I should begin by stating that I’m not a proponent of maladaptive coping strategies. I am, however, a proponent of working with what you have, so as an irremediable catastrophic thinker, I’ve taken to accepting life’s lemons and doing my best to turn them into a palatable beverage. After all, what’s the worst that could happen, besides choking on the liquid in my half-empty cup or dying by lemonade poisoning? Though this might seem like a dysfunctional approach, I’m occasionally rewarded for my tendency to work myself into a tangle of anxiety over tasks that many adults and small children alike could tackle with grace.
I’ve mentioned my complicated feelings about the dentist more than once. I realize that few people particularly like the dentist. (My cavity-less friend who counts down the days until her next cleaning is a notable exception to this rule. You know who you are, weirdo.) Even if you’re blessed with teeth to be truly proud of—the kind of teeth I admire in others and have never had the pleasure of possessing myself—there are plenty of more pleasant ways to spend one’s time than with someone poking around in your mouth. For me, the situation is a little more complicated due both to the state of the Swiss-cheese set of chompers with which I’ve been cursed and the fact that my teeth are a convenient target for OCD-born ruminations.
Of all my obsessions, this is among the most rational and reasonable. Sure, the degree to and way in which I worry about my dental health is arguably a bit much (side note: I’ve now decided that A Little Much will be the title of my future memoir, capturing as it does the essence of my being), but it makes sense that I’m concerned about them given the extensive restorative work I’ve had done over the years. Indeed, the only evidence of my dedication to flossing twice daily and to religiously brushing with prescription-strength toothpaste is the praise I receive from the dental hygienist for arriving plaque-free. Nary a visit goes by without the dentist glumly reporting that there’s some problem(s) that need fixing.
I’m usually good about prioritizing my fear that my teeth will crumble out of my mouth over the embarrassment I inevitably feel when the hygienist asks me to open wide. The last few years, however, have been a different story. While I was in the hospital, oral hygiene understandably took a back seat to keeping me alive. When I got home, my dental obsessions took on a life of their own. Worried that a checkup would set me back, my well-intentioned loved ones suggested that I wait before having one. I happily agreed.
In the meantime, I took to engaging in endless catastrophic thinking. So catastrophic, in fact, that by the time I booked an appointment, I’d radically accepted that I’d need a full set of dentures. (Forget WebMD. OCDMD is a far superior source of self-diagnoses.)
This resignation served me well. In fact, I was uncharacteristically calm about the fake teeth awaiting me. Excited? No. Relaxed? As much as I ever am about anything, really.
The big day came. After all that delaying and research and tooth inspecting, it was anticlimactic. Nobody yelled at me. Nobody chastised me. I don’t need dentures. And since I had convinced myself that a set of them were in my near future, I was absolutely thrilled to learn that all I have is a mouth full of broken-but-repairable fillings.
More than that, I’m thrilled that I’m now in a position to practically and emotionally deal with repairing those chips and chunks. Until fairly recently, that wasn’t the case. Strangely, part of what’s allowed me to get where I am is that I’ve made a conscious decision to stop pretending that less-than-ideal aspects of my psychology and life in general don’t exist and to instead use myself against, well, myself. Chances are that I’ll always be a perfectionist, but I can be perfectionistic about optimizing my health instead of agonizing to death over a comma or over whether or not I’ve used a certain word correctly. Rather than letting myself drown in free-flowing anxiety, I can examine what it makes sense to be anxious about and see if there’s anything I can do to fix the situation. And catastrophizing? That’s admittedly difficult to justify, but here it is: I can employ my coping skills to limit the extent to which my brain runs through every possible worst-case scenario and then contrast whatever horrendous outcome it’s landed on with what actually happens, which is without fail better.
When I’m complaining while recovering from my first round of fillings, feel free to remind me that they aren’t dentures.
De Morbo Sacro: Life and/with Epilepsy 