Teething Problems

As a late confirmed autistic adult, I sometimes get a bit overwhelmed, realising just how autistic I was as a child. Sometimes, this surfaces in simple, bittersweet melancholy for me. But it also evokes beautiful childhood memories when I witness them in other people, memories that completely blew my mind as a kid. So yesterday, that surfaced after a walk to the local shop with my husband and our dog. My husband pulled the milk teeth sweets he bought out of his pocket with a glint of childhood nostalgia and innocence in his eyes and expression.

?'Do you want a milk tooth?' he asks.

My head nearly spun around on my shoulders. I was taken aback. What brings him reflective joy reminds me of childhood taunting. But as an adult now, I can naturally deal with it. My childhood differences, seemingly as innocent as a bag of milk teeth, presented me with numerous teething problems.

You see, they just weren't sweets in my head. They were modifications of the truth. I could not comprehend why a confectioner would make teeth into sweets, let alone why people would want to eat teeth with their teeth, as to where the milk part was factored in, which completely conflicted with my brain. I had a realistic interpretation of milk teeth. They were my baby teeth, which my mother would put under my pillow for the tooth fairy, only to cause me to be traumatised by the thoughts of such an impostor rummaging under my pillow as I slept to steal my milk teeth and refund me for the privilege of doing so.

So, these tooth-shaped sweets terrified me. They were intruders in my sense of perception. I felt pain when the other children would put two of them in their mouths, top and bottom, to replicate their actual teeth. I would ask them to stop as I felt something I couldn't describe inside of me, but now I know that it was literally part of my literal brain that was hurting trying to perceive the context of this innocent event.

I would shut down due to my verbal reasoning and context-seeking fatigue with the sweets trying to rationalise with the kids. This led to more of my differences becoming apparent and being labelled silly. But to me, the teeth were silly. They would leave me to figure it out on my own, leading me to believe that I was the difficult child with no imagination, incapable of playing make-believe and that something was wrong with me. The irony is that I have a vivid creative imagination in many other contexts, sometimes of a more serious nature than a fantasy-make-believe one.

So, the 'fun police' and I was once again confined, trying to grin and bear it while I ground my teeth. I continued this habit into adulthood and needed a mouthguard to avoid clenching my jaws. Ironically, teeth-grinding causes can stem from stress, concentration, and frustration.

The stress and frustration I felt from the level of concentration I had to do as a child and still on some things, trying to figure them out with my literal lens, can be pretty intense, so no surprises there then.

This literal lens has caused me many toothaches over the years, but you know what? I no longer grin and bear others' illogical escapades. I smile and embrace it because it's the most inexpensive gift I can bestow on anyone; it has the power to leverage reality to rebuild my kingdom when I might be at risk of escaping too far into others' fantasies and not being able to get myself back.

An aching tooth is better out than in.

?Grá Mór

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