Crisis is Powerful

Garrett Bice
Feb 22
2 min read

Until just last week, I have been brushing my teeth hard for around 20 minutes every day for the last three years.

It didn’t matter if my gums had bled or my toothpaste had gone flat and tasteless. I would still continue to brush even when the brush itself became frayed outwards. I decided only recently that this had to end.

Why did I stop? This is important to note. It was not a natural willpower to resist the habit I’ve formed. It was not the nagging my family has been doing by saying, “you’re brushing your teeth too long.” It was not even the advice therapists had given on strategies to distract my rampant OCD tendencies.

The truth is, I was told during a dental cleaning that I had receding gums.

It felt like a comment in passing in the moment. I went home not thinking too much about being told I have the thing that my dad has. I ignorantly continued my habits for a few more days.

One day, however, I looked in the mirror, directly at my teeth. She was right. I did have receding gums. I could see the exposed roots on my front teeth, which I originally thought to be yellowed portions that I needed to brush further. Later that night, I took the hygienist’s advice and grabbed an electric toothbrush that my mom had coincidentally bought days before.

It really did seem like an experience of whiplash to start this habit reversal. Shaving off many minutes of time spent brushing left me with an unsound brain. I subconsciously told myself that something is off, just like I had done in the vast expanse of time prior.

But this time, after coming to terms with what I was told, I finally pushed back.

The crisis at hand caused me to keep resisting. I didn’t want to be told I have receding gums, and that is infinitely more motivating than disgruntled family members dishing out their frustrations or therapists prescribing what has worked for people that aren’t me.

I had read about the power of crisis before, in the assigned book for my AP Language class. There were tales of a hospital that operated on the wrong side of patients’ heads due to lack of coordination between doctors and nurses, which directly led to patient death, and of a subway station that caught fire due to workers’ fears of overstepping their own jurisdictions, which directly led to civilian death. In the aftermath of the crises, previously fragmented administrations were more willing to come together and tackle any disagreements they have clung on to.

I am in that stage right now.

And that makes sense, of course. Receding gums is the crisis, and my terrible brushing habit is now vulnerable to change.

The entire situation reminds me of the trope where it takes an attempt on life to truly appreciate what life has to offer. Life may have its ups and downs, but a down is what it takes to create a journey to the way back up.

In the meantime, I’ll try to heal the best that I can.