Tayla Clement is 'The girl who can't smile'. Here's what she wants you to know.

Beauty & Health Editor

August 12, 2022

Tayla Clement is unable to smile. Born with an extremely rare neurological condition known as Moebius Syndrome, the 24-year-old from New Zealand has a 'frozen face'.

The condition affects the muscles and nerves that control facial expression and eye movement, resulting in facial paralysis.

In Tayla's case, her eyebrows can’t move, her eyes don't track from left to right and her upper lip doesn’t move. Meaning? She 'can't smile'.

Moebius Syndrome is a condition so rare that it only affects one person in every three to four million.

Watch: Boy with rare condition adopts cat with identical features. Post continues below.

Video via Mamamia

In an interview with Mamamia, Tayla shared, "It’s pretty much like facial paralysis - or as I like to refer to it, free anti-wrinkle injectables!"

Because people with Moebius syndrome can't express emotions with their facial muscles, those with the condition are often misunderstood and judged for the way they look.

For Tayla, the restricted use of her mouth and eyebrows and simply not being able to show facial expressions made her childhood and growing up really difficult.

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"I won’t sugarcoat it. I really didn’t get a childhood."

Speaking with Mamamia, Tayla said the relentless bullying, taunting and cruel mocking she would go on to experience during her school years would make her life a living hell.

"I had to deal with a lot of adversity and stress from a young age. Looking back, I was in a constant state of fight-or-flight."

"From as young as I can remember, I was always bullied and excluded and never really felt a sense of community or fitting in with my peers at school," she said.

"I like to think I’m pretty outgoing and love to have a laugh and have fun, but I think that part of my personality was really stripped away from me throughout the years. I always felt like I had to make myself really small so I didn’t draw any attention towards me because I just felt like I couldn’t catch a break."

What started off as “normal” bullying, would soon escalate into "being called names and being excluded", causing her to move to different schools. Tayla said she increasingly found it harder to make new friends and connect with others.

"It's not that I didn’t try, it's just that I guess people didn’t want to put in the effort to get to know me beyond my exterior," she said.

From there, the bullying and tormenting only got worse. Tayla was around the age of 12 when the verbal abuse from other students turned into physical bullying.

"I would get my schoolbag ripped off my back and thrown around, people would take my books and lunchbox out of my bag and throw them everywhere. I would get my knees kicked in from behind when I would walk upstairs so that I would fall over and then have my school skirt flicked up by the people behind me. I got pushed down hills."

She said the exclusion she faced at school daily wasn't just by students, but her teachers, too.

"I would be the only person in class with my hand up or with a question, and they would look at me and then look away and not pick me. Or I’d be the odd number in a P.E. class and have to sit on the side. Even a couple of teachers would see this bullying happening and not do anything about it."

Desperate to be included and "like everyone else", 12-year-old Tayla went through an invasive eight hour 'smile surgery'.

The surgery involved doctors transplanting soft tissue from her thigh to her the corners of her mouth and up to her temple, in an effort to restore her smile.

As she told Mamamia, she ended up coming out of the surgery more "broken" than when she went in.

"At the time, if you had asked me to have one wish and it could be anything in the world, it would have been this surgery. All I wanted to do was to be able to smile like everyone else," Tayla said.

"I had already been through so much adversity at this age, that in my head I though that this surgery was going to fix all my problems. I genuinely believed that everything was going to be okay after I had this procedure done. But in reality, everything just got a hundred times worse."

The surgery proved unsuccessful. Surgeons were unable to stimulate a new nerve connection in Tayla's face.

Tayla went on to recover in hospital over the next week - unable to eat, talk or walk due to the severity of the post-operative bruising and swelling.

"Every time I was wheeled into the bathroom to be bathed or to go to the toilet a nurse would stand in front of the mirror so that I couldn't see my face," she said.

After catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror for the first time after surgery, Tayla said, "I can still remember the incredible amount of shock, pain and sadness I felt in that moment."

"It completely broke me and it started a long journey of really hating myself and the fact that I couldn’t smile."

"The swelling and bruising was actually so bad that when I arrived home from hospital, my sister took one look at me and screamed and ran back up the stairs because she didn’t recognise me."

Tayla would spend most of the year recovering from the operation. "It was so bad that I didn’t go [to school] for the good part of a year."

Over the years, her mental health started to deteriorate. As she tells Mamamia, the pain and the trauma led to a constant feeling of helplessness.

"It made me feel like I couldn't do it anymore."

"By some miracle, I am still here and words can't express how grateful I am to still be here."

While she was struggling under the surface with her mental health, Tayla continued to pursue her love of swimming, becoming a successful athlete.

"I come from a very active and sporty family, my Mum represented New Zealand at an international level in swimming, water polo and surf lifesaving and my Dad was a rugby player, a pretty keen runner and then went on to be a top level rugby referee, so I don't think I was ever not going to be doing some sort of sport growing up."

Due to Moebius Syndrome, Tayla was also born with bilateral talipes (commonly known as 'clubbed feet').

"Essentially, this means that I have little to no ankle movement and no calf muscles, so it made doing all the school sports a bit harder for me."

She also suffers from type 1 diabetes.

"I still gave it a good shot though. I would always compete in school athletic days, cross-country days (even if it meant coming last by a long shot) and even joined a number of the school netball teams. But from a young age my parents had me in swimming lessons, and as I got older, I joined the swimming club and really enjoyed it."

When she was around the age of 13, Tayla was scouted and asked to be part of the National Paralympic swimming camps. From here, she said her competitive swimming days "erupted".

"I competed multiple times for my country overseas with my biggest international competition being the Pan Pacific Games held in Los Angeles in 2014."

"I didn’t do very well when I was over there, but looking back I can 100 per cent understand why, due to all the mental and physical stress that I was under."

Tayla finished her swimming career in 2016, after being in and out of hospital with mental health issues.

"Swimming had been the only constant throughout everything that I had been through, so it was really scary to let that go - but looking back I’m really glad that I did."

"I ended up going back into sport at the end of 2016 as I had made some really great progress in therapy, so I gave shotput a go and ended up having a very short, but extremely successful stint in athletics."

Over the next two to three years, Tayla would become world number one in her classification, break the world record and qualify for the 2019 World Championships.

"Early in 2019 I became injured and had to take some time off, and over that time I realised that I was much happier not being a full-time athlete."

"I wasn’t willing to put up with the toxic environment that I found myself in, and I knew that I wasn’t willing to go back down a road that wasn't going to serve me. So, I put myself first and stopped athletics - and I’ve never looked back."

Living with Moebius Syndrome as an adult.

Known as 'The Girl Who Can't Smile', Tayla said, "People are probably going to think I’m a complete nutcase when I say this, but being born with Moebius Syndrome and not being able to “smile” like everyone else truly is the biggest blessing I could have ever been given."

"Going through what I went through as a child and teenager was incredibly hard and painful and I wouldn’t wish the experiences that I faced upon anyone, but at the same time, I’m just so grateful that I went through everything that I did."

"I now have a perspective on life and an ability to connect and understand others in a way that can only be achieved through experiencing what I have. It's given me the most incredible ability, courage and confidence to use my story to inspire, empower and advocate for others."

"There’s just no way that I could imagine me with anything but the smile that I have now. It hurts my heart still to this day to know how desperate little 12-year-old Tayla was to have a smile like everyone else."

Looking back, Tayla said she's now grateful that the operation was unsuccessful.

"It's one of the biggest reasons why I believe that everything happens for a reason. I know now that this smile I have is mine, and that I was meant to go through everything I did."

"I dont want this to come across as cocky or conceited, but I just have this deep knowing that my smile is my superpower."

Tayla said she thinks creating increased awareness of Moebius Syndrome is the key to people understanding the misunderstood condition.

"Throughout the years I really made myself small. I didn’t want any attention on me. I was made to feel like if I said something I was stupid, if I tried too hard I was an idiot, and that being myself just wasn’t going to cut it. I was never going to be accepted as just being Tayla."

"It’s really crazy to even be saying this, but I just really can not even resonate with that version of myself anymore... I know what my purpose is, I know that I am capable of achieving my wildest dreams, and I’m not playing small like I once thought I had to."

What the future holds for 'The Girl Who Can't Smile'.

Since graduating and retiring from competitive sports, Tayla signed on with international modelling agency Zebedee Talent - something she said makes her "so proud."

Along with helping to inspire others who suffer from facial abnormalities, Tayla said it's all about emphasising the importance of diversity and inclusion and being the role model she needed as a child.

"To be represented by them and to be representing my younger self, along with so many other people who have been underrepresented in the media for so long is truly such an honour."

"I’m really excited to be able to stamp my mark, worldwide, in the modelling and entertainment industry. I just really want to be able to inspire and empower as many people as I can."

"If I could tell little Tayla anything, it would be to stop caring about what other people say about you. What people say about you says more about them than it does about you."

"This version of myself that I am now, is so desperately what my younger self needed. She needed this version of Tayla to look up to, so that’s what I’m doing for others now and I couldn't be more grateful for that!"

If you think you may be experiencing depression or another mental health problem, please contact your general practitioner. If you're based in Australia, 24-hour support is available through Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

If you would like to hear more from Tayla, you can follow her on Instagram here or TikTok here.

Feature image: Instagram; @taylaclement.

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