kitkat
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- Joined
- Mar 27, 2006
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That is amazing. In a way, I’m happy to be a phobic because I feel like in the end, a phobic has the potential to be more okay with the dentist than a non avoiding phobic. As a phobic, we build up our fears for years (and decades!)... so much that anything done in a dental office feels far less horrible than what we’ve done to ourselves. We also do extensive research to find a great practice. We don’t settle for an okay experience. We usually have a few appointments over a few months, which fixes the issues over the past few years, but also builds trust.
So many people hate the dentist, and as a phobic. I USED to hate the dentist. Now, I worry about the aftermath of procedures but trust my dentist to numb me up during. In fact, I think dentists are very much miracle workers. How could I hate a miracle worker?!
I am happy to be a phobic who avoided the dentist. Not because it resulted in me needing work but because it has led to the discovery that dentists aren’t evil.
(Plus I avoided many of the dark ages of dentistry, which I know has created many phobics... both avoiding and not avoiding). ?
This is an interesting perspective that I haven’t considered. I think there is a group of people out there who have accepted that the dentist is awful but a necessary evil and put up with poor treatment not realizing that it can be a good experience with the right dentist. I am a rare breed in that I was phobic without ever avoiding...maybe I was “pre-phobic” (I’m inventing that term!). I was trying to avoid and absolutely 100% would have avoided if I hadn’t been forced to go by my parents as a teenager. If I hadn’t been forced to the right dentist at 15 years old, I would have been long gone as soon as I turned 18 for who knows how long before I finally circled back! I went into my “angel dentist” with the belief that all dentists were evil and she changed my opinion over the course of a couple months to where I chose to go back to her on my own when I became old enough to decide for myself. I actually wrote her a very long thank you card a few years back explaining that if I had not met her when I did, I would have gone into an avoidance pattern after 18 so her kindness and patience actually saved me from years of future neglect. She was so surprised when I gave it to her, she was almost at a loss for words.