The Dentist of Doooom

So I have this weird problem when I go to the dentist. Not only do I freak out and dread it as soon as the realization hits that I have an appointment soon... but I KEEP freaking out, until I walk through the door to LEAVE the dreadful place. The people that are cleaning and poking and scraping and drilling and searching for buried treasure with a miniature pick-ax in my mouth keep talking to me like I can answer, (which really drives me nuts) and act like things are just so hunky dory! No. My whole body is tense, I'm trying not to gag/throw up/scream out obscenities/pass out while they smile down at me, AND keep up on the same questions they asked me last time I was in there.

Okay okay, so I love the people who work at my dentist's office as well as my dentist himself, but I can only show so much love when I'm going through such high amounts of anxiety. I keep having these horrible thoughts that they're going to get lazy (because they do this millions of times every day) and a knife is going to slice through my lip, or the drill is going to slip and tear through my flesh, or a random sensation of horrible pain is going to make me freak out and jerk and cause all of the above to happen at the exact same time! I guess the dentist is bad for everyone, maybe even worse for some, but I do NOT like it.

So I have good teeth and oral hygiene. I've only had about 3 cavities in all my almost-21 years of life, which I think is good. But my mouth is VERY small and I guess I have something called "irregular enamel" which means I have to work extra hard to avoid cavities and things like that. The small mouth part mostly sucks because the things they stick in your mouth to take x-rays with kills, so therefore I move, and we have to do it 50 times. Another thing is they keep saying "open a little wider" thinking I can dislocate my jaw and open my mouth big enough for them to put their fists in. I'm sure that's frustrating for them... but I feel like it sucks more for me lol.

I kept thinking today while sitting in the chair, trying to keep my sanity with all the cleaning and too-rough flossing going on, how much it would suck to have to work in people's mouths every day. Well, for me at least. I can't imagine working in a clean and healthy mouth with people's spit and weird breath let alone the mouth of someone with some sort of disease or fungus or who-knows-what. Those are the people my hat goes off to. They're like the garbage people and the people who deal with sewage and that whole process that makes the world go round. And, I'm very thankful for the dentist for keeping my teeth nice and straight and clean and bright :) if only I could take some mild anesthesia during my visits...