Dentist phobia - I'm sure many of you can relate. Even though I realized it's a topic that is not very openly discussed.
I've had issues with my teeth ever since I was a kid. And many traumatizing dentist visits as a kid of course only made it worse. I remember being a little child sitting in that dental treatment chair, getting her frontal teeth drilled and filled under extreme pain.
Another very traumatizing experience was that dentist who said to my mom when I was a little child that my teeth are so bad that in my 40ies I will need full dentures - that there's absolutely no hope ever for my teeth.
You can imagine that this is something extremely traumatizing and hard to comprehend for a little child without any knowledge about the medical world at that point. So each visit got worse and worse and each treatment was will lots of pain. Not to mention the sound of that drill and the vibration it left in my head.
Then in 2007 I had all of my teeth fixed under anesthesia. That solved one problem but not the one one of the deep fear of dentists. After that I was a good girl going to the dentist for checkups until 2011 when I left the country.
And then the plethora of problems started. I went through extremely stressful periods of my life, basically starting in 2011 and for being honest, nothing ever really calmed down and gave me peace of mind then. In 2012 I returned to my home country but then a short time later in 2013 I moved abroad again.
And the dental decline continued. While I was living in Barcelona, working in a horrible corporate job full-time, living in an awful shared apartment I noticed how one tooth caused problems. But I was so terrified at that point already that I absolutely could not face going to a dentist.
Then at the end of 2014 I moved countries again, returning to my home country. And life continued being a kind of chaos I was trying to survive somehow - so of course I did not go to the dentist either. Even though I knew that things were only getting worse.
And last week my worst nightmare happened, my lateral front tooth decided to break up with me literally. It was obvious this was going to happen at a certain point since it was in a very bad state for a long time.
I had no other choice than calling a dentist. I was terrified. I only slept 3 hours after that incident and it happened in the evening when I was taking a bite from my delicious homemade sourdough bread. I got an appointment the next day and I went.
It was less terrifying than I expected - and I noticed on thing, the fear of my dental condition and the fear of actually going to the dentist was a lot worse than actually going then. They even managed it to remove tartare and it was doable. I even felt some kind of relief knowing that I am finally forced now to face my dental phobia. I have always known that bad dental health has detrimental factors on other health issues as well. I knew all of it but still the phobia dominated my reasonable thinking.
After the dentist looked into my mouth it did not sound like the total catastrophe I expected it to be. But I told him not to give me the whole diagnosis now and to treat one thing after another and he agreed. Because otherwise I would have felt that shame and overwhelm again which prevented me from going to the dentist at the first place.
So today I have another appointment. I am nervous to go but not as fearful anymore as I was for the first appointment that I was going to after 16 years of dentist avoidance.
I believe I will have to go frequently to the dentist now for several months until everything is fixed. But I try to reframe it as a wellness program instead of medical treatment. I love all things wellness while medical things often scare me after I was experiencing many practitioners who only made things worse for me instead of better.
Also I wanna train my brain and nervous system into not seeing each dentist appointment anymore as a thread. So after each appointment I reward myself with something that brings me joy and happiness. After my first visit last week I ordered stationery that I have been wanting to have for a long time. I thought about ordering before the appointment but then I said no, I will only order once I got back from that appointment.
Now my reward will be when I come back later on from the appointment to buy a subscription for a whole year for a ballet app. I love ballet and it is the only sport that truly makes my heart happy. I did it for many years and an app that lets me train at home in my own pace is the best thing for me since I really don't have the mental capacity either right now to go to a ballet studio at this point.
And needless to says that my appetite has been super low since the end of November when I entered a new era of burnout. But when I felt on Sunday a craving for fish and that craving lasted until yesterday, that was the reason for me yesterday to place a grocery order including fish. So eating fish for dinner after the dentist is another treat.
It'll take sometime to rebuild my emotional and physical health after years of financial struggles, bureaucracy hell, having had to pay tons of money to the government while I barely earned money (the freelance life in Germany), having been forced to work in a horrible low-wage job for a couple of months in order to financially survive and many other triggers that left me in burnout land once again. But this time I will finally slow down, get all the rest I need, start physical therapy against the tension in my body from all that stress and grinding my teeth, have me teeth fixed...
And once I am more stable, then I focus on building this business here. Starting with digital products and at a later point also creating physical journals, wall art and stationery. But one step at a time.
Health first, business second...
And no more burnouts and dentist avoidance from now on.
XO - Phyllis
P.S. if this article resonates with you, subscribe to my 'feel good' letters to get some instant love and joy straight in your inbox once per week.
https://phyllistulaszewski.kit.com/1fa54ee96d