Mental Health: Dental Hygeine

It seems as if the world is trying to make room for an intelligent discussion of mental health. I do not possess a degree of any relevance to the topic, nor do I claim to speak on behalf of all those who struggle with anxiety and depression, and whatever other labels you can slap on my unhealthy mental state. I can only speak of my experience. If said experience resonates with anyone else, then I am glad to share. I, too, share in the fear of being shamed for divulging my battles, or even ostracized, but someone needs to say something so we have more people speaking up. All too often I have found that simply knowing I am not alone in my struggle is of great comfort. Since my anxiety and depression have far-reaching effects, too numerous to share in one succinct post, I will start with just one area anxiety and depression impact my life.

Oral hygiene is a topic most of us are well-versed in at a young age. One of my first college assignments in my Elementary Education course was to create a lesson plan revolving around teaching young children how to brush their teeth. My children's cartoons are full of songs about how to keep your teeth happy and clean. My point is: my teeth are not in bad shape for lack of know-how. Proper mouth care is pounded into our heads early on.

However, I was a lazy child. I took the path of least resistance and brushing my teeth was boring. This neglect resulted in cavities, but my tiny mouth initiated the need for several teeth being pulled. I had overcrowding and soon very crooked teeth. I remember being horrified as the adults around me discussed the potential for braces that wrap around your head. As if my self-esteem was not already microscopic! Thankfully, they offered me spacers first and the nightmare that those were yielded the necessary results. I still needed braces but they were not going to be the massive focal point that I had been warned of. I actually did not mind my metal mouth so much. Choosing new colour elastics to coordinate with the holidays was fun. At least, I assume that is why I documented my choices in my journal. Hey, I was thirteen!

The natural progression went to a retainer, which I was supposed to wear for quite awhile. However, I had developed a bad habit of chewing gum with them in. Chewing gum was one of the few ways I could even remotely cope with the anxiety surging through me. When I could not chew gum it was mints, a habit started in seventh grade when my state of mental health took a distinct nose dive.

Naturally, the plastic of my retainer was not meant to withstand such punishment and I wore holes in the thing. We were no longer living in Canada, so replacing it was not an easy task. I never did get a new one and my teeth very slowing began to migrate back into the snaggletooth smile I have today.

All through high school I did my best to maintain my teeth. It was a chore still but I realized more and more that I could work through the laziness, it was the mental block I could not so easily power through.

My parents both taught at a private Christian school, the same one I attended tenth through twelfth grade. It was a K-12 school, so my younger brother also attended. My Dad is an early riser; and I mean he is often up before the sun. He insisted on being to the school early, and with a thirty minute commute this meant we were out the door at about 6:30am. I can recall many a morning trying to choke down breakfast (eating is a whole different ballgame) before rushing to the bathroom to brush my teeth. While everyone was being ushered out the door I would be standing over the sink, brushing and gagging. The anxiety of trying to move through the motions in a hurry made me gag, and so brushing my teeth was not an enjoyable task to say the least.

I associated brushing my teeth with being in a hurry for years and would rush through the process. Trying to do anything more was tedious. Just last year, I was able to go to the dentist for the first time in eleven years. Part of me was holding out hope that I was not so full of holes I could sink but the truth was not surprising either. I had cavities in the double digits. Ugh!

Over those eleven years my germ phobia had dissipated and then reared its ugly head many times. Shoving a brush in my mouth that just sat in the bathroom with all of the other fun stuff that goes on around it made me shudder. I would stop brushing my teeth and just use mouth wash if I feared my brush was too germy that even dousing it with boiling water was not going to be enough until I could get a new one.

This past February I got Invisalign in an effort to actually like my smile again. The first day with those plastic pieces in my mouth was brutal. I felt gaggy all day and feared that we had just sunk a lot of money into a failed experiment. I did adjust though and things were going well until I hit a wall. I got a cold that produced a lot of mucous, which made me gag. The gagging made me anxious, which made me gag more and said gagging was a predominant feature once more every time I tried to brush my teeth.

When you take out your braces you need to brush your teeth before you put them back in and that means the need for brushing my teeth was upped to at least three times a day, which does not sound like much since that is the standard but I started to dread it. I began to leave my braces out for longer stretches of time. I realized I was leaving them out for longer and longer periods of time and was in danger of rendering the whole endeavor fruitless. So, that is about where I am now. Breathing through my nose in an effort to stave off the gagging fit, while my daughter dances around my bathroom singing, “I love you, Mommy! I love you, Mommy!,” in an effort to distract me.

Mind over matter. It is easier to flippantly say than to put into practice. I have thrust my toothbrush into the back of my mouth in an effort to hit the spot the hygienist said I was missing at my last cleaning. I apparently put so much effort into at least getting that done in between the singing, hyperventilating, and gagging, that I forgot to floss. I literally forgot in all of those moments, because it was all I could do to get my teeth brushed without it triggering a series of gags that left my stomach unhappy.

That was apparently my downfall. I walked into my cleaning today anxious from a battle of the wills that I lost with my gag reflex this morning and just anxious in general about having to lay still for so long with my mouth wide open. I really hate going to the dentist! But I took deep breaths, I prayed all morning, and was relieved that my teeth are still being nudged back where they belong.

My happiness was short-lived. The kids both walked out of their cleanings with a report of two cavities apiece. My heart sank. The dentist told me that it is likely their diet and I thought, “Of course it is! They eat fruit snacks and drink juice, they love Dum Dum pops and fruit…” My children are also picky. By picky I mean my son will find the tiny strands of cabbage and onion in the noodles from Panda Express and meticulously remove them all. He does not like much and neither does his sister. I have his doctor monitoring his weight because he has not budged in a year so that concerned her, so I just stood there silently mulling over the frustration of how I must have failed to assist them in brushing properly and I have fed them all the wrong things but if I don't they do not eat and I am at a loss. Then it was my turn for the cleaning portion of my visit.

It went fine. The x-rays made me gag but that is par for the course. The rest was typical and the hygienist was very friendly and put me as much at ease as you could expect from me in that situation. Then one of the dentists came in to examine my x-rays and my heart started pounding as he stared at them for a long while, enlarging each one and just staring before he finally began marking little red dots on the printout of teeth in front of him. I knew what that meant… cavities. He asked if I flossed and completely deflated at that point I just softly said, “no.”

He looked in my mouth, stuck a pointy instrument into my tooth and declared that I had another one. He spoke to his hygienist and almost shook his head and and laughed the sort of laugh that indicates something like, “I try to warn them,” and said, “she doesn't floss.”

I was in a bad state at that point. I tried to reason with emotions but depression hits me like a brick around this time every month and it was not doing me any favors as I stood at the counter, waiting for the printouts of how much all of these cavities were going to cost us. I felt so angry, defeated, discouraged and hurt.

I try! I fight every day to overcome the apathy that gives way to laziness, the depression that encourages the apathy and hurt, the anxiety that makes me avoid tasks because facing them is too hard. Taking care of my mouth should not be a battle beyond I get lazy and it is boring but it is so much more than that and I resented being made to feel so small, like a child who had taken a cookie from the jar without asking and spoiled her appetite.

I lost my composure. I stood there too long and the tears started welling up, and when I poked my head into the waiting room to ask my husband what sort of fillings he wanted for the children my voice betrayed me in a quivering mess. The kids looked at me wide-eyed and my daughter exclaimed, “Are you okay?!” No, I was not but I knew if I answered the rest would come out. The tears spilled out, despite my best efforts and as I made my way out to the waiting room I had to sit to tighten my shoelace and finally answered my daughter. I felt like a fool as I said through sobs that I had cavities because I do not floss but I try so hard not to throw up every time I brush my teeth that….” I said something like that anyhow before hurrying out of the office and finishing my thought as we all walked to the van.

I cried all the way home, about a million things really. I felt like a fool. I could hear my Christian peers sighing at how little faith I must have to be plagued by something so ridiculous. I could hear the world rolling their eyes at all the excuses I am making for myself.

The thing is, in choosing to acknowledge these things about myself I find some freedom. This is not how I am meant to be, no, but I do not resign myself to it by admitting to my mental battles. They are embarrassing, and I am constantly surprised at how far-reaching my battle truly is, but I think God has been opening my eyes to the far corners of the struggle for a reason. This is just one of the many ways anxiety and depression and the phobias I deal with impact my day-to-day life. My victories may be minuscule to the outside observer but every day that I get out of bed, take care of my children and husband, while remembering to brush my hair, or remembering to do things like eat, is a victory. I think a lot of us are facing struggles we are afraid to share, but you are not alone. Sometimes that is all we need to hear for today to be a better one.