Name changed for this.
I'm so proud of myself but I have absolutely no one I can tell.
I have a severe dental phobia and hadn't been to the dentist for 30 years until yesterday. I've never told anyone about the phobia. I started refusing to go when I was 14. I don't think my parents realized how bad it was.
Anyway, it has taken me forever to get up the courage to go. I am so fucking proud of myself. I have spent a year trying to find a dentist I could even face going to. Most wouldn't even email back. I couldn't phone as that was just too much. Every time I looked at a website or wrote an email I started feeling faint and sick. I'd cry after the email was sent. Most of the fuckers never wrote back.
Eventually one did.... I'm in Europe and she is 4 hours away in another country... but the way she wrote back made me think I could do it.
It took another couple of months with a bit of emailing to get the courage to make an appointment.
I went yesterday. Had to stay overnight in a hotel where I cried and panicked all night. I still made it into the practice yesterday, started crying and hyperventilating immediately
BUT when the dentist came out to get me something about her calmed me down. We'd agreed just to have a tour of the practice and a chat about my worries and how the phobia arose but within an hour she'd managed to do an X-ray and I'd sat in the chair, then lay down in it and let her look in my mouth.
I cannot believe it. I'm just so proud of myself for doing it but can tell no one as I will then have to "own up" to the dental phobia.
She said my teeth are in good condition and that I have looked after them very well. I was fearing a situation where half of them would have to be pulled.
She said I have superficial caries in some teeth. There's a wisdom teeth situation going on - they might need to come out but they can only come out in a hospital because of the way they are sitting on nerves. Fucking hell.
I feel so much better. I'm not panicking about the fillings. I might do when we get that far but the next step is that I go back in a couple of weeks for her to do a scale and polish. She wants to take everything in little steps so I feel comfortable. She said if the scale and polish is too much in one go she will do just the upper teeth and then I can have a lunch break and decide if I want to do the lower ones too or not.
I honestly think it's going to be ok and I can do this step.
I've tortured myself for 30 years and thought I'd never find a solution. I've done the first step and I can do the next. Then we'll see about the fillings.... but as I've also had a needle phobia and managed to get the COVID vaccine, maybe I can do a filling too.
Thank you to anyone who listened to this. I sort of want to celebrate getting this far!