Smell scent

On my way to the smell intervention!

I was very keen to provide two different scents to P, a good and a bad one. I was going to collect some Jasmine flowers from a Bush next to my house but all the flowers were gone.

I guess we will have to focus on the bad scents unless some good scents come up. I'll try to extract good things from the scents memories, I'm always trying to look at the good things in life.

I feel I'm much more prepared after the last class we had yesterday and meeting with Richie on Monday gave me a boost of energy and focus and now I have to make sure I'll be able to use it for the best.

So I sat and wrote some questions to ask her and decided I will record it. It took me a while to realise I don't remember things from the interviews since most times I don't write because I lose my focus when I do, and received this great advice from Ann Marie and Victoria when I met them last week to do so, + the calendar which I started to use as well.

We were supposed to meet for a coffee and I felt that it might slip away since it's half term next week, and I really wanted to meet her before so I was a little pushy about our meeting and emphasized it's for the purpose of my project and that I really need that and highly appreciate if she can help.

so we are going to focus on one sense alone, I tried to recreate the scent from the Camden flat but I didn't capture it.

I'm taking one experience that you had with smell (bad smell) and I want to analyze it, question it, and understand the meaning and implication of that experience:

+++copy her words about her experience with the flat a Camden.

I shared that I tried to duplicate the scent, and brought the towel which I tried to duplicate the scent with, I failed, my towel didn't smell like the flat, was cleaner.

I brought a towel that I tried to duplicate the scent, I was able to do the damp alone without the snatch, not what she experienced.

Were you the only one who senses the scent or did your partner and your mum sense it as well, and if so, did they sense (were bothered with) it as much as you did?

Y felt the smell but now as powerful as she did.

When they left the flat after their first visit, it seems to her like the stench became from the residents and she felt uncomfortable to tell the residents.

When they left the flat with the real estate agent, she complained the flat smell bad, and they he said he didn't notice.

When the flat was empty and they received the keys to move into it, they all notice the smell but probably not as noticeable for them as to her.

She remembers going back to the flat, preparing the clean it with Her mum and her partner, and it was still very smelly, her partner said: I don't understand why I was so excited about the flat. I was so upset, we fought a lot about the flat.

Her mum smelled it but not as hard as her.

She doesn't recall visitors noticed the smell.

Was there a new blend smell that overcome the stench?

Yes, breeze spray and a purple cleaner, two brands to remove odour that I can't stand their smell now as well because it reminds me of the old smell. I changed the sofa's cover and everything nothing worked.

I received two bags full of babies clothes, I couldn't take anything because I felt it has the smell of the flat. I was nauseous and couldn't stand the smell.

I was wonder if it was because of the building, smell of rubber, or just the sofas.

What does it make you feel?

nauseous (physical) and disgust, disengage, feel like it dirty, I need to remove this smell from me, not to touch me and not to be near me.

Does it take you back to the whole setting - your personal life: A house you didn't want to move to, you felt in a cross path in your life, was not certain about what's wrong with her son, her career etc, mad about yourself that you agreed to do so

everything with the flat was bad - the circumstances that led us to move into it, the fights before and during, the whole year was the loneliest year of my life, stress, fights with her partner, it was a horrible year just horrible,

can you find anything good that happened this year?

No

it was also the year when my son's difficulties became more clear and in one point I started to blame the house with his autism, as I know that sometimes a child can have autism that is triggered from certain circumstances, as a trauma that the move cause him that.

I remember the first time he was 1.4, I brought him the first time to the house. We had our routine when they are arriving at the house, he was screaming at the stairs of the building,

It all mixed together - his difficulties became clearer,

I passed my major exam that year -

a big crises since I failed the first time, I was able to get a 2 month extension and I was able to pass

I was prepared to fail again, and the ride was over and that we are going back to IL

The email was a relieve but I couldn't really enjoy it

I also had a health problem and had an operation.

It was a really bad year

I was inside a turbulence after failing the first exam, stress of studying to the new exam, I see something happening with my child, stress of me being a failure and couldn't do anything right, I was inside I became an unbearable person, you couldn't talk to me without hearing my apologizing on everything, on my existence. We were trying to meet new friends, and when I was asked about my life I was dismissing myself and was very negative about my path in life and apologetic about everything, a celebration of despair and failure.

I fell it was a year when I lost myself, I was sucked into self-pity and turbulences in my relationship with my partner. rabbit holes in our relationship. 16.31

we didn't have enough money for when we just moved, we burned down a lot of my saving between my studying and childminder for my son we didn't have any money or backup. She was very upset with their money situation mostly because her partner was very negative and frantic about it, only after conversing with her parents who were worried about her situation (though she might be having a nervous breakdown by the way that she sounded) she realise it's just a temporary setback and that can get a loan from her parents and get by. I felt that what started these turbulences was this flat. I was forced to move into this flat and I felt I lost all ability to stand up to myself and lost my legitimacy. I don't have the privilege to ask for a change, it's part of my character. when we moved it was after my failure and he vetoed the long rides to the nursery so I felt I couldn't say that I don't want to move there since he was the one who found the flat and I didn't look for a different one so I can't stand up against it, I have to accept it. He said: if you don't like the flat, you should find another flat for us, and I was not in a place in my life where I could tell him that I don't like this flat and I have the right to refuse to move there and you should find us a different flat. I'm in a better place now, but we feel it's a feminine characteristic, trying to maintain peace and not causing difficulties as if we don't deserve to object if we don't provide a better solution. To put other people need before ours.

After a year passed that you were not happy about the flat,

After awhile my partner apologized that it was not ok from him to put her under this pressure and that it was a mistake - the flat was a mistake (location, size etc) and it made her very miserable.

I think it's his best quality that he can apologize and say he was wrong, think about it and understand and take responsibility. I'm actually more difficult in apologizing.

So, at the end of this journey, did you have a feeling of empowerment? I survived it, I overcome this?

No, I just escaped the flat. ran away from it.

This flat is the first one I saw afterwards and we took it. wa fine with our budget, this flat is not perfect with all aspects I was looking at but I just couldn't wait to leave the old flat.

We gradually moved to it, allowing my son to have a gradual move.

After we move to this flat, we started seeing a new psychologist and it created a huge difference, things started to become clearer. we moved from the darkness to the light.

We met new family right away, started to make friends, we are much happier.

It took another year until we received the final diagnostic but the path felt clearer.

Is this new flat has a new smell?

yes, I always find smells that are connected with something dirty, not clean, not safe. The old flat had a smell that was disgusting to me and made me feel sick. These signs are considered to be dangerous to me, evolutionary wise, a cause to stay away.

Sometimes there is a smell of damp, moss and I'm afraid there might be some weird fungus growing under the floor that might kill us, I don't like this smell but I like this flat. The smell is not so strong.

Connecting to Israel

What was the smell in your house in Israel?

I remember I was not happy with the smell there as well, I'm very sensitive the smell, there were a lot of wooden closets and furniture in that house, and there was a strong smell of sour old wood. A little stuffy, a bit dark. But I liked that house, it was very big and wide, the smell was strong but it didn't bother me.

Was it because you were happy then?

yes, and I liked that house. It's interesting you asked me, I wonder if it has to do with what my emotional state the way that I react to the smells of the house. If the smell from the old house was here in this new house when I'm in a better state in my life, would it bother me that much? did I hate the smell and the flat also because I was forced to live there, I had no choice.

In every house, you lived in so far, there was some smell that you liked and disliked?

that's right, it's interesting - I don't remember any distinctive smell from my parents' house where I grew up, and not after I moved out from it, and visiting it. I also don't have any recollection of a smell that was in the first flat we lived in when we just moved to London.

I'm very sensitive to smells everywhere we go: when we go to friends, the smell at my aunt's house, smell of sand, that was the smell of their sofas, they no longer have this smell.

Smell of people - my grandparents, my kids. I just started to smell my young son recently. I still smell my son. They have different smell. I didn't feel they have a smell of babies (as I recall a smell of babies from friends), I was a little disappointed when he didn't have a smell of baby as I was expecting him to have.