this too, shall frozen fast

definitely. the dentist appointment needs to be immediate, too. that TMJ thing is still going on with my jaw. right side. i feel like i can’t close it all the way…or that my teeth don’t meet right anymore. definitely TMJ. it’s all i can do to resist the self-destructive habit of popping it or grinding it, as its inflamed. i feel like if i keep grinding it, i’ll wear away this weird resistance, the pain, the stiffness, feeling that my bones are not fitting right. which is of course, madness. but very seductive as an impulse. but aggravating it by grinding it would do exactly the opposite. yet it’s like a panicky urge needling at me, a feeling of being trapped in my body. you dont notice it’s a box when you’re feeling well and all is working. then the will/spirit is in tune with the box/envelope. but then a part gets off, won’t work right, refuses to do what it ought, and you feel for a moment like that passage isnt open, the exit isnt free there’s no space to move anywhere at all and the biggest challenge is not to panic because you might bug out and start losing it clawing at the box and wasting energy and oxygen and just falling into terror.

but by all the important definitions, it is TMJ. My computer chair, my bed and my hurting back, my tooth—all these things may be related. or not. i’ll let the doctor or dentist work it out, figure it out. with my help. i always walk in with symptoms well remembered and times when this or that started. i pay close attention. they like that. it helps them. i want them to do their job well. i’ve done that before, correctly diagnosed myself, which isn’t the important part, just remembering symptoms, when this started, what else you were doing eating or feeling, etc. They don’t really want you to diagnose yourself necessarily. 

Anyway, yeah. My jaw muscle is a bit of a knot. opening it feels a bit laborious. i always dreaded getting TMJ. it just seems like a bad set of joints to have trouble with. (did you know they are double joints? complex with the sliding as well as the opening functions). you are young and you fear your dread is a prophetic sensation, not just worry. whats his face had TMJ. pop crackle jaw hinge. he could make a condition scarier just by being being the one who had it. scary notions of teeth rusted shut. the word “lockjaw.” my imagination sometimes feels too big for my own body.

i don’t mean to be overly dramatic. it’s just one of those things that is very offputting. your teeth no longer clenching right. uneven, strange stresses and stiffness and glassy pain reaching into your ear canal, even. mostly the part about your jaws not fitting right. like if every time you tried to sit up straight, you couldn’t do it. or every time you tried to talk, the wrong thing came out. or your elbow wouldn’t bend much anymore. well. i guess these are not so far from some peoples’ reality. though they’d already have my compassion before this incident. at least if it bothered them like this bothers me. IT’S SUPPOSED TO WORK! WORRRRRRRK

when you were young…do you remember marveling at colloquialisms? ”lockjaw.” ”hot shit.” “small fry.” everytime i found one, i’d turn it over with awe for days. these little clusters of ideas and thought sounds—even though i never fully understood them when i first heard them—seemed to say so much more than any of the regular words. 

i should try ibuprofen for now.