Sometimes It Takes a Root Canal

PinSince my work travel schedule had a brief break this month, it was time to take care of a few things. This week, I visited the dentist for a root canal and a crown.

So yeah, if you want to know if I’m enjoying my time at home, not as much as you might imagine. 😉

The thing that having a root canal this week reminded me of, though, is how much of a process something good for you can be. Like many abuse survivors, I have issues with going to the dentist’s office. On top of that, I also had the “pleasure” of a pediatric dentist who considered Novocaine and other numbing agents to be too dangerous for children to be given.

So yeah, he drilled and pulled teeth with no numbing at all. On five- and 6-year-old me. I feel pain in my mouth just writing that.

I don’t often diagnose myself with anything, especially something as complex as PTSD, but I’m pretty sure I have dental PTSD. So, for me to need a crown and eventually a root canal, you have to consider a couple of things:

1. My tooth has been bothering me for a long time.
2. I now have a dentist who knows my medical history and has a personalized treatment plan for me. Really, the whole staff is excellent about all of it.
3. That plan involves being sedated, starting the night before my appointment, continuing with more sedatives an hour prior, gas during the procedure, a numbing gel, shots of Novocaine, and then painkillers to take after all of that wears off.

So yeah, it’s a process. But in the end, the process is both what I need to do to get the help I need and necessary because the alternative of not dealing with it is untenable.

Sounds an awful lot like dealing with abuse and mental health problems.

Yes, dealing with the past can be a complex, ongoing process. There’s not much easy about it, and one of the first things you have to do is come up with a plan you can live with. Once that plan is in place, though, it’s essential to stick with it, because the alternative isn’t viable.

Using my process as a metaphor, a couple of things come to mind.

1. Sure, you could consider my use of meds to be a sign of weakness or a reliance on drugs. You can have that opinion if you want to; these aren’t your teeth, and my past isn’t your past. I know that I’m doing what I need to do to address a problem. That is strength, not weakness. Also, reliance on medications to make sure I don’t have a panic attack that prevents me from getting this taken care of is simply what I need to do, just like when I spent a few years taking antidepressants so that I could go through therapy without the risk of being suicidal. Again, it’s simply doing what needs to be done.
2. I have a team of people, starting with my wife, who has to drive me back and forth due to the medications, and the staff at the dentist’s office, who understand what I am dealing with and support me in doing what I need to do.
3. Even with all of that, a root canal still sucks. No one would tell you otherwise. But you get one for the greater good of yourself. Healing, going to therapy, possibly being medicated, all of it sort of sucks, too. We do it anyway because of the end result. That’s the important thing. If it were easy, we wouldn’t make such a big deal about child abuse survivors, and we wouldn’t have something like National Suicide Prevention Day tomorrow. People would go get better, no worries! It doesn’t work that way.

Sometimes, you need to address problems at their root, and that won’t be easy. It’ll take a plan, some help, and probably a little effort to get the result you want.

That result? Totally worth it, though.