Is it normal, that i wasn't allowed to brush my teeth?!

This is embarrassing for me to say, but lately this has really been bothering me… At some point in my childhood, I think I was in kindergarten, my dentist apparently said that I had trouble with dental hygiene and that my mother should help me. Well, I'm not sure if he or she meant "help" as in guiding me while I brushed or actually doing it for me. Whichever it was, it was the latter that was done.

I wasn't allowed to brush my teeth at all. My mother or her mother insisted brushing my teeth until, I think, I was in my early teens or 15. It was something that I grew to hate because I was pretty sure that this did not happen to my friends. It was embarrassing and humiliating. It was almost as if I was being demeaned and like my family wanted me to be dependent on them. To make matters worse, I was sheltered, abused and this even happened with my hair and putting things like lotion on my body, sunscreen on my face, being allowed to sit in the front of the car, eating by myself, and still being put in a carseat when I was nearly in 1st grade.

I'm not sure if my other dentists even knew about this and when they would ask me, I always felt as if I were lying to them. I begged and pleaded many times with my family to let me brush my teeth by myself. Sometimes, I would be given one chance and if I didn't do it to their standards, I would be shamed and scolded on how I didn't know how to brush my own teeth. Common sense would say that of course I made mistakes because, I was never given the chance to know how to do it by myself. However, most of the times my pleas where not heeded.

Sometimes, I would gag and nearly vomit. If I vomited, then my teeth would have to be brushed all over. When I was kindergarten, I got in the habit of swallowing my toothpaste. This went on for a very long time and if I'm remembering correctly, I used to get scolded and told things that would supposedly make me stop. They didn't make me stop and I think it was something that I ended up growing out of myself. However, if I am remembering correctly, the things that were said to me scared me.

I was put at the mercy of these people. My mother is not the cleanness of people and there were time when she would burp or pick her nose, not wash her hands and then come to brush my teeth, thinking that this was somehow acceptable. I went on a trip once with one of my uncles, my mother and her mother. He wasn't allowed to know about the teeth brushing rule. I wasn't allowed to tell him and my teeth were brush in privacy. I was told not to struggle or make too much noise. He left after a few days. I had my seventh birthday on this trip and it was either the day of it or some days later that I my mother picked her nose and came over to me to brush my teeth without having washed her hands. I was very upset. I think I even cried. She kept coming at me and I think she even threatened to take away all of my presents. Finally, her pedophile mother intervened and ask her wh she couldn't see that I was doing this because of what she had done. My mother went to go wash her hands and her mother brush my teeth while I still sat on the floor.

There were other times that I cried. Sometimes, I cried because my mother accidentally stabbed the back of my throat!

When I finally was allowed to brush my teeth I was so happy, because I felt as if the gap between me and my peers was starting to close. However, with this new freedom came the fear that I would lose this privilege. I think my mother used to monitor my brushing until she felt that I could be trusted. After brushing my teeth, for awhile, my family would insist on seeing my teeth. I don't know how long it took the monitoring to stop. It made me upset that I had no privacy and that I wasn't trusted.

Is this normal?