The strategy of winning on the mental rather than the physical side

Based on reading the experiences of other people with this condition, I think the most hopeful idea is the idea of learning to care less about the reactions of others, (and the possibility of the odor being present) rather than actually curing this physically. Most likely, most people will try the path of dietary change and supplements for a couple years, and they will then exhaust that path. Most people will at best report some limited improvement of their condition (I am an exception to this), but nothing like a cure, or a profound reduction in the problem.

The good news is that there is a second path to getting the same basic result, and that is learning to simply care less about this over time. Some people report dramatically improving their situation through this, which is the main reason I have confidence in this approach – this is not just an untested theory.

The discomfort that people feel when out in public is not just because of the concern that there is a bad odor present. The degree to which they care about the issue itself is equally important. You may find that the fact that you are noseblind to yourself, combined with the powerful mental barrier to telling someone they smell bad directly, makes it impossible to establish whether or not you smell fine or not. You may find that the approach of completely changing your mindset about this is what allows you to go through the world comfortably.

Here is how to go about trying to change your mindset right now: you need to have an attitude that while it is possible that you do indeed smell bad, it is the result of a medical condition that you can’t do anything about, and the medical community can’t do anything about. This means you should not feel badly about the possibility of offending others. Your attitude should be completely different to someone who simply only showers once a week and is offending others. I realize that things like this can be easier said than done, but make a strong effort to do this, and never give up on this approach.

Another thing is to understand that as you get older you will care less about superficial things. Imagine a 14 year old girl who thinks that her nose is too big. She probably thinks this is the most important, and terrible thing in the whole world - literally. If World War 3 broke out, she would still think her nose was a more serious problem. Now imagine her at age 45. She may not actually like her nose by then, but there is simply no way that she will make such a huge deal about it, like she did at 14.

It is natural to be hypersensitive about an issue like this when someone is a teenager, but there is a good chance that simply getting older will reduce this a great deal, as someone realizes that having a minor odor that people occasionally comment on is not literally the most important and terrible thing in the entire world. I fixed my problem a long time ago, but looking back I can see that I was hypersensitive to the idea of having this problem, and this played a major role in just how difficult it was to be around other people at this time. This led to huge amounts of fear when it came to routine things that involved being around others indoors. Today, if I exercise and there is not enough time to take a shower before getting to the grocery store before it closes, I will just go to the store anyway. When I was younger, I would have made a bigger deal about this and have been more reluctant to do so, because I might not smell perfectly fresh in this scenario. When I was younger, I attached far more importance to superficial things, and the possibility of having a slight smell that someone picks up on is one of those things. Almost everybody follows the pattern of caring less about superficial things as they get older.

Now, there certainly are plenty of people who post things about having had this condition for 25 years and never getting used to the comments and reactions from people. Humans are hardwired to respond very negatively to the experience of being told that they smell bad. There are however, at least a decent number of people who report that they one day just stopped caring about the comments and reactions, and this had a hugely positive impact on their life.

As I said at the start of this post, I think that by actively working on taking on a positive mindset about this, on the grounds that this is a medical condition that you cannot control, you can maximize your odds of controlling the problem by winning on the mental side rather than the physical side. I can not guarantee that you will succeed in transforming your mindset about this – but you have to try, and never give up on this approach.