I’ve been reading through the notes and I just have to say that I absolutely promise, promise, promise you that nobody in the dental surgery is there to judge you, and we’re certainly not mad at you. Cavities happen. Even to dentists. You think your dentist has a mouth full of virgin teeth? Unlikely! They’ve all visited eachother’s surgeries to get a quickie filling (ooh, saucy) between patients. They understand that life can get in the way of oral hygiene sometimes. They understand that life’s too short not to eat chocolate. They understand that you’ve got to live. I swear to you that everyone in that room is just there to help you. Please, please, please don’t stop going to the dentist because you’re worried they’ll be mad at you. It’s really not the case. They understand. It’s fine. It’s really, really fine. Please go to the dentist. I promise you it’s ok.
You would not believe how comforting this is.
I had some badly bleeding gums awhile back after a depressive episode and my dentist has access to my prescriptions and I was on an anti depressants and antipsychotic at the time
he asked if my mental health was a factor and when I admitted it was he said “I can understand that it gets hard to do things like brush your teeth at times like that. Just do the best you can and brush your teeth at least once a day whenever you have motivation but if you can’t don’t beat yourself up. I know you’re doing your best”
When I tell you I almost cried
I tell this to the kids I treat so often when they’re old enough to ask what getting a cavity means for them. I tell them, “If you get a cavity, the only thing that happens is that we fix it. I’m not gonna be upset, I’m not gonna think you did anything wrong, I’m just gonna help you fix it.”
It’s also worth noting that even with the best dental hygiene routines, sometimes things just break down. My dad took really good care of his teeth his entire life, and yet he still had to have several teeth pulled because they had become too decayed. Another friend of mine has a degenerative bone disease that means that his teeth have needed multiple root canals, and that started happening to him when he was still in his 20s. He expects that he will need dentures by the time he’s 55. Developing a cavity does not necessarily correlate to your dental hygiene routine; genetics also plays a huge factor and sometimes you just pull the short straw. Do the best that you can with what you have and understand that bodies age and wear out and do weird things, and that is OK too. 
