How does the smell affect your life, how do you deal with it, do you have any stories.

Im a trivia nerd and sometimes facts connect in an “oh no” kind of way.

Today the fact of “smell is the strongest scent tied to memory and emotions” hit the fact “pigs are very close in alot of ways to human tissue”

That leads to the “oh no”

Its got to be difficult entering after a terrible fire and smelling food, possibly even remember you nyanas famous pulled pork.

Sorry to be gruesome but that’s what I’m asking about.

How do you put that aside? Do you get sick when Nana makes what used to be your childhood favorite?

I couldn’t deal with that, the thought alone shook me. How do firefighters deal with that? Do family members change meal plans if you had a bad situation that day? Do some firefighters become vegetarians? Is it something you kinda just get over after a couple times?

  • Breezy@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    If you’re worried about how smells affect you, have you ever smelt where a person died? It smells almost exactly like a bunch of very very rotten food. But your mind freaks out about it knowing it comes from a person. I used to work on insurance jobs and have cleaned up after 3 deaths and the smell… it just fucking sticks in your mind knowing what it is. Once a car was brought into the warehouse after a suicide but i didnt know what for it just smelt like a fridge of food after not having power for a month. But as soon as i learned what it was my brain instantly made it smell worse. Honestly kinda crazy.

    • Aeao@lemmy.worldOP
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      17 hours ago

      Yeah I grew up on a farm and smelled some pretty bad stuff but it was just a bad smell. If I knew it was human that would be harder even if it smelled mostly the same. It would be psychologically worse.

      I know burying a dog that got hit by a car and took a few days to find was worse than finding a missing cow in the same state. I loved the dog, I liked the cows but that dog was my dog. It was worse smell psychologically even tho the cow is bigger and was probably logically more smelly.

    • Contemporarium@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Does all decay smell the same you think? We had a rat get into our house and die in a place we couldn’t get to no matter what so we had to let it decay and it only smelled in a little nook but fuck did it smell terrible until it finally turned into a skeleton

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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        16 hours ago

        I think it depends on the diet and body composition, as well as how long they’ve been dead and under what climate conditions. Some smell sweet or fruity. Some smell, like, dusty. The way an old crypt smells. Some have a sour or rancid smell.

      • Breezy@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It is and is not the same, its like i was comparing it to a fridge of food going months justing sitting and festering as it rots and its itsell in a bath of bacteria. Fucking disgusting, but its worse when its a persons dead smell.

        Ive been thigh high in sewage, its not as bad as that, but very close but in a mental disgust way.

        I think we have a mental trigger to avoid death. Id be instrested in a veterans war view on the subject since my view only comes from a small amount of exposure.