‘How to Respond after Your Dentist Pulls the Wrong Tooth from Your Mouth’
— Andrew Sargus Klein
When I got to the end of ‘How to Respond After Your Dentist Pulls the Wrong Tooth From Your Mouth,’ I had a hand over my mouth, and not just because the specific act in question is so visceral that I had to quite literally make sure it wasn’t happening to me in that moment, but also because the additional contexts—abuse, paranoia, trauma—add layer after resonant layer to an already difficult situation.
When your dentist pulls the wrong tooth, you will hold your own body at a distance. When your dentist lies about it, you will question what you know to be true—you will question your own sanity. When your dentist pulls the wrong tooth, you will sob for weeks about the pattern in your life of men taking something from you and insisting that they didn’t.
I don’t know when my hand found my mouth, but it did, and I urge you to make the same journey with your eyes and your heart and, if need be, your hand as well.