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Hi there, I'm Madi and this is my first actual post here besides my intro. It's kind of a strange topic to start off with, but I'm not quite sure what to do.

Let me start with this: my parents, since having me, have rarely been healthy. I was homeschooled a majority of my life and we moved around a lot, just settling down in the last couple years, so I had no outside influences. They brush their teeth on a regular basis like normal human beings but they never taught me healthy habits like that and so I just...never really learned that I needed to brush my teeth. (I know, I know, that's bad and gross, I've learned since, trust me!!!!)

When we moved here, I went to go get checkups and my dentist told me I had a few cavities on both sides of my mouth. She told me, hey, uh, brush your teeth, and for a while I did but on my own without anyone but a dentist/stranger telling me I needed too I eventually fell out of it. She also told me I have strong teeth but weak enamel, so once cavities actually got into my teeth it was harder to keep them from spreading. (At least, that's what I remember. I could be wrong about the logic, but I do know for sure she said I had strong teeth and weak enamel) So I went in for a filling, and this happened about 5-6 months ago. I went in completely calm, and then got The. Worst. Dentists. They were really rough during the process, they didn't give me warning over anything, just kind of randomly shoving things and needles inside my mouth and the only communication I got was "Close." when they wash out your mouth and need to take the water back out. The numbing agent also didn't work well, and I don't know if that's because of them or me, but they kind of just went in without worrying about how much of it I could feel (spoiler: a lot.)

Anyway, I got a really intense panic attack really quickly that lasted the whole thing and was brushed off as shaking from the numbing agent. It ended up weakening my immune system a lot from the stress, and I got sick for almost three weeks, missing a whopping 12-14 days of school. As such, I've gained a really bad fear of dentists (Seeing as I've had 3 appointments in like 5 years, two of them were over a year and a half ago, and my most recent, and longest one I had a horrible panic attack the entirety of) and my cavities have only gotten worse. The sensitivity you gain after a filling never really ebbed for me, and it's worrying that I don't know if those cavities were even filled, I've still got the ones on my other side and I developed a horrible one on my front tooth and I've recently noticed ones developing on two other nearing-front teeth. Since that appointment it's kind of been a wakeup call and I've been trying hard to work on my brushing habit, but sometimes I'll fall out of it for a good few days and feel horrible. I don't want to tell my parents, because they'll throw me back to that dentist office as they don't think anxiety or depression is real. But at the same time, I don't know how much more I can do before a filling won't help or I lose teeth altogether at 14.

This is pretty long, but I didn't really know how to sum all of that up (I've always had a problem with keeping on topic with things like this, so no surprise for me there aha) and this might even be considered venting as I don't really know how much can be done, but even so just getting this off my chest might help me think more clearly...idk aha. like i said at the top, still super new to support group...forum...things. yeah.