November 7th: Anosmia

I've finally updated yesterday, now I have to start from scratch for today, 7th of November.

I've decided to talk about anosmia - which is the lack of a sense of smell.

This may seem pretty random, but I am in fact anosmic.  Which is pretty much the only reason why I know about it.

Don't get me wrong.  I can enjoy food, and I can taste stuff.  In fact, flavour is 75% smell, and 25% taste.  So when you eat, you're mostly smelling, and I'm just getting all taste.  So in a way, I can taste better than you smelling-people, because I'm not confused by scent.

Somewhat embarrassing life story time!  When I was little, all my friends would completely over react whenever there was a bad smell in the air.  Normal little kid's "OMG EWWW" kind of reaction.  This continued on until I was about 12 or 13.  At this age, I had an experience which is burnt into my brain for many reasons.  There was a girl that was always picked on by people for whatever reason they could find.  She pulled out a permanent marker, which apparently smelled pretty bad.  You know how every classroom had the ADHD ringleader asshole who stirred everyone up?  He decided to go on and on about this smell for about 20 minutes, resulting in everyone in the class walking out because it was so gross.  The only people left in the classroom was me, the girl with the pen, and the teacher who called me a very mature young woman for not picking on the girl.  I wasn't trying to be nice, I just couldn't smell it.  It's interesting, because even now, that girl that was picked on still gets picked on by a lot of people, but she's become a complete bitch and learned to deal with it, by being mean to everyone else.  And that ADHD asshole?  I've been dating him for nearly a year now.  Funny how things turn out. 

When I was sick, I refused to take painkillers because of my throat (another long story), so the parents would either crush it up in honey (before they believed me about the extreme discomfort honey gives me) or they would tell me to block my nose and swallow it.  I never understood this, because it did nothing at all for me.  I now get why they would say that.  Because for normal people, you can't "taste" when your nose is blocked.  Really, you're doing nothing BUT tasting, you just can't smell it. But it didn't work for me :(

Whenever I was sick and didn't feel like eating, my parents would always say, "food never tastes good when you're sick, because you can't taste it".  It always tasted normal to me, but I've seen how badly my family reacts to food when they're sick and they can't "taste" it.  I just laugh at them now.

Also, this bit is a bit gross, but it gives you a clearer picture of what I'm trying to say.  A kid in primary school (elementary, for the Americans) crapped his pants in front of an entire auditorium of 10-year-olds.  Everyone else was grossed out by the smell, which I imagine was putrid by other people's reactions.  The worst part?  Rather than smelling it, I could taste it.  Yeah, that's right.  I can taste it when kids poo their pants.  Isn't that disgusting?






AAAAAAAAAAAANYWAY
  Have a picture to break it up a bit.

This continued on through my life.  I was embarrassed by it.  I thought that I just wasn't doing it right, or I hadn't learned how to smell things.  Or that I had a really weak sense of smell or something.  Either way, it never crossed my mind that I DIDN'T have it.  I didn't think it was possible.

 I think it was about grade 10 or 11, and I was about 15.  Dani-Q probably doesn't realize this, but she was one of the first people who made me take notice of my disability, indirectly, of course.  The conversation wasn't about me at all.  She used the term "mouth-breather" as an insult.  People laughed about it and thought nothing of it.  I thought about it a lot though.  I didn't think that there was anything wrong with breathing through your mouth.  I mean, it's far more efficient, you get more air, faster.  And it's not like there's any benefit to using your nose.  And that's when I realised there WAS a benefit to most people.  That's why it was an insult.  It's like saying their too stupid to use their god-given (it's just a phrase, I'm not being religious) gift of a functioning sense of smell.

I probably was overthinking it WAAAAAAAAAAAY too much, but it made me realise that if I still hadn't worked out how to recognize smells by then, it wasn't going to happen.  I just assumed I was a freak of nature,  that no one else would have it. 

I continued on in life, with my parents and friends testing me out until one by one, they started to believe me.  But people still didn't really believe me, because they hadn't heard of anyone else not having a sense of smell.

I was reading a book one day, last year I think.  I came across a word I'd never seen before, and that doesn't happen too much.  I looked it up, and found out that  the word - anosmic - refers to a lack of the sense of smell.  A  little more research, and I found that there's plenty more people like me.

When its a condition right from birth (or I assume mine is, since I don't remember even having it) it's classified as congenital anosmia, which sounds like an STI.  I think its the "genital" bit.

As my research has indicated, there is no apparent cause, and no cure.  Websites talk a lot about the dangers of no smell, because we can't tell when there's a gas leak (which isn't true, I could TASTE it when the barbecue's gas cylinder was leaking), or when there's a fire, or when food is spoiled. 

I read an article once about how a restaurant had to be evacuated once, because all these people were becoming sick and vomiting and passing out because of a smell.  When people got out their gas masks to check it out, it was just an anosmic kitchen-hand cleaning out the freezer with chemicals.  I laughed at that.

Something else that I DIDN'T laugh at - a man was kicked out of the police force for being anosmic, he couldn't smell drugs or alcohol on a person he was trying to arrest.  I can see why it would be a problem, but I don't think the guy should have LOST HIS JOB because of it.

Another issue with no sense of smell - you can't tell when you smell.  I'm constantly telling my friends that I won't be offended if they tell me I smell, because I won't know otherwise.  This of course, causes issues when I get people to help me buy perfume and deodorant, and this conflicts with someone else's opinions.  I can't make my own decision, so I have to rely on the outcome of their dispute.  Which sucks.

When you look around for information, there's a lot of stories about people "coming out" to their parents about their condition.  It may not seem like a big deal, but parents don't know about their child's condition until the child itself is aware, and the parents usually don't believe their child. 

There's also a type of anosmia which happens after an illness, or a blow to the head, etc.  They experience loss of appetite, massive weight loss, depression, and lowered sex drive, among other things.  I find it strange that people have trouble adjusting to a part of my everyday life.

There's not much else to say, except that I may from time to time ask people to describe smells.  Which makes them very confused.

Even after I knew I couldn't smell, I still couldn't get used to the idea that everything around me had this extra dimension that I can't appreciate.  I was tripping so hard when I found out that bread has a distinct smell.  It really doesn't look like it would smell, since it's so plain.  Also, fruit.  I was very surprised to find out that strawberries, oranges, and bananas had a smell.  I think it's because they're usually served cold, and warm/cold is about as far as my smelling distinctions go.  I can't explain it well, but "cold" smells are chemical-like, or unnatural.  "Warm" smells are natural things, like food and feces (long story of how I found that out).  When fruit is served cold, I always assumed it wouldn't smell as much as it would if it were room temperature.  Now that I think about it, that makes no sense whatsoever.  But that's just how I think. 

So, bread, fruit, hair, and grass. I really can't imagine HOW these things could possibly smell.

And don't say "it smells the same as how it tastes" because that's not true.  You're just smelling it and confusing it with taste.

Right, I only have a few more words before I make today's minimum word count.

I was just looking at the website NeverSmell.com because it has a "personal stories" section on there, and it reminded me of something else.  You know in school how you had to write stories about how something looks, sounds, tastes, feels and smells?  They suck.  Lucky I was good at bullshitting.  Also, in science classes, most recently biology, we often had to identify things by smell.  I think one of our experiments depended entirely on how bad something smelled after a certain period of time.  Other people were gagging with the test tube about a metre away, and I pretty much shoved it up my nose and didn't react.

Well.... I think I'm sick of typing now.  I've got my psychology assignment tomorrow, so I'd better get some sleep.

My total word count is now 14, 488.