Just like the good little returned-home college student I am, I packed my December with countless errands and appointments that are usually sent to the back burner during my year in Westwood. Each day brought a new thrill, including (but not limited to) getting my oil changed, heading in for a prescription refill, finally buying new make-up remover, etc. Among these sparkling endeavors lies the crown jewel: the bi-annual dental visit.
As I ventured into the strip-mall private practice, a thick dread for what was about to happen crept up inside me. While the poignant taste of fluoride and uncomfortable tooth prodding never fail to make my skin crawl, they are not the culprits of my dental phobia — the true root cause is one of ethical character.
Each and every time I visit my sweet, helpful, wonderful, kind dentist, she undoubtedly will ask me if I floss twice a day. And I will undoubtedly lie straight to her face. I put on a facade of nonchalance, nodding in agreement with just the right degree of confidence-inspiring enthusiasm. The ugly truth is that I probably have not actually purchased dental floss since my sophomore year of high school.
The most heart-wrenching part of it all is that I’ve never been caught in my own twisted web. She merely smiles and commends my excellent hygiene, sometimes even adding in a stabbingly sincere “I can really tell!”
Exiting the complex, tooth-themed-goody bag in hand, I silently curse myself for the past 6 months’ subpar habits, while simultaneously feeling a weird sense of pride at the feedback received after my lie. My moral compass seemed to kick into full gear at that moment as I examined the facts. My lie had simply been reinforced by the dentist, catapulting me into a positive, anti-flossing feedback loop. I interacted with another human being by hiding my weaknesses and guarding my fault-lines, only to emerge satisfied with the practice of doing so.
Is the goal of going to the dentist to receive arbitrary compliments that calm my momentary anxieties about authority figure criticism? Or is the point of going to the dentist to receive oral healthcare and receive genuine advice from an expert?
Hear me out because this might be a stretch (but so go the characteristically sporadic tracks of my thought-trains). I frantically began to evaluate this appointment as a prime example of my emotional defense mechanisms, putting up barricades around any compromising or difficult truth. I was the little child who would hide a broken mug, rather than admit to causing its murder, and here I stand a decade later, still shoving the broken glass in a corner. Consider this a dental-hygiene evoked self intervention.
While it may be difficult to allow those around you to peek inside the dark crevices of your life, doing so can only let in light. Hiding your faults cannot be the solution — you will get cavities, literally and emotionally speaking.