wore the Serious Mask (N99 w/valves) for the first time since...idk early May?
bc I was walking to the store and the smoke is awful
got a good enough seal that I couldn't smell the smoke at all
that was weird as shit
Conversation
I've never had a bad sense of smell and pregnancy has only made it more sensitive so cutting it off entirely was bizarre
I could smell my breath and the materials of the mask itself but nothing else
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the heavy/humid/dusty feeling of the air on my skin, walking past cut grass and porta-potties from construction sites...without smelling *anything* that corresponded to my environment?
I don't think I've ever experienced that much of a dramatic shutoff, even when sick
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it was awful; I had no idea how much I was *using* my sense of smell to do little checks on my environment like "everything is normal, things are real, all sensory data corresponds as it should"
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Replying to
That sounds bizarre. Have you not experienced that before when you have a severe cold?
I once had blisters on my eardrums and went deaf and being unable to hear anything outside was way more disorienting than I thought it would be
Replying to
as far as I can recall I've always had at least some sense of smell
I don't get colds very often
Maybe the shift from pregnancy induced sensitivity to almost nothing was more jarring
and maybe colds came on slowly enough that I got used to it
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