My brother called me today. He wanted to tell me about getting three of his teeth filled yesterday. Now, for those of you who don’t have dental anxiety, I’m sure getting a filling is no big deal. But for those of us who do have dental anxiety, it is a big muthafukkin deal.
He told me it took THREE 10mg Zanax to chill him enough for the dentist to work. Just damn! He was clueless as to why the dentist freaks him out so much, so I had to remind him that our parents (bless their stupid little hearts) took us to a Navy dentist when we were small and he didn’t deem it necessary to offer any sort of pain meds when he drilled or did whatever to us. When we’d cry about going to the dentist, my parents (bless their STUPID RETARDED ASININE little hearts) would either ignore our complaints or tell us that we needed to be “brave.” Yup, I was 6 or 7, which made my brother 4 or 5. BRAVE. He doesn’t remember any of the abuses of that dentist but I with my impossibly good memory DO remember. That dentist drilled on me without novocaine. On top of that, it was stupidly done drilling that required me to get MORE drilling about 10 years later. (And THIS drilling done by another total QUACK they took us to will require me to get THREE crowns. Nice.)
So, I explained to my brother that his dental anxiety is not unfounded and it’s shared by me. It’s one of many, many gifts of neglect that our parents gave us growing up. I know they didn’t mean to treat us badly, but they just simply never bothered to check anything or anyone out – and it would never occur to them to treat children as people and perhaps LISTEN to what we’re saying. The moron dentist that ruined three of my teeth (Larry Tragesser, Knoxville TN, total fucking QUACK) was a choice of the parents. He ruined their teeth, too, which to them, makes it all fair.
All this is why I call family the wart on the ass of humanity. Family will fuck you up in the most creative, deeply damaging ways. And then deny it ever happened and refuse to talk about it. Cuz if it’s never spoken aloud, then it can’t be true, right? ::rolls eyes::