Anyone with anosmia can tell you how common it is for others to forget that they can’t smell. And I’ll confess: growing up, I used to get offended when close friends or even my own mother would forget about my disability, thinking that if I were blind or deaf then they wouldn’t forget. But now I realize that the ability to smell IS different, and that I can’t take it personally when loved ones forget. It’s not a disability that’s readily apparent. I look normal. I act normal. I get it.
But over this past year, since starting the blog here at NeverSmell.com, I’ve noticed a change: the people around me, who know about my blog here, seem to remember that I can’t smell more so than before. In fact, they’ll often remind me, “Hey, you can’t smell…how ‘bout you take out the garbage!” So, the plan for the next blog here at NeverSmell was to write about how since starting this website very few friends and family members forget how I can’t smell. I thought SUCCESS! MY BLOG DOES BUILD AWARENESS! MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY WON’T EVER ASK ME HOW SOMETHING SMELLS AGAIN! HOORAY!!!!
But then, in the last three days a coworker, my father-in-law, my mother, and even my husband have had temporary memory lapses, asking me to smell milk, or hand lotion, or a shirt, or whatever-might-smell-offensive-now.
Oh well! So much for that theory! At least I still get to have fun with them: OH GOD! THAT LOTION SMELLS LIKE DEATH!!!!! BURNING PAINFUL DEATH!!!!!!! MAKE THE HORROR STOP!!!!!!!! (hehehe)
- Mar 30, 12:35 PM
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1 · Karen Miedrich-Luo · Mar 31, 01:22 PM
True. It’s only when I actually “tell” them how something smells that they suddenly remember and say, “Hey! you can’t smell!” Then I feel guilty for trying.
Do you ever have phantom smells? Sometimes I think I smell something but everyone says I couldn’t possibly, because I can’t smell. Why don’t they remember that when they pass the perfume?
2 · Heather · Mar 31, 01:41 PM
Never any phantom smells…that I know of. Again, having never smelled I’m not sure what smell would feel like (do you feel it?) so the idea of phantom smell…I just don’t know what to do with that! I can feel hot and cold, dry and moist, and those elusive “chemical smells” which I’m told is not actually a smell, but that’s about it.
3 · Big Mexican Dinner · Apr 4, 12:13 AM
I love your blog!
I was helping a friend move last week and the fact that I don’t have a sense of smell came up five times in conversation. THEN, one of my closest friends (who’s known for years about my anosmia) started talking to me about a certain smell, and everyone in the room just watched in agony as I played along. It AMAZES me how quickly they forget.
4 · Heather · Apr 5, 09:43 PM
It makes sense [no pun intended] though; my husband is color blind and I forget about it all the time.