by Brooke Guttenberg, M.S.
After a long week at work I was happy to finally settle into the weekend. A few hours into Friday night I noticed a pulsing in my tooth. I decided to ignore it because I did not want anything to ruin my weekend. By Sunday night I knew I could not ignore it anymore… I knew, that I had my first cavity! Logically, I know that most of the population gets cavities, and most people have them multiple times in a life-time. For someone who takes great care of their teeth, specifically to avoid dealing with this, my anxiety started to sky rocket.
It was not just my awfulizing about how terribly painful getting the filling may be, but also my frustration intolerance about not knowing what the procedure would entail. As I ruminated about how awful going to the dentist would be, I decided that perhaps it really was nothing to worry about, and I could wait one week and see if it went away. Yes, my anxiety told me to avoid, but my pain on Monday was enough to bring me to the dentist’s office.
Now as I sit here writing, with a slight throbbing in my tooth, I realize that while the experience was not pleasant, my avoiding the dentist would only have led to greater issues down the line. I also learned a valuable lesson about anxiety. The more I listened to my anxious feelings, the more I tried to avoid the reality of the situation. While the avoidance helped me reduce my anxiety in the moment, it almost kept me from taking care of myself. With regard to my awfulizing, on a catastrophe scale, getting a cavity filled is pretty low on the list; however, it was something that was pretty unpleasant for me. Once I reminded myself that continuing to awfulize was not going to make the toothache go away, I was finally able to pick-up the phone and deal with the situation.
Last, but not least, was my frustration intolerance about the unknown. I was able to change my unhealthy anxiety to concern by giving-up my “I cant stand dealing with this” belief and replacing it with “Even though I don’t like not knowing what to expect, I can tolerate the uncertainty.” This shift put me in a better place to cope with the situation, ask the questions, and obtain the necessary information rather than avoid everything all together.
In the words of Dr. Ellis, I learned that getting a cavity is a “hassle not a horror!” Additionally, avoidance may relieve discomfort in the short-term, but it will not bring you to the root of the problem.
