When a broken bridge is a signal

You are recoverable.

A four-tooth bridge in the upper right of my mouth broke the very same week the world shut down for COVID. Everything closed—schools, shops, the rhythms of daily life—and I, like so many others, stayed inside, afraid to go out, afraid to breathe near strangers, afraid of what might happen next.

I just lived with the wide gap on the side of my smile. I smiled less, I kept my mouth shut more. I chewed on the other side. I watched my front teeth separate a little, and Feliks loves the tiny gap. I didn’t go out much.

At first, it felt like a temporary inconvenience. I’d get it fixed when things settled down. But things didn’t settle. Not outside, and not inside me either.

Time grew strange. Some days disappeared in minutes, others stretched endlessly. I kept meaning to call a dentist. To deal with the broken bridge. But depression doesn’t just steal your energy—it steals your will. Your belief that you’re worth the effort. One month became six. Then twelve. Then four years.

This week, my dentist fired me.

She said it kindly, but the meaning was clear: “There’s not much we can do at this point. You should think about dentures.”

I just couldn’t keep up.

Because when depression takes hold, brushing your teeth can feel like climbing Everest. Making a phone call like lifting a car. Most mornings I was lucky to shower. I didn’t floss. I didn’t schedule cleanings. I just hoped it would all somehow hold.

But nothing holds forever.

This is what people don’t see about depression. It’s not just in your mind. It shows up in your mouth. In your bones. In your mailbox. In the things you couldn’t manage to do, and now carry the consequences of.

Dentures. At my age.

It sounds small, maybe, in a world with so much suffering. But it’s not small to me. It’s a visible reminder of everything I couldn’t hold together. Of a bridge that broke and never got repaired. Of how hard it is to ask for help when you already feel ashamed.

Depression has taken a lot from me over the years.

I’ve lived through two serious episodes of it in the past fifteen years—the kind that make it hard to shower, hard to eat, hard to answer the phone. The kind that steal color from the world. The kind that whisper you're a burden. That you always will be.

The most recent episode landed me in an Intensive Outpatient Program. I spent months in that IOP, clocking in every day like a job, even though getting there felt like walking underwater. Group therapy in the mornings. Learning how to name my feelings again. Learning how to sit in a room with other people who were also trying to climb out of themselves. We were strangers, but I loved them instantly, fiercely. We were, all of us, bruised and trying.

That program helped save my life. And still, even with those tools, depression lingers. Not every day. But enough days.

Because depression doesn’t always look like lying in bed for weeks. Sometimes it looks like functioning well enough to fool people. I’m an overachiever from way back. Like answering emails but losing friends. Like attending meetings but eating cereal for dinner every night for a month. Like brushing your hair but not your teeth. Like a bridge in your mouth breaking during a pandemic, and never getting repaired.

And now, my dentist is giving up. Kindly, gently. But still. Giving up.

I nodded when she said I should consider dentures. I didn’t cry in the chair. I swallowed the shame that lodged, as it always does, in my throat.

Because this isn’t just about teeth. It’s about how slowly—and how completely—a person can disappear. Depression takes your color, then your clarity, then your conviction that you’re worth the effort. And so you stop trying. Or you try in half-steps, tiny bursts. You start things you can’t finish. You begin calling and hang up before the line connects. You look at the toothbrush or treadmill and think, Not today. Maybe tomorrow. And tomorrow becomes next week, next month, next year.

I remember how I felt walking into that IOP for the first time. We were all carrying the same quiet ruin. My mind raced. I wanted to leave. But I stayed. Day after day. And slowly, over time, the fog began to lift. A little. Not all at once, but enough to feel the shape of myself again.

That’s the part that always surprises me—not the falling, but how long the climb back takes. And how, even when you think you’ve made it back, some part of you is still catching up.

So no, I didn’t forget about the bridge. I just couldn’t get to it. Not then. Not for a long while. And while I was frozen, the bacteria kept working. They didn’t care about pandemics or IOPs or mental health. They didn’t wait. And now here I am.

Dentures.

The word hits harder than it should. It feels like failure. Like something meant for later in life, not now. Like something I should have been able to prevent.

But that’s what shame does. It attaches itself to the body, to your past, to your should-haves and could-haves. It tells you that you’re not just someone who has depression, but someone who is depressing. Someone who didn’t try hard enough.

But here’s what I know to be true: shame is not a motivator. It’s a silencer. It makes it harder to ask for help, not easier. It makes you think that telling the truth will only make people turn away.

And so we don’t talk about the physical toll of depression. About the dental bills and medical neglect and unopened envelopes and the ways our bodies carry what our mouths never say. We keep our heads down. We think, Next week, I’ll do better.

Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don’t.

But even now, even facing this loss, I am trying to remember what I learned in that circle of strangers at the IOP: That healing is slow. That people fall apart and come back together more than once in a life. That we are not our worst days. And that even ruined things deserve tenderness.

I wish someone had said to me—years ago, in the thick of it—that I was still worth tending to. That my teeth weren’t proof of failure. That a broken bridge could be seen not as shameful, but as a signal. That this, too, could be survivable.

Because it is. Even now. Even with all the things I’ve let go of and all the things I still carry.

The prosthodontist I was referred to took a look at my teeth and told me, “You don’t need dentures. Your mouth is recoverable.” I felt so buoyed by his optimism. We have started to work on the recovery process together.

I’m writing this not to confess, but to connect. Maybe someone else is out there, living with a broken bridge. A gap in their smile. A heart that feels unfixable.

I’m writing this for the person who is quietly, invisibly struggling. Who has a cavity they haven’t looked at. A letter they haven’t opened. A voice they haven’t used in a while. I want you to know: you are not alone. And you are not broken in the way you think you are.

You are not disgusting. You are not lazy. You are not beyond repair. You’re carrying more than anyone can see.

You are tired.

You are human.

You are still here. Gapped, grieving, and still trying.

And if today, all you can do is rinse your mouth, or take your meds, or simply read this and feel less alone—that is enough.

You are enough. You are recoverable.

Love,

Patti

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