Everything You Need To Know About Anosmia

Anosmia is just the fancy word for not having a sense of smell. Some people lose it in an accident but other people, like me, are born without it. It's not very common so anytime somebody finds out that I was born without my sense of smell, They have questions. So here are the answers to those questions.

"You can't smell anything?"

Nope, nothing.

"How do you taste?"

The problem with this question is that...I don't know. I don't really have a reference point. As far as I can tell, I can taste. Just not as well as other people. The doctor said I could probably only taste sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory. That was 12 years ago, and for the last few years I've noticed this to be true. I can't really taste specific flavors or spices.

"So I could...I mean, somebody could fart right now and you wouldn't know?"

As long as I can't hear it, nope. It would be silent but not deadly. To me at least. But even if I could hear it, it doesn't bother me cause it's just a funny noise. Farts make me laugh.

Are your other senses stronger?

No, probably the opposite actually. As I already said, I supposedly can't taste normally. On top of that I'm legally blind without my glasses and I guess my hearing is okay, I just feel like I'm going deaf because I have to ask people to repeat themselves all the time.

"How did you figure this out?"

As a kid, I would see people pulling food out of the oven with a smile on their face, taking a big sniff and going "Mmmmm!" I just figured that is what you're supposed to do. Breathe in the warm air in anticipation for the delicious meal you're about to have. So I copied that behavior. 

As I got older, I noticed things like scented markers and scratch-and-sniff books didn't really work. I just figured they were cheap and low quality. But as time went on, the doubt crept in.

The air didn't smell different after the rain. My dads cologne was just water in a fancy bottle. Changing my little brothers dirty diaper didn't bother me.

I told my mom I can't smell plenty of times, and she would just say something like,

"Oh, yes you can. Don't be silly."

I remember sitting on the stairs of my parent's house when I was about 14, fed up with nobody listening to me.

"I'm serious! I really think there is something wrong with me!"

So, they took me to a doctor. One of the things they had me do was a smell test to determine exactly how anosmic I am. This test was given in the form of a scratch and sniff booklet with an accompanying scantron-like answer sheet.

The doctor left me and my dad in the exam room. I tried smelling each page, and I made a guess for each question, usually based on the color of the page.

I got zero correct. You'd think I would at least get one or two right on accident, but nope. The doctor said that they can't even register my results unless I got two questions correct. He gave me another chance to take the test. This time, I had my dad answer two questions for me.

"Well, you can't smell," he said as he came back into the exam room. Duh. "Chances are, you'll probably never be able to smell."

I cried the whole way home and haven't cried about it since. I guess I got it all out of my system that day. I've learned that there are plenty of benefits to not being able to smell. Most of the time, I totally forget smelling is even a thing that people can do. It's just become my normal.


Let me know if there are any questions you have that I missed, and I'll add them!