B
Belphagor
Junior member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2024
- Messages
- 1
- Location
- British Columbia
As my title states this is my first time posting anything here. I really hope someone reads this and responds. I wanted to share my story of mostly success in exposure therapy but a roadblock I've hit now. I'm sorry if this is long.
I'm a 20 year old girl and ever since I was little I've been scared of the dentist. I remember not liking the dentist when I was 6 but I don't recall being scared? I guess maybe I was because when my dentist found some cavities in my molars they sent me to a special pediatric dentist. I didn't mind it there and I remember almost nothing of my fillings appointment. I'm told I may have been on laughing gas at the time. But I have a single small memory of crying at that appointment because I suddenly felt something sharply cutting into my lip. Whatever they were using to keep my mouth open felt like it was cutting me and I started crying really hard because I couldn't remove it. But the only response I got from the dentist was "Oh! If you're crying we can't fix your teeth!" in a stupid, happy condescending voice. Like she couldn't believe a child would cry at the dentist.
As I got older it seemed like I would get more and more scared at every appointment even though nothing bad ever happened to me at the dentist? As of this day I've never had another filling since I was 6 I've only had cleanings. When I was 11 my mother suffered a dental emergency. A simple x-ray showed that a wisdom tooth was stuck in her jaw bone in such a dangerous way that she needed an urgent surgery to have it removed and basically had a massive portion of her left jaw removed. She wasn't allowed to eat solid foods for an entire year and was told if she did her jaw would shatter. I remember her having to eat all her meals blended it was awful. My mom has since assured me that what happened to her was very rare but It still terrifies me. I didn't think much of it at the time but now I realize that this was the start of my dental phobia. By the time I was 12 I was officially scared of the dentist not just nervous. about a year after that happened to my mom she had a horrible experience at that dentist in a routine cleaning and after that we stopped going there. That was when I was 12 and I haven't gone to a dentist in 8 years.
From the time I was 12-16 we did not have a dentist and I didn't ever think about it. Then when I was 17 my parents found a dentist and booked all of us appointments. My dad picked me up from school one day and told me he made us all appointments and I instantly blurted out "I'm not going". I had just decided that the dentist was something I could never do again and the thought of going made me scream cry into a pillow later that night. I eventually cancelled my appointment being very clear that I would never go back to a dentist again and from ages 17-18 I continued to avoid it whilst still constantly worrying about it in the back of my mind. But when I was approaching age 19 I started to feel wisdom teeth growing in and it devastated me. Because now I really couldn't ignore it. When I last went to the dentist when I was 12 they told me I had 2 cavities and I know they're still there. I have a cavity in between my front teeth, a huge cavity in my upper back molar, my lower back molar is very cracked and I seem to have many cracks and cavities all over my mouth. Not to mention my 2 bottom wisdom teeth coming in slowly. I took very bad care of my mouth between ages 12 and 16 and the longer I put it off the worse things are getting and the more scared I am to go in. I'm scared I'll need all my teeth root canalled and I'm only 20. I finally brought up the topic in therapy in spring of 2024 and soon afterwards exposure therapy began.
I'm very happy to say that my exposure therapy has mostly been a huge success. I have an amazing therapist who validated for me that fact that phobia's shouldn't be faced head on like regular fears. Slow exposure therapy has benefitted me so much. I also have the help of a nice young woman from my local youth help center who's offered to go to actual appointments with me (I'll just call her Brooklyn) and I feel very safe with Brooklyn an advocate. in April of 2024 when I started my journey, I couldn't even talk about the dentist without crying. Since then I've watched videos, sat in the parking lot at the dentist, sat in the waiting room, wrote a letter about my phobia to give to my dentist and hygienist, had a tour of the office space, met my future dentist just to say hello, handed in my new patient forms, practiced sitting in the chair! I even practiced lying down in the chair this week and practiced opening my mouth and letting Brooklyn look inside. I'm so proud of myself for doing all this. I've been really brave and come a long, long way this year. The rest of the exposure plan would have been too meet my future hygienist next week and Brooklyn booked an x-ray and a cleaning for herself on October 8th so I can come and watch. After that I would book the same thing for myself and try my best to get through it. My biggest fears, top of my list are diagnosis and procedures. I'm terrified to hear what needs to be done and I'm not sure I can handle it. I have always told myself that's the very last step and that's so high up on the fear list that I don't have to get to that for months. But now something has come up.
My upper back molar that has the big cavity is killing me. It hurts so bad I can't eat on that side and it's making my other teeth around it hurt. It comes and goes but lately it's actually distracting me from everything else. I can barely sleep and I don't want to eat. I have cut out almost all sugar since I started experiencing this toothache and obsessively brushing, flossing, rinsing with warm saltwater and using OraGel. I am so fucking scared, this is not how the plan was supposed to go. I am not ready for an emergency appointment and this will throw off all of my hard work. I'm scared this isn't a cavity anymore I'm scared I need a root canal or need it pulled. There's so many kinds of dental problems I don't even know about and I'm terrified to go through what my mom went through. After what happened to her, the dentist felt like the grim reaper to me. I'm afraid of how scary the numb feeling is, even just using OraGel causes my sensory issues to flare up, it must be so much worse at the dentist. And I have no pain tolerance and I'm terrified of needles. I don't want to sit through it because I'm afraid it will push me into a nervous breakdown I'm afraid the procedure will traumatize me. But I don't want Ativan or laughing gas because I'm afraid the dentist will do something terrible to me. And I never want sedation because I might not wake up again. I haven't felt suicidal in a long time and I don't ever want to feel that way again. What if I'm traumatized by a procedure and it pushes me into a bad headspace? I'm not ready for this but ever part of my body is screaming at me to get help because the pain is so bad. I feel sick my head hurts and I'm afraid of dying if I don't get this treated. I'm so angry at myself for letting things get this far. I was so proud of myself for all my hard work but now I'm so ashamed that I'm risking making myself very sick which would hurt my parents so much. I don't know what to do. I guess I just want some support. I don't know how much longer I can stand this pain. Please be gentle your comments and responses. I am desperate and terrified and I'm afraid to tell Brooklyn or Jessica. I think I might need to call the dentist tomorrow.
I'm a 20 year old girl and ever since I was little I've been scared of the dentist. I remember not liking the dentist when I was 6 but I don't recall being scared? I guess maybe I was because when my dentist found some cavities in my molars they sent me to a special pediatric dentist. I didn't mind it there and I remember almost nothing of my fillings appointment. I'm told I may have been on laughing gas at the time. But I have a single small memory of crying at that appointment because I suddenly felt something sharply cutting into my lip. Whatever they were using to keep my mouth open felt like it was cutting me and I started crying really hard because I couldn't remove it. But the only response I got from the dentist was "Oh! If you're crying we can't fix your teeth!" in a stupid, happy condescending voice. Like she couldn't believe a child would cry at the dentist.
As I got older it seemed like I would get more and more scared at every appointment even though nothing bad ever happened to me at the dentist? As of this day I've never had another filling since I was 6 I've only had cleanings. When I was 11 my mother suffered a dental emergency. A simple x-ray showed that a wisdom tooth was stuck in her jaw bone in such a dangerous way that she needed an urgent surgery to have it removed and basically had a massive portion of her left jaw removed. She wasn't allowed to eat solid foods for an entire year and was told if she did her jaw would shatter. I remember her having to eat all her meals blended it was awful. My mom has since assured me that what happened to her was very rare but It still terrifies me. I didn't think much of it at the time but now I realize that this was the start of my dental phobia. By the time I was 12 I was officially scared of the dentist not just nervous. about a year after that happened to my mom she had a horrible experience at that dentist in a routine cleaning and after that we stopped going there. That was when I was 12 and I haven't gone to a dentist in 8 years.
From the time I was 12-16 we did not have a dentist and I didn't ever think about it. Then when I was 17 my parents found a dentist and booked all of us appointments. My dad picked me up from school one day and told me he made us all appointments and I instantly blurted out "I'm not going". I had just decided that the dentist was something I could never do again and the thought of going made me scream cry into a pillow later that night. I eventually cancelled my appointment being very clear that I would never go back to a dentist again and from ages 17-18 I continued to avoid it whilst still constantly worrying about it in the back of my mind. But when I was approaching age 19 I started to feel wisdom teeth growing in and it devastated me. Because now I really couldn't ignore it. When I last went to the dentist when I was 12 they told me I had 2 cavities and I know they're still there. I have a cavity in between my front teeth, a huge cavity in my upper back molar, my lower back molar is very cracked and I seem to have many cracks and cavities all over my mouth. Not to mention my 2 bottom wisdom teeth coming in slowly. I took very bad care of my mouth between ages 12 and 16 and the longer I put it off the worse things are getting and the more scared I am to go in. I'm scared I'll need all my teeth root canalled and I'm only 20. I finally brought up the topic in therapy in spring of 2024 and soon afterwards exposure therapy began.
I'm very happy to say that my exposure therapy has mostly been a huge success. I have an amazing therapist who validated for me that fact that phobia's shouldn't be faced head on like regular fears. Slow exposure therapy has benefitted me so much. I also have the help of a nice young woman from my local youth help center who's offered to go to actual appointments with me (I'll just call her Brooklyn) and I feel very safe with Brooklyn an advocate. in April of 2024 when I started my journey, I couldn't even talk about the dentist without crying. Since then I've watched videos, sat in the parking lot at the dentist, sat in the waiting room, wrote a letter about my phobia to give to my dentist and hygienist, had a tour of the office space, met my future dentist just to say hello, handed in my new patient forms, practiced sitting in the chair! I even practiced lying down in the chair this week and practiced opening my mouth and letting Brooklyn look inside. I'm so proud of myself for doing all this. I've been really brave and come a long, long way this year. The rest of the exposure plan would have been too meet my future hygienist next week and Brooklyn booked an x-ray and a cleaning for herself on October 8th so I can come and watch. After that I would book the same thing for myself and try my best to get through it. My biggest fears, top of my list are diagnosis and procedures. I'm terrified to hear what needs to be done and I'm not sure I can handle it. I have always told myself that's the very last step and that's so high up on the fear list that I don't have to get to that for months. But now something has come up.
My upper back molar that has the big cavity is killing me. It hurts so bad I can't eat on that side and it's making my other teeth around it hurt. It comes and goes but lately it's actually distracting me from everything else. I can barely sleep and I don't want to eat. I have cut out almost all sugar since I started experiencing this toothache and obsessively brushing, flossing, rinsing with warm saltwater and using OraGel. I am so fucking scared, this is not how the plan was supposed to go. I am not ready for an emergency appointment and this will throw off all of my hard work. I'm scared this isn't a cavity anymore I'm scared I need a root canal or need it pulled. There's so many kinds of dental problems I don't even know about and I'm terrified to go through what my mom went through. After what happened to her, the dentist felt like the grim reaper to me. I'm afraid of how scary the numb feeling is, even just using OraGel causes my sensory issues to flare up, it must be so much worse at the dentist. And I have no pain tolerance and I'm terrified of needles. I don't want to sit through it because I'm afraid it will push me into a nervous breakdown I'm afraid the procedure will traumatize me. But I don't want Ativan or laughing gas because I'm afraid the dentist will do something terrible to me. And I never want sedation because I might not wake up again. I haven't felt suicidal in a long time and I don't ever want to feel that way again. What if I'm traumatized by a procedure and it pushes me into a bad headspace? I'm not ready for this but ever part of my body is screaming at me to get help because the pain is so bad. I feel sick my head hurts and I'm afraid of dying if I don't get this treated. I'm so angry at myself for letting things get this far. I was so proud of myself for all my hard work but now I'm so ashamed that I'm risking making myself very sick which would hurt my parents so much. I don't know what to do. I guess I just want some support. I don't know how much longer I can stand this pain. Please be gentle your comments and responses. I am desperate and terrified and I'm afraid to tell Brooklyn or Jessica. I think I might need to call the dentist tomorrow.
