Almost There...

Apologies to all for my prolonged absence.

I’ve been trying to manage my extremely high anxiety after a major panic attack before a major oral surgery. Short version: I pretty much got out of the chair, while woozy from I.V. Valium, hyperventilated, and ran away to leave, defying all instructions and expectations.

In just 2 days time, I’m going to try again…

After the first time, I took a week to calm down, then I re-scheduled to try to do the surgery again. Luckily, the surgeon didn’t penalize me with fees for this, which is good! I also wrote a 2-page letter explaining what went wrong and how they triggered me. Basically, there were key moments where my input was dismissed, and that lack of respect (even casually) made me lose all trust in the team about to work on me, and I freaked out. Then I gave myself permission to leave, because to try to “freeze” and just take it would make my panic worse. Once I get that ramped up, to continue would make my phobia worse, because I’ll put myself in the position of feeling trapped and tortured.

A couple of days ago, the surgeon called me to tell me my prescriptions were called in, but also to say that his team read my letter when they first got it, and then went over it again that day. He thanked me for communicating with them and explaining what was going wrong for me, and he promised they’d do better next time. I breathed a sigh of massive relief, thanked him, got off the phone, and then cried in relief because it was scary to criticize the people who will have me under their power– egos often come before empathy in my experience, and there was a fear of retaliation from daring to send that letter.

But Cat encouraged me to do so. And I sent it, nervously, around the time I rescheduled.

Now I’m glad I did. I helped explain something that I’m sure mystified the surgical team. I told them I didn’t like things like needles or drills or blades being used on my body, but I’m not afraid of the tools or the procedures so much as I am terrified of people having power over my body when I am vulnerable, laying prone, unable to fight back if something goes wrong. I have been badly treated by dentists and doctors in my youth and early adulthood, and that created a lasting legacy of fear in me. Now I’m overly sensitive to “tells” that I’m not respected by medical people, who may then be more prone to hurt me. That’s not an easy thing to explain– but I was actually able to explain it.

Some experts say it takes 10 positive interactions to erase the pain/fear/rage created by one negative interaction. I’m working on building up those positive interactions. They’re starting to line up for me, and this is enabling me to begin to build trusted relationships with medical and dental people that I can rest easy knowing they are NOT going to “get me” for some twisted reason. But I have to have some history of good interactions to have that trust– I NEVER start out with trust. People who have access to my body have to prove they have a right to it.

The caring level of this team of people willing to work with my crazy issues from being abused by professionals in the past is high enough that I’m not feeling nearly as much dread this second time around. Also–? I realized I could NOT deal with my mother’s and sister’s issues in close proximity to my own issues being triggered. Too much anxiety!!

So… I’ve been hiding I guess. I didn’t want to ruminate too much (and that’s what my writing is!) while I was feeling overwhelmed by emotions. I am beginning to feel my words “coming back” to me. Obviously! But I haven’t been able to talk or do much with anyone in the last month. The struggle to keep calm turned me into a hermit.

Hopefully within another week, with time to heal from the surgery, I will be feeling more myself. The horror of facing dental surgery– going into my FACE!!– will be past me and I can finally breathe.