Anosmia
I have never been able to smell. My mother first realized this when I was a young teenager, around 13 or so. It was summer and I had been outside, sweating, and apparently developed quite a strong body odor. Being somewhat naive, I was under the assumption that if I smelled really bad, I would know it! Well, I went out with a few friends and noticed that they kept the windows down and tried not to get too close to me. I was confused because I didn't smell myself! When I got home, I walked by my mother, who has quite a sensitive sense of smell. She took one whiff of me and exclaimed "you reek!" I felt so embarrassed and upset. I argued that I would surely smell myself and it went on from there. She would bring me something or have me smell something. And, sure enough, I could smell none of it. She felt that it was somehow her fault as I had multiple ear and sinus infections when I was young. The procedure of putting tubes in a child's ears to help drain them was a new procedure at the time. If it were more common, I would have been a prime candidate. But, I never had them and suffered infection after infection. Eventually, I grew out of it. At the age of 19, my mother took me to a specialist who verified that I could not smell anything and looked up my nose. He verified that I had no polyps and nothing obviously wrong. I just couldn't smell! He also reassured my mother that it was not her fault!
I have learned to live with it and really don't miss it at all. After all, how can you miss something that you never experienced? I have learned how to cook by watching the time and seeing how something looks when it is done. I've heard that other people cook by smell! My husband watches out for me and tells me when something is bad smelling.
I used to bring up the fact that I couldn't smell at the workplace and elsewhere because it made me somewhat unique and was a conversation piece. My husband, who worked at the same place as I did for a while, pulled me aside one day and informed me that my coworkers did not believe me and were in the habit of walking by and farting. They would also put smelly things near me or on me just to have the laugh. After I learned that, I never told another person.
Now, it is just close family members that know that I have no sense of smell. I have learned how to pretend to smell things and do it pretty convincingly! I would say that it is not a hindrance at all.
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