T
Tink
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 14, 2013
- Messages
- 746
- Location
- UK
Hi folks, very old poster here, it's been a few years! I see a few familiar names still regularly posting (hi! ?)
You might remember me for my long, complicated, occasionally slightly mysterious story and my long rambling posts in which I overthink everything. Here comes more of the same!
I'm back here because I...could use some support. Having a hard time just now and honestly sometimes I feel like just throwing in the towel because this whole awful dental phobia thing has dragged on for so many years now and it just doesn't ever seem to get any easier.
--
Here's the story:
For those who don't remember me (that's most of you I guess!) - I've been struggling with dental phobia for years, and it's been a rough ride. After a string of early bad dental experiences, I found a fantastic dentist and a therapist who completely turned things around for me. We did all the sorts of things you see suggested on here, it's been all about working together to build up a solid trusting relationship with my dentist, telling him how I'm feeling & what's bothering me. We worked through a process of systematic desensitisation together and it was working great, right up until a Terrible Thing came out of nowhere and blew everything apart. (Terrible Thing is not my story to tell and in many ways the exact nature of it isn't really that important to the story - the important part now is the lasting damage it did.) It was a horrible time. But, after a little bit of time for everybody to recover from the initial shock of it all, we picked ourselves up and brushed ourselves off and put the pieces back together. There was a lot of rebuilding to do and it was a lot of work but we got there.
That all took place back in about 2015. That's the part where we skipped off into the sunset and everybody lived happily ever after, right?
I should be this great success story now, conquering my phobia and all that - I've faced my fears head on so. many. times. My dentist and I have put huge amounts of work in over many years and on paper we've done everything right, in as much as we can with these things.
But then about 6 or 7 months ago a couple of very minor changes happened (stuff like my lovely hygienist left, and a new dentist arrived in the practise who I'm a bit wary of), it all sort of snowballed in my head and everything collapsed! Out of nowhere, nothing much of any great substance happened, and suddenly it all just seemed to come apart in my hands. I'm not even entirely sure what happened, it's like a tiny gust of wind and the whole house fell over. I ran away, for a bit. Haven't been in since, I'm kind of in exile now and feel really alienated from the place.
I probably should have seen this coming sooner - but I realised that things weren't anywhere near as fixed as I thought they were. The red flags were already there, I'm wildly oversensitive when it comes to dentist stuff and get weird disproportionate emotional reactions to anything to do with it - it's been like that all along - and whenever we had to do anything it was always a huge drama and a lot of turmoil (root canal was hard going for everybody).
What I've realised is it's a bit like how people respond to trauma - the patterns are all there. All that went on in the past, and especially the Terrible Thing which hit at a critical time, left me with lasting damage, and that damage is still there. I'm not fixed at all. I've still got the emotional scars. It just took us a long time to realise it.
--
So...now we're trying to fix it. Again. I've been working on it with my therapist guy, and in a couple of weeks I'm due to go in for a chat with my dentist with a view to easing back into it. And to fix the bigger underlying issue, we're seeking out professional mental health support from somebody who has more experience dealing with trauma stuff - got some leads on that I think, but it's early days.
All sensible stuff, I think. We're all doing our best in a complex situation that nobody quite knows the answer to.
But the reason I'm here seeking support is that I'm exhausted, and this is hard. I really really just want to throw in the towel and run away. To stop always having to work on it and rebuild over and over and over again. I could get a referral to somewhere like the special care bit of the local NHS community dental service and just see a different stranger every time. Just go in, be polite, close my eyes, get my teeth checked, tell them I don't want to talk about, and leave. Come back in 6 months, rinse & repeat...white knuckle it through any treatment I might need, demand sedation for anything beyond a tiny filling. I've tried being good and engaging with phobia treatment, and look at the mess that left me in.
I know what you're all going to say. I'm going to let you say it anyway because I don't have the resources left to say it to myself just now.
You might remember me for my long, complicated, occasionally slightly mysterious story and my long rambling posts in which I overthink everything. Here comes more of the same!
I'm back here because I...could use some support. Having a hard time just now and honestly sometimes I feel like just throwing in the towel because this whole awful dental phobia thing has dragged on for so many years now and it just doesn't ever seem to get any easier.
--
Here's the story:
For those who don't remember me (that's most of you I guess!) - I've been struggling with dental phobia for years, and it's been a rough ride. After a string of early bad dental experiences, I found a fantastic dentist and a therapist who completely turned things around for me. We did all the sorts of things you see suggested on here, it's been all about working together to build up a solid trusting relationship with my dentist, telling him how I'm feeling & what's bothering me. We worked through a process of systematic desensitisation together and it was working great, right up until a Terrible Thing came out of nowhere and blew everything apart. (Terrible Thing is not my story to tell and in many ways the exact nature of it isn't really that important to the story - the important part now is the lasting damage it did.) It was a horrible time. But, after a little bit of time for everybody to recover from the initial shock of it all, we picked ourselves up and brushed ourselves off and put the pieces back together. There was a lot of rebuilding to do and it was a lot of work but we got there.
That all took place back in about 2015. That's the part where we skipped off into the sunset and everybody lived happily ever after, right?
I should be this great success story now, conquering my phobia and all that - I've faced my fears head on so. many. times. My dentist and I have put huge amounts of work in over many years and on paper we've done everything right, in as much as we can with these things.
But then about 6 or 7 months ago a couple of very minor changes happened (stuff like my lovely hygienist left, and a new dentist arrived in the practise who I'm a bit wary of), it all sort of snowballed in my head and everything collapsed! Out of nowhere, nothing much of any great substance happened, and suddenly it all just seemed to come apart in my hands. I'm not even entirely sure what happened, it's like a tiny gust of wind and the whole house fell over. I ran away, for a bit. Haven't been in since, I'm kind of in exile now and feel really alienated from the place.
I probably should have seen this coming sooner - but I realised that things weren't anywhere near as fixed as I thought they were. The red flags were already there, I'm wildly oversensitive when it comes to dentist stuff and get weird disproportionate emotional reactions to anything to do with it - it's been like that all along - and whenever we had to do anything it was always a huge drama and a lot of turmoil (root canal was hard going for everybody).
What I've realised is it's a bit like how people respond to trauma - the patterns are all there. All that went on in the past, and especially the Terrible Thing which hit at a critical time, left me with lasting damage, and that damage is still there. I'm not fixed at all. I've still got the emotional scars. It just took us a long time to realise it.
--
So...now we're trying to fix it. Again. I've been working on it with my therapist guy, and in a couple of weeks I'm due to go in for a chat with my dentist with a view to easing back into it. And to fix the bigger underlying issue, we're seeking out professional mental health support from somebody who has more experience dealing with trauma stuff - got some leads on that I think, but it's early days.
All sensible stuff, I think. We're all doing our best in a complex situation that nobody quite knows the answer to.
But the reason I'm here seeking support is that I'm exhausted, and this is hard. I really really just want to throw in the towel and run away. To stop always having to work on it and rebuild over and over and over again. I could get a referral to somewhere like the special care bit of the local NHS community dental service and just see a different stranger every time. Just go in, be polite, close my eyes, get my teeth checked, tell them I don't want to talk about, and leave. Come back in 6 months, rinse & repeat...white knuckle it through any treatment I might need, demand sedation for anything beyond a tiny filling. I've tried being good and engaging with phobia treatment, and look at the mess that left me in.
I know what you're all going to say. I'm going to let you say it anyway because I don't have the resources left to say it to myself just now.