Please Help Me; I Feel No Incentive To Help Myself

[Stewart]

Hi Everyone

Please help me, particularly @Enarete

I was supposed to have a check up appointment in February. I cancelled the appointment because an unexpected bill came up which i decided i needed to pay for.

I was stupidly delighted inside....it meant i had the perfect excuse not to go to the dentist.

Since then ive re-booked 3 times, and cancelled all three for three different reasons. First time I could hear a young person in one of the rooms obvously not enjoying whatever was being done, crying, shouting etc. So I cancelled there and then, it was triggering me. Second time, i was busy with work. Third time, i started thinking about needles drills and being prodded....i rang up and pretended i was ill and they let me cancel.

I feel like i should re-book, but i cant get out of the cycle.

I started to feel really happy again in my life. Ive just got a promotion at work, my hobbies are going well, ive befriended a nice early 40s woman ive had a couple of dates with. Things that are really nice signs my life is in a great place that i dont want to upset.

But i can feel myself slumping back into this dental vortex i go into.....

Havent had an appointment...should feel guilty but dont....book appointment....get very anxious....start to get depressed...come on this forum....feel even worse...watch people being injected and drilled endlessly online....life begins to fall apart...get angry at myself....get angry at others....etc etc

Its like manic depression caused by dentistry, where the lows are always the points coinciding with dentstry.

I sort of....want to be coaxed into going....yet feel like why bother, because even if i have a treatment done i STILL feel worse about it, not happier. I feel like some grubby latexed gloved dentist shoved a load of power tools in my mouth and hurt me worse than the sensitivity or pain i had before was anyway. I go home and cry that ive been cleaned, checked up, drilled....when really i dont want it.

I cant get over the paradox that i want to be happy, and you have to be healthy to be happy, yet everything that goes with dental treatment makes my life and happiness fall apart, so the moment i cut that part of my life out, im golden.

But im rational enough to know I cant live like this. I just dont know what to do, and as much as ive explored all alternatives, there isnt a single alternative out there that will work

Even sedation wont work because whether i was aware of it or not at the time, i STILL got needled, i STILL got drlled, and stuff STILL went in my mouth.

So every time i think about this afterwards, i still get light headed, sick, feel like i need a lie down, still hear the sounds and feel the feelings in my head, they are there forever, they cant be undone.

Im a total mess, i dont know what to do and i dont know how i can ever get over it

 

[Enarete]

Hi Stewart,

I see your call for help and your suffering, but do not really know how to help. From reading your posts, it seems to me that there is something incredibly inconsistent in your views and wishes when it comes to dentistry:

There seems to be this part of you that is confidently refusing to put in any effort to get okay with dentistry. You made it clear, several times that you decided not to have dentistry and that you do not wish to put in any work to overcome your aversion. That is okay, a personal choice, and you have the freedom to do so. Problem solved.

But not really - because then there is this other part of you that is asking for help and wants to push going and is unhappy about not feeling like going. That part seems to be seeking help and claiming needing help, understanding your state as a phobia that needs to be resolved. That is a direct contradiction to that other part that I described above.

And then there is some angry, easy to get offended part that can be difficult to be talked to and sometimes uses a bit of a sharp tone that pulls people away. Something in you that is longing for being helped and being comforted but becomes spiky whenever someone fails to make you feel that way. It is also this bit that seems to be dismissive to some people who had good experiences conquering the phobia or sometimes toward the mere idea that dental fear can be dealt with.

To me it seems like you are jumping between these three and going in circles and that is the whole issue. I am afraid though that help with this is not something online advice can do for you. I am tempted to recommend counseling or therapy to take a look at all these contradictions that you are experiencing, but I see how as long as you do not clearly know what you want to achieve, that may be challenging. It may be helpful to explore these parts in you though and try to create a clear goal in the first place.

All the best wishes

 

[Stewart]

@Enarete

I cant really explain my feelings thats the problem, so I dont know what to do.

I only want the most basic of dental treatment to keep me alive, because im phobic of going for dental treatment and being treated doesnt give me any more relief, happiness, sense of accomplishment. I do not want hygienist treatment, i dont want anything that involves a drill or a needle. In fact i cant even understand why its even NEEDED....im a sportsman, ive had state of the art treatments that allow me to play semi pro sports and almost NONE of them required anything like the sort of outdated, archaic treatments dentistry requires.

However, I know if I DONT go, then I will end up in severe pain or dead.

The thoughts of the severe pain and being dead arent strong enough to make me want to go, because the experience of being at the dentist, the feelings of pain and anxiety arent worth it as it makes all the other areas of my life that are going well and DO give me relief, happiness and a sense of accomplishment get significantly worse.

In fact i do believe id rather die than have needles and drills in my mouth. If it was a set of scales, then all the good parts of my life on one side would be tipped up in the air by the negatives and the overwhelming negative to me would be dentistry, needles and drills.

So removing myself from dentistry gives me a boost to the rest of my life, whilst also solidifying the phobia and anxiety.

Thats why I avoid dentistry, the phobia, anxiety and anger over dentistry completely bleeds over into the other parts of my life that are excellent and I dont want to change.

My anger comes from the fact that throughout my life I have been clearly lied to by dentists, their assistants, and some people (including this forum towards the end) about what getting certain treatments entail which is clearly not true or consistent with my own lived experience. I am also incredibly resentful for a number of reasons the typical approaches people take with phobic people, which I could explain but my loss of private messaging makes me wary to post too much out loud.