My dentist

So, today I was in to see my dentist for some filling / bonding work on my canine teeth.

My teeth are in bad shape from years of grinding. And recently my canine teeth started to get sensitive which meant that they were not far away from getting cavities or worse.

My dentist bugged me again about getting root canals and caps, both of which my insurance would cover 100%.

I told her again that I wasn’t interested, that I only wanted to do the work that was required to keep my teeth from getting worse, but that I wasn’t interested in spending $20k to $30k to fix all of my teeth.

“But why not?”

So I said to her that if everything goes as planned, I won’t be around in two to three years.

“You’re moving somewhere?”

No, I’m applying for medical assistance in dying for psychiatric reasons.

“But I thought that your escitalopram was working, I thought you were feeling better”.

Escitalopram is like a pain killer, it numbs the pain, but it doesn’t fix it.

“What about therapy?”

Won’t fix the issues, and I don’t want to continue living with the damage in my head. If I was younger, maybe, but not at this stage in my life.

She just looked at me for a bit. Then she said “Do you want to get started?”.

I said sure, and she reclined the chair, and we started on my fillings / bondings.

Money isn’t the issue. I’m not poor. And I have good medical / dental coverage at work. I just don’t see the point.

I had my first dentist when I worked for the Elashi family in East Richmond.

Prior to that I had never had a real dentist. My dentists were usually from public health programs for disadvantaged children. I remember going to the dentist in a trailer that would pull up outside the school I was attending in Summerside, PEI. I think those were my first fillings.

The next time I went to a dentist was when we lived on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach in Edmonton. This was a program for low income families run out of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology “N.A.I.T.”. Kids that went to this program had their teeth worked on by dental students.

I don’t remember going to a dentist once while we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario.

Richard had promised me that he’d enroll me into the Young Driver’s program on my 16th birthday. Of course he lied. He had no intention. He gave me some excuse about his insurance going up if anyone under 18 had their driver’s licence in his house. When he saw that I wasn’t buying this he started justifying his lying by saying that his Mustang was too powerful for me to learn in. Young drivers had their own cars. I told him that he was a liar, that he had absolutely no plan of letting me take driver’s training, that this was more of his bullshit. I didn’t duck fast enough and I caught his wedding ring in the front of my mouth. He chipped my front tooth.

I didn’t start working for the Elashis until 1994. I don’t think my insurance kicked in until late ’94, so it was around 1995 when I finally got the chipped tooth fixed. So yeah, about 8 years.

I had all of my wisdom teeth yanked around 1995 as well.

So, it’s not that I’m afraid of the dentist, or dental work.

I just don’t see the point of it.

Not now.

Maybe 30 years ago.

Maybe even 20 years ago.

Even if I had been on anti-depressants / anti-anxiety medications 20 or 30 years ago my teeth would be in far better condition than they are today.

But 30 years ago was just 12 years removed from the CFB Namao fiasco and my father’s anger at how I had fucked with his military career and how I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother was still very fresh in my mind. Captain Totzke’s lectures at how I exhibited homosexual tendencies because the abuse went on for so long was still rattling around in my skull.

20 years ago was 22 years removed from CFB Namao. And again all of the horseshit from CFB Namao and the subsequent fallout was still fresh in my mind.

It really wasn’t until I started learning the truth about CFB Namao 10 years ago in 2011 that I begun to realize that the issues I was living with were not of my own creation. These issues had been gifted to me. The Canadian Forces anointed my abuser as the “sole” victim of Captain McRae and chucked about 25 children under the bus.

Maybe if I had known the truth 20 or 30 years ago I would have wasted my time fixing my teeth.

Not now.

Just not worth it at this point in my life.