Depression only showed up in her gums. They bled excessively when she brushed her teeth, despite her using the softest bristled toothbrush she could afford. They were inflamed, raw in certain spots, and ultra-sensitive. Whenever she was outdoors, the slightest breeze, through the tiniest opening of her lips, sent cold waves to the roots of her teeth. Smiling while baring teeth was out of the question. She had to teach herself to smile with her mouth closed shut without looking like a psychopath.

The nerve pain felt like tiny electrical zaps each time. Her gums became an anemometer. It could pick up the slightest bit of air movement. The stronger the flow of the air, the more intense the electrical shock through her jaw.

She couldn’t eat anything hot or cold. Her mouth was like the girl who was forever cold but got hot when she put on a sweater.

As her gums receded, she noticed subtle changes in her mouth. Her two front teeth were actually different lengths. The top right was just a pinch longer. She noticed small gaps between each tooth. They were no bother really, until food got stuck in them, which happened with every single meal.

She saw it as a silver lining or perhaps the descent into the abyss of an eating disorder. Either way, since her depression manifested as oral neglect, eventually she ate less.

“Why not bypass the need to even brush and floss,” she reasoned.

She had a cycle, a manically vicious one, similar to a deranged hamster on a wheel.

Whenever she got depressed, at first, she ate voraciously in bed. She would call off from work multiple days in a row. It's a miracle she still had a job. Surrounded by wraps, and take out containers, feeling too bothered to brush or floss her teeth like she knows she should do, she would wallow.

Sometimes the darkness lingered for much longer, and boredom would set in. Unable to pull herself out of the pit, slowly, the eating ceased, and so did the accompanying guilt of not performing oral care.

She knew all the statistics, the health implications, and the drastic impact of poor oral hygiene. None of that mattered when the fog settled over her. It was the one thing it laid claim to in her life.

Her teeth.

On a drab Wednesday morning, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror to brush her teeth. It was the third day in the uphill climb back to survival mode. She felt one tooth wiggle more than usual. She tasted blood, and when she touched it, it came right off.

She stared at it in her palm, bloody, yellow, long.

She said, “I should probably look for a psychiatrist.”