The first time I broke a tooth, I wasn't even eating anything - I had just woken up, yawned, closed my mouth and kinda bit down absentmindedly, and half the tooth (top left premolar) broke off. I was 16 at the time and mortified. About a year later, I chipped a front tooth in a flag team accident. My parents never really took me to the dentist growing up, and they never took me to fix this...they probably would have had I asked them to take me to get it fixed, but I was so embarrassed about the other tooth (at that point, it had already broken off to the gumline), and terrified of being judged (both by the dentist and my parents), that I never did.
Two of my bottom molars (one on each side) broke off by the time I was 20. One broke off while eating rice (I had to spit it into my hand discreetly), and the other just kept wiggling so I kind of broke it off myself. I had pain from those teeth over the years (sometimes severe), but it always subsided, and I was too terrified and embarrassed to do anything about it, so I never did. I also felt like a failure for letting things get so bad, since everyone around me seemingly had perfect teeth.
It wasn't until last summer that I started tackling my dental issues andot myself to a dentist (I'm 30 now). The first thing that my dentist noticed from looking at my panoramic x-rays was that I had teeth broken off to the gumline, but he also said that that didn't automatically mean that they couldn't be saved - in some cases, they can be built back up. In my case, those teeth broken off to the gumline couldn't be saved, but even then, there are options.
Like Sevena said, you are not alone and it's not the end of the world, and you'll get through this.
I've had toffee pull out fillings and by the time I finally got to the dentist I had various teeth broken down to the gum line.
