i know now how the cattle must feel
Excerpts from past days journal entry
I felt like I’d overshared or had a feeling like he didn’t want to hear everything I’d said. BUT I could also totally be in my thoughts about that. I just feel like sometimes he acts bored with me or something. But I think I just don’t always know how to read him. He ended the session with a short, ‘good job.’ I confusedly said thank you. (Why do I feel like I overshared to my therapist?)
I honestly had a decent morning, I think. I feel like I’m always second guessing how good of a time I actually had because I feel like I’m suppressing so much, so much of the time that it’s hard to gauge what’s real or what isn’t. I feel like I just don’t want to trust in my own feelings because I feel like I could’ve just not been thinking clearly or realistically and then I don’t actually know if I had a good time or if I was just suppressing all my negative feelings to give the illusion I had a good time. ANYWAY, it’s all very silly but point being, I feel like I had a good morning.
Okay, anyway, the dentist was HORRIBLE YESTERDAY. Let me give you a breakdown. I wasn’t too nervous going into it because I thought it would just be a typical cleaning and the dentist would look at my tooth and talk about options, etc., etc. WELL, that didn’t happen…
I got to the office around 10:20am, my appointment was at 10:30, and I checked in and they told me to take a seat until someone calls me back. While waiting, I’m very observant of everyone and everything around me. There’s a mom in front of me with two little girls. The two little girls are staring at me as if I’m a giant piece of candy, like can you please stop, I’m just a girl with a broken tooth trying to get this over with (but also, like, I get it, you’re so me (I have a staring problem or used to(?))). At some point, the smallest girl tried to see something on her mom’s phone and the mom actually snapped and gave the little girl the most evil look I’ve ever seen aside from the look my own mom has given me as a child of similar age, so that brought me back! Wow, fun times (that’s what I was thinking). After a suspicious amount of time, 20 minutes or so had passed, multiple patients started coming out from the office to check out and along with them, a dental technician. Each time this would happen, I would think ‘okay, I’m going to get called back now after the dental tech goes and cleans up their station.’ So I would anticipate that specific tech being my tech and having their fingers in my mouth and one of them came up to front and was touching her nose with her hand, so I went into fight or flight for a minute there (thankfully–or not thankfully(?)--she wasn’t my tech). After a suspicious 30 minutes had passed, a random man walks into the waiting area, scopes everyone out, and seems to land on me as his victim. He walks over to me, as I copiously attempt to keep my attention on my cellular device on which I’m flipping back and forth between my unchanging and somewhat depressing gallery and my dry text messages. He stands beside me for a moment and after 30 awkward seconds, begins his speech. “Can I have a few moments of your time, miss? There will come a day when we will not need to worry about inflation and …” I zone out. I’m giving him my most blank, German stare as he continues on his ramble. Eventually I notice he’s had his hand outstretched with a pamphlet for about a minute so I grab it, say “okay, thanks”, and return back to the little window in my hands. He sits down beside me, starts looking through a magazine and eventually approaches the receptionists to ask if he can take it. They agree, encouraging him even in fact (were they scared of him?), and he comes back to his familiar spot. Thankfully, I finally get called back and get to escape the abyss of the waiting room, only to be taken to hell (little did I know haha).
She calls me back pronouncing my name incorrectly, as I correct her, I notice she literally looks like she couldn’t care less. Oh boy (nervous laugh). We make our way back through a very hectic environment and sit down in an offset room. She says she has to take 18 x-rays of my mouth and plops the x-ray coat on me. Immediately I start thinking about all the ickiness retained in this coat worn by thousands of people, but I try to stop spiraling and allow gratitude that they even gave me a coat (nervous smile). I won’t bore you with the details of the x-rays and the tortuous amount of time it took to jab my mouth over and over with the little sharp pieces of machinery, but her tone throughout the whole experience was very impatient and she repeated a lot of, ‘relax your jaw’, ‘move your tongue… put it UNDER your tongue’, ‘okay, let’s try that again (annoyed sigh).’ Ha ha ha, okay, yes, I’m so sorry, thanks for torturing me. After that segment ended, we moved on to the teeth cleaning. Yes, okay, finally something I’m used to. I know how this will go! Oh, no you don’t… she took her cleaning toothbrush and rubbed a little mint on there, scrubbed the outer portion of my teeth for maybe two minutes, rinsed my mouth out and sprayed water all over my face, and went on her way! The last thing she said to me was, “the dentist will be over when he has a minute.” Okay, right, right. What time is it again? I’ve been here for an HOUR, but okay, yeah, okay!!
So, finally the dentist arrives. He walks behind me, holds his hand out briefly, and before I even know what’s happening he says, “well, do you want me to fix it?” Like, yes, all-holy master, please fix my broken tooth. Yes, of course, that’s like the whole reason I’m here, or I think, at least. Anyway, aside from my sarcasm, I just reply “um, yes” and as he stares at me for a second too long, I say, “like… right now?” And he half-shrugs and goes, “sure.” Um… right, okay.
Then he says, “and you don’t need pain medicine.” I say, “really?” He says, “no numbing.” I say, “oh, um, okay.” Long story short, he shaves my tooth down and says, this might hurt, and oh yes, it did (more nervous laughter). I left the office with indeed a fixed tooth, but also a broken spirit (womp womp). I got to my car, spit out the orange flavored fluoride he stuffed in my mouth directly after finishing, started sobbing, probably looked crazy, and then went home. Sobbed the entire way home, sobbed going into my apartment, and then got inside and rinsed my mouth out a million times over again. I think it just was, maybe, a bit too much for my spirit to handle at that moment. I feel like I know how cattle feel now, like an animal in a big group of animals and all the animals are viewed as unimportant and they’re all very dehumanized and evil people prey on them and tend to work at the sad animal factories.
I think I breached the first layer of hell at that dentist's office. I have another appointment in February, we’ll see if I make it.
I don’t need to dwell on my work experience yesterday but multiple things happened that irked me and made me feel a bit irrationally upset. I hung out with Alexa this morning (thrifting) and we discussed the chain of events intensely. I think I came to the conclusion that I’ve just been feeling a bit unheard recently with the things going on and this is really depleting my spirits. I think this has then led to me second guessing all my interactions / conversations with people or friends because I feel like I’m burdening them by just speaking to them; therefore, I start to overthink what I’m saying and decide I shouldn’t talk about some negative experience, but then end up feeling like nobody really cares about me. It’s this weird, silly cycle. Ultimately, I just need to say things when I want to say them and guess what, Kyrra!? If someone has an issue with what you’re talking about, it’s their responsibility to say that and explain why, it’s not yours to assume.
Good conclusion.