meth mouth

This is one of my sister's favorite nicknames for me.

I have a tooth fixation that is disabling. I spend almost one hour of every day running my tongue over various imperfections in my teeth, believing them to be even more imperfect than the day before and believing further that a thorough excavation of my whole mouth via my own tongue will reveal whether or not this is true. Every day I convince myself that I am one day closer to placing my hand to my mouth and having it inadvertently filled with teeth. When I visit the dentist, I limit the number of questions I allow myself to ask her. I am fairly certain that asking as many questions as occur to me would lead to a direct referral to a therapist. If any percentage of people feel like I do about their teeth, dentists would be well-advised to partner with therapists. Tooth anxiety is like most other anxieties in that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I worry about my teeth a lot, hence I grind them when I sleep, hence they wear down and fillings pop out, hence I have even more reasons to worry about my teeth a lot... Kind of like social anxiety- you worry about people laughing at you all the time, hence you avoid social situations, hence you become totally socially inept, hence people laugh at you all the time. Also like financial anxiety- you worry about your financial stability, hence you act out by buying expensive stuff you don't need to prove your ability to do so, hence you have no financial stability. Also like mold anxiety. If you worry about finding mold everywhere...you know the routine. This works for spiders, too.

Today part of one of my fillings went m.i.a. It didn't just chip off or fall out. A perfect hole appeared in it, as if it had been drilled through by my worried little tongue. It was right after a gas station pit stop in which I had returned a V-8 Spicy Hot veggie drink to the cooler in favor of a yellow cupcake-flavored cappuccino drink. Like some higher power had sent a carefully aimed mini-bolt of lightning straight into my molar to teach me a lesson in not drinking synthetic vended beverages from styrofoam containers. I've spent most of the day since then trying to trace the root of my teeth issues to eating too many carrots. I guess it makes me feel less guilty about an entire college career spent drinking diet mountain dew in the wee hours of the morning until I fell asleep on spiral bound notebooks. Not to mention six months spent in Ireland with a complete lack of fluoridated water. Months in which, coincidentally, I rarely went anywhere without a piece of candy burning a hole in my pocket. (pocket = tooth)

I love my sister for many reasons. Just when I start getting all out of mind about a piece of missing fake tooth, she reminds me that things could be so much worse. I could have a whole mouth full of twisted, sponge-a-lin, darkly hued teeth that share the uncanny ability of silly putty to take on the shape of whatever last came in contact with them.
I am meth mouth- see me smile.

On that note, please check out a truly entertaining blog. Saipua. This blog is the handi-work of the owner of a soap shop by the same name in Red Hook Brooklyn. Check out the blog. If I spent as much time on Sarah's blog as I do prodding my teeth every day- I would be a much happier person. Jon and I have a cameo on the toothy photo ending her 2/27 entry. Warning: totally graphic