Yesterday I had my wisdom teeth removed. Overall it wasn't that bad of an experience. I am blessed with not the worst teeth in the world (no matter how poorly I treat them), so it was as easy as oral surgery gets. Today I'm mostly pain-free and mostly recovered. So where's the whine, you ask? Oh you know it's coming.
See, here's the thing. I am deathly afraid of dentists. I have a lot of anxiety about going to any doctor (except eye doctors, they're OK), but dentists seem to be what really get me. Dentists are right up there with bunnies, midgets, and clowns on the list of things that terrify me. I stopped going to the dentist for ten years after I moved out of my mother's house and she could no longer force me to go. I finally went back after having kids of my own, because I figure I need to set a better example. I've found a great dental team who are super friendly and caring, and they have no qualms about drugging me if need be. Over the last year or so, I have gotten to the point where I can almost be a normal dental patient. So I thought I could be a real grown-up and get all of this oral surgery stuff out of the way. Turns out, I'm not THAT much of a grown-up.
When I was a kid, I had more teeth than I had mouth, so I had to have numerous teeth pulled out. They started by pulling some baby teeth at the regular dentist. Not fun. Then they realized that wasn't really good enough, so they sent me to an oral surgeon to have some more baby teeth removed, as well as cutting the adult teeth out of my gums. Unfortunately, I remember a lot of the experience. Could be where that whole "dentists are scary monsters" thing comes from. So I spent most of the week before this wisdom teeth removal freaking the hell out. I spent the night before completely unfocused on anything with occasional bouts of bawling.
Which leads me to the REAL whine.... what were all those closest to me doing during all this? Well, my husband was stuck with me, so he had to be supportive. At first he tried to blow it off with a "it will all be fine," but once I started the crying he came to his senses and really started showing some support. My mom called to make sure I was OK. And a couple of facebook "friends" (you know, the people you are casual acquaintances with and like enough, but they're not the people you would think you'd call in an emergency) expressed support. But what about the rest of my family? What about my real friends? I realize that, in a rational world, EVERYBODY gets their wisdom teeth out and EVERYBODY survives. I realize that to the rest of the world this was no big deal and everyone was sure I'd be fine. But I wasn't! Yes, I am a drama queen. I have never denied that. Yes, I blow things out of proportion. But this was one of those situations where it really would have been nice to get a couple of text messages saying, "good luck" or, "thinking of you."
I have a really hard time being close to people. Mostly because they always disappoint me. Maybe that's me expecting more than normal people can offer. Maybe it's me not being a good friend in the first place, so they don't feel the need to be one to me. Maybe I'm just attracted to really flaky people. I don't know. All I know is it takes a lot for me to put you in the category of real friend. But I wonder, am I still too guarded, even with those I think are my real friends? Because, wouldn't a real friend understand how fucking scary this experience was for me? Wouldn't they know I needed support? Was I not clear on this? I don't know.
This little breakdown has been brought to you courtesy of prescription strength Ibuprofen. Not strong enough to keep a normal person from going to work, but strong enough to turn Steph into a sniveling idiot.
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