I've been dentist dodging my entire adult life and haven't attended regularly since I was a teenager and my childhood dentist went private.
When my eldest was a born and I had dental exception I talked myself into going, and it was not positive. Up to that point I had never had tooth pain, but after they did a filling I had no end of trouble (the tooth cracked around the filling and I had years of pain and recurring abscesses over covid when I couldn't go back to get it sorted. After covid, I had gone too long between appointments, so was removed from their books. I eventually paid to have the tooth removed as a one off (also awful, it cracked and Iwas picking tiny tooth fragments out on my gum for weeks), but haven't had regular appointments since, as at the time no where local was taking on NHS patients.
It's been two years since then, and today I had a ring round local dentists to see if any would add me to their waiting list to become a patient. I do this every few months and have been added to the odd list, but always with a warning that it will be years before I can actually register. I was super surprised when one said that not only are they taking new patients, they can get me in tomorrow! I was not ready for that.
I know it's a good thing and I should be happy, but I just haven't had the time to psych myself up for it and the less rational part of my brain keeps telling me that now I'm pain free I should leave well enough alone, and that all the problems last time only started because I went.