successful. In that time, she had to be wheeled to the bathroom by nurses, who would cover up the mirrors so she couldn’t see her appearance.

But one morning, Clement recalls, one of the nurses “slipped up” and she got a glimpse of her face for the first time. “I instantly knew that it hadn’t worked,” she says of the surgery. “I’ll never forget that feeling. It still makes me emotional to this day just thinking about how broken that 11-year-old girl was.”

The following weeks and months were some of the hardest of her life.

After her 10-day hospital stay, Clement went back to school even while massively swollen from the failed procedure. The bullying only intensified — so much so that she was developing seizures from the amount of stress her body was under.

Around 19, when doctors told her that she would likely never live independently because of the frequency of the seizures, Clement says she decided to give her life “one more chance.” She started going to intensive therapy, and as she slowly became more comfortable with her physical appearance, her seizures subsided, too.

“The road wasn’t easy,” she admits. “Anything to do with mental health is just so debilitating. And, I think, unless you’ve dealt with mental health issues, it’s really hard for people to understand.”

A decade later, Clement now shares her life online to over 100,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, on top of her job working for a medical device company. She has a long-term partner, with whom she shares a dog, and they just bought a house together.

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Now, she can confidently say she’s “grateful” the surgery was unsuccessful — because she thinks she’s a “better person” because of it.

“If you had told 11-year-old Tayla that she was going to have a partner that loved her unconditionally and a home that they owned together, she just never would’ve believed you,” she says. “I hope that, through sharing my story, it can inspire people to become more accepting and inclusive and just kind of let go of this age-old stigma that you’ve gotta look a certain way or be a certain way to be accepted.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7.

Read the original article on People