Speak Your Truth Even If Your Voice Shakes (Or The Day I Bit the Dentist)

Disclaimer: This was going to be a post about how quickly we can have a belief change, but by the end it became something else. And that’s okay sometimes you have to remember a story so you can change the way you feel about it. 

So the story goes like this,

When I was 8, I bit the school dentist.

Like a wolf. I drew blood. And I didn’t release my pearly whites until he moved his hand away from trying to prise my mouth open.

Backtrack. Said dentist had been trying to give me a filling for six months.

Twice a month they came for me, I was taken out of my class and along with a few classmates and we would head up to the surgery. The first few months he was all child-have-a-Mr-Men-smiley-badge-friendly and then I think he got fed up with me.

I was scared. I mean, prior to this he had gassed me – no warning. Drilling was not going to happen.

This was ’78? ’79? – Pain Dentistry was chic.

Novocaine? Hell no. Which is probably why a huge portion of my generation is traumatised about visiting the dentist, why our teeth aren’t pearly whites, and why hypnotherapists are kept busy.

Adult years. I went to the dentist. Many of them. I did open my mouth. I didn’t maul them. And the one I loved had a side hustle as a hypnododah, and I loved that he froze everything from the bridge of my nose to my chin. But he retired.

Fast-forward. Two weeks ago I found myself just going ahead and making myself comfortable in a pink chair with a new dentist at the helm.  A quick pain-free check up in December, I needed a filling, the day had come.

I opened my mouth ready for the drugs that would leave unable to speak for 6 hours. They didn’t arrive. Drilling began instantly. I got his attention by flapping, with something to prop my mouth open all I can manage to say to him is, ‘Hhhtoopp, eh avent ubed ee’. 

Which to my surprise he managed to decipher, ‘You said in your form you were nervous of dentists, 90% of anaesthesia for fillings isn’t needed, it’s just a little filling on the enamel. I can numb you if you like. But I promise you won’t feel a thing. ‘

He carries on, ‘The numbing, the needle anyway, can – for most nervous patients – be more traumatic than the filling itself”

I signal for him to carry on. All done. Five mins. Didn’t feel a darned thing.

Back home I’m instantly searching on Google, ‘Is my Dentist a sadist?’

Well, no, apparently not. I came across lots of information and stories from 70’s dentistry survivors saying they ask for no numbing: quicker, less painful, no effect from the drugs.

Thought shift happens but,

Still not 100% convinced I text my sister and she replies, ‘No (insert f-word) way would anyone get near my mouth without numbing it first. You went to Sweeney Todd!’

At which point I want to make myself happy smile badge. How brave am I? She’s given birth 4 times, and I am the proud owner of a new filling managed without drugs. Who’s courageous, who’s courageous?

Why am I telling you this?

Mmmm, well,

I thought this was going to be about,

1: A thought about a belief can be changed an instant. If we’re willing to change our mind?

2: Moments of clarity and transformation can happen anywhere, and at any time, even in pink chairs. I mean, sometimes a piece of learning comes to us in a form we didn’t expect. Pay attention.

3: If you are determined to see things differently, you will. You simple have to decide.

4: You can learn new ideas about everything that is rooted in time (past), even though it may appear difficult and full of disbelief at first.

5: When you are given another way to look at things, try it on, then try it on again, a few more times, then decide.

But something else has emerged …

I have laughed so many times at story of ‘the day Dawn bit the dentist’.

But right now writing this I’m feeling a little uneasy. I’m totally preoccupied with the age I was.

That little girl isn’t frozen in the past, she’s not in time, she’s part of all time.

She’s still here.

And I’m thinking about us, and all the times when we couldn’t – didn’t know how or dare to – stand up for ourselves.

And I’m thinking about be who you really are and how many layers and perceptions of experiences we have to undo to remember.

So what I really want to say is,

• you have the right to question. Maybe you’ve learned to keep quiet and not upset the boat. Perhaps as a child, you couldn’t ask for clarity when you didn’t understand, you are an adult, you can ask as many as you like.

• you have the right to say, ‘No, this isn’t for me’.  You can choose to end the traditional stories of how it should go, and write it the way you want it to be.

And,

• you can dare to express yourself fully.

• you can step in front of the story.

• the process of understanding more of who you are can take a second or 35 years+. And that’s okay. Sometimes we are only ever one thought away to see things differently.

• you can question the rules. Or at the very least discover who made them up in the first place.

• you can switch paths, maybe what you thought you had to say isn’t what you really needed to say. And that’s okay.

And maybe in all of us, there is a little part of that is so courageous, wild and untamed, that perhaps – if pushed – we may just bite a dentist (not recommended, however).

Love.

Dawn