The sad, perplexing account of a woman whose sense of smell vanished after a sinus infection. Excerpt:
Yet without hesitation I can say that losing my sense of smell has been more traumatic than adapting to the disabling effects of the stroke. As the scentless and flavorless days passed, I felt trapped inside my own head, a kind of bodily claustrophobia, disassociated. It was as though I were watching a movie of my own life. When we see actors in a love scene, we accept that we can't smell the sweat; when they take a sip of wine, we don't expect to taste the grapes. That's how I felt, like an observer watching the character of me.
I have the opposite problem: a sense of smell that's almost too acute. Some odors are so intolerable I have to move away from them or get real sick real fast from gagging. And I can pick up smells that most people can't. I had a friend who had quit smoking 20 years earlier, but I knew when she'd been cheating, even though I've never seen her smoke. The other day, we were driving around town and I instantly smelled a cigar. The window was up in the minivan, but I observed accelerating away from us in the next lane a man puffing on a Swisher Sweet.
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I have a similar problem. It actually makes me very sad because I end up judging people based on how they smell and am often inadvertently repulsed by people who smell bad-- when maybe they can't help it. I try to ignore it or get over it, but I know that my face has to show a little of my repulsion and none of my compassion.
I waffle between the two extremes. I've suffered from terrible sinus infections my whole life and have a hard time smelling things like garlic in the kitchen. BUT like Rod, I can smell a cigarette being smoked in another car on the highway. I can tell that my studio-mate (who has "quit" smoking) has been cheating, even if he isn't present in the room. I get turned on ironing my husband's shirts because the smell reminds me of him. I can tell if my DH went to the hair cuttery by the different smell on his head. Once my accupuncturist was wearing essential oils that my mom uses and I began to cry for homesickness. For me, smells are deeply linked to emotion.
I have a very strong sense of smell. As a student, going to dark clubs, when we bought rounds of drinks in similar glasses, I used to astonish classmates by distinguishing them all, even between different types of beer, by smell.
I have an acute sense of smell as well, it's wonderful for certain things... but man is it hard at other times... you should have seen me when I was pregnant, it got even worse! My husband could be sitting across the room from me reading a book and I could smell his breath! Drove him crazy telling him to go brush his teeth every 30 minutes!
My son has congenital anosmia; in other words, he has never had a sense of smell. His diet is fairly limited (he'll eat sweet and salty things, and only some of those).
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