Trying to make sense of things..

jen · Post by **jen** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 5:33 pm

halitosisux wrote:I think being able to talk and relate to others on here has been so important. I have always struggled to understand "God" and truly understand what suffering is all about, what I am and the reasons why we're forced to go through this life. So much struggle, yet what are we really once we're no longer prisoners of our own body.

I would love to discuss these things. We should make a new thread for whoever would like to participate. I think if we can make some sense of these things, and learn more about ourselves it can help us all to understand how bad breath ever became such a problem for us all in the first place.

Halitosisux, I agree. I hope that others will also use this thread to try and sort out this issue and its effect on their lives. Most members who post are very focused on finding a cure - me too (!) so I understand it, but to me the psychological impact is very important as well. And the reason I think for this is that I have been suffering for so many years, 30 in fact.

I wish:
-that I could find out exactly what is wrong with me and if it can't be cured, at least I will KNOW. The mystery that is dominating my life will be cleared up.
-that I could understand why it is happening to me (why this specifically and why me specifically). If this didn't happen to me, would it have been something even worse (like it happening to my child and I have to see her life being destroyed?) In that case I would choose for it rather to happen to me.
- that I could know whether it is really supposed to make me a better person - because it ISN'T. I am so stressed and aggressive all the time, that is to say, when I'm not morbid and depressed, or socially awkward and withdrawn. Definitely NOT a great deal of fun to be around

On my good days I feel like writing a book, for my own sake to sort things out in my mind, and to bring this issue out into the open. I hate the secrecy and the fact that this topic is so sensitive. Even doctors who see and hear about all kinds of disgusting things, are too embarrassed to be honest and open and to try to help us. But unfortunately my bad days are more than my good days, so this book will probably never be written. Which is just as well, because people will just make fun of it. I don't think one can hope to get much sympathy and understanding from the "normal" members of the human race.

halitosisux · Post by **halitosisux** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:40 am

Jen, I can utterly relate to what you are saying. I also spent many many years battling like you.

I said to myself from the very beginning that I KNOW that if it came to it I could completely accept myself and my bad breath and just get on with life and make the best I could of what I had been blessed with. The reason why I never did this from the beginning was purely because I wanted to be able to feel that I had at least tried to find out what was causing my problem. But then months turn into years and then years into decades. I swear, I'd literally reached that point of conceeding. I don't think it's a coincidence. It's as though I'd been put through this and was shown mercy right at the end because "God" knew that in my heart I was not prepared to allow this problem to hold me back for another second longer once I knew I'd done all that I could - and that's the point I'd reached.

I don't consider that I went through this whole experience because it was supposed to make me a better person. I can't imagine anything so ridiculous that God put me through this to make me into a better person, or any stupid self-centred nonsense like that, while this same "God" is allowing children to starve to death. But I can live with the acceptance that "God" works in mysterious ways and that I'll find out eventually what it was all about.

Nothing else could have had me by the balls the way bad breath could. No illness, no other form of suffering, No other hardship. Nothing compares to being trapped inside our body with this de-humanizing affliction. When I think of the power it has over us, I'm almost in awe of how anything could be so well designed to make us this powerless. That's what makes me feel that "God" must be involved and must have some reason to place us into that ultimate loneliness.

But ultimately, no matter how we look at this, it's us who places ourselves there and our flaws which keep us there.

mike987 · Post by **mike987** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:30 am

halitosisux wrote: I'm almost in awe of how anything could be so well designed to make us this powerless.

Throughout our genetic history, before civilization (assuming the condition existed back then) there was no reason that a genetic weakness to BB couldn't continue to exist. In the animal world, where rape is commonplace. If some guy had a susceptibility to BB, but he wanted a certain mate, he'd just have to man handle her into submission, give her a child, and pass on BB to his kin (whether that be a gene related to PND, reflux, bad teeth, whatever).

We aren't so perfectly designed, particularly if you consider the way of the modern world. The human body, as with all living animals in their environment, have been forged only for survival. Conditions or traits that are undesirable, but don't have enough of a negative impact to stop procreation, continue to persist. Of course now, where we are ruled by order and law BB is a real killer.. But if there was nothing stopping me from having any mate I wanted, even if my breath smelled like crap, and I was feeling wild enough, I might stop at nothing to make babies with that person.

The fact that very few people have chronic BB is already evidence that any trait promoting BB hasn't been very successful.. We are just the unlucky ones.
Thankfully, we have science, medicine, and odorzout (man I hope that works! I would carry around a cylinder of that stuff and snack on it in public. I don't care how weird people think I am)

Phantasist · Post by **Phantasist** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:58 pm

Mike987 is right. We are the product of a long evolutionary process. Any genetic trait that is detrimental to survival (or to surviving long enough to produce offspring) will eventually be eliminated from the gene pool. Those animals that are least equipped for survival will die out and their genetic traits will die out with them.
In the case of humans, it can be assumed that bad breath will be a hindrance to finding a partner and producing offspring. This is not true in every case of course, and there will be some people with bad breath who will find a way of having children and possibly pass on some trait that predisposes the children to have bad breath. I think Mike987 is absolutely correct in saying that most people who were predisposed by some genetic trait to have bad breath have died out, and that is why most people today just don't have it. We are the unlucky ones, as he says.
All this has nothing to do with God except in the sense that God created the universe in such a way that it would eventually produce intelligent life. And that is accomplished through evolution. I suppose you can blame God for evolution, but God does not control every aspect of every person's life. God allowed us to have intelligence and free will - we are now responsible for ourselves. Since Adam and Eve ate the apple from the Tree of Wisdom and Good and Evil, we are no longer in paradise where nothing could go wrong. We are living in the real world where plenty of things can go wrong, but not because of God.

halitosisux · Post by **halitosisux** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:49 pm

I didn't mean it like that at all. Anyone who understands the basics of evolution will understand that traits which are detrimental to thriving and survival and procreating will tend to get wiped out in time - possibly even including traits which lead to bad breath will eventually get wiped out.

The point I tried to make is that, no matter how rational I try to be, I'm trying to explain that I feel this sense of awe, how "God" devised something, which at the time felt so absolutely insurmountable, and knowing deep down that this was the only thing that could ever have the effect on me that it had, to force me into such a lonely and humbling experience. There's nothing else that could have done this to me. No cancers, no terminal illness, no Nazi concentration camps, just NOTHING else except having to have this smell of shit coming out my mouth, and having to live amongst people who don't - This is my own personal vision of hell. And from my own point of view, it's just too much to have been a mere unfortunate occurance. There has to have been more to it than that.

cope · Post by **cope** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:30 pm

halitosisux · Post by **halitosisux** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:48 am

Cope, I'm saying how it was for me and how it had affected me.

Having BB affects everyone differently.
If you were made to feel like worthless shit, for example, in your childhood. To me, it's the hardest thing that I could have ever gone through. I'd rather have had real shit coming out of my mouth, at least I could then say it's nothing to do with being a lazy dirty piece of shit.

I know it must be horrible to have certain illnesses, like the ones you described, but they dont stop you from keeping your dignity and making the best of it.

.. I'm just wasting my time I think, maybe there aren't many people on here who understand what I've tried to say, so just forget it.

Phantasist · Post by **Phantasist** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 3:02 pm

Yes, Halitosisux, it's difficult to understand what you're trying to say, unless it is simply that you blame God for all the years of loneliness and anguish that bad breath enforced upon you.
But how a clear thinking, most often scientifically thinking person such as you can believe that, is also hard to understand.

jen · Post by **jen** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:51 pm

Strange how differently people see things. I, on the other hand, understand perfectly where Halitosisux comes from. And I agree, losing my dignity in this cruel, horrible way has paralysed me psychologically and damaged me emotionally beyond repair. I think even if I'm cured now, I will never reach my full potential. 30 years have been too long. It's like forcing somebody to sit in a small cage for 30 years and then letting him out. He won't be able to walk, maybe he won't even have the desire to walk - depending on the person.

HS, say what you want to say. Don't be put off by other people who are not likeminded. It's a good thing to get these thoughts and feelings out. It's like therapy.

Phantasist · Post by **Phantasist** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:33 pm

So how does that prove that God is responsible for Halitosisux's bad breath?

halitosisux · Post by **halitosisux** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 4:17 pm

Thanks jen. When I found this site, I thought wow, an opportunity to relate and speak to others going through the same thing, but haven't really done so that much.

Anyway, I have no idea what "God" is or what "I" am, except that whatever it is that brought the whole universe into existence also intended for our existence to happen as part of that creation.

I can't be angry when I don't know what to be angry against. I don't believe in any religions or any notion of a "God" being at the centre of any religion, so I don't have this cushion to lean on at all. That's why I put "God" in quotes. I'm not trying to find anything to blame. How can I blame "God" though, when my life is not really mine and will eventually be taken from me. It's just a short opportunity I have to comprehend things as a human being. We're not born with any set of rights that says we're entitled to anything during that time, so bitterness is only the result if we compare ourselves to others and spend the time we have complaining and focusing on what we don't have instead of what we do. Everything is relative. If we didn't have others to compare ourselves with, we'd have no notion of bigger, smaller, fatter, thinner, ugly or more beautiful.. or indeed, smellier.

I can understand why a "God" would want to try to make us think about ourselves and discover what we truly are though, and why he would want us to go through such an experience in order to force us to.

This problem is so unlike any other. It's so perfectly devised to feel so insurmountable and so inescapable and to be so devastatingly powerful over us. It goes beyond the laws of misfortunate occurances in my opinion, and that's really the awe I'm referring to and trying to explain and to understand.

mike987 · Post by **mike987** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 6:20 pm

It truly is something out of a nightmare.

I'm pretty sure such a thing is on one of the cards of that game where you have to choose one of two really bad things you don't want.. Is it 'Taboo'?

Anyway, the rest of them.. How can they possibly imagine that this condition is real and as unexplainable as magic? My living nightmare is far worse than my actual nightmares, which are usually about me getting flat tires, breaking eggs, loosing teeth, stepping on small animals by accident...

Also, it's funny that my number one hobby is being concerned about my breath. I spend hours on the site.. Everything I eat is carefully chosen.. I don't go out, I don't speak and don't even like to be within a range of 6 feet of another human.

What makes me feel crazy is that I used to be antisocial anyway during my young adult life. Emotions controlled me and I was always depressed... I wonder if it was my constant stress and depression that triggered the BB, or if it was all inevitable according to my genes. I've grown out of the desire to be antisocial... I can get so excited, so talkative, so crazy and fun, so outgoing, and I love it and would love to be that way all the time!!..

I sure wish there was a god so that he'd cure me in exchange for those prayers he wants so bad.. A god, time machine, aliens, voodoo... Evil powers... Anything! Just want to be free from this!!

Phantasist · Post by **Phantasist** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 9:14 pm

Halitosisux,

Please don't think that I'm being disrespectful. I respect you more than anyone else on this forum, but there are some inconsistencies in your post:

"I have no idea what "God" is or what "I" am..."

You may not have any idea what God is, but you are a human (intelligent) being.

"I don't believe in any religions or any notion of a "God" being at the centre of any religion..."
"I can understand why a "God" would want to try to make us think about ourselves and discover what we truly are though..."

The two above sentencces are logically opposed.

"How can I blame "God" though, when my life is not really mine..."

Whose life is it if not yours?

"...so bitterness is only the result if we compare ourselves to others..."

To whom would you compare yourself if not to others?

"It goes beyond the laws of misfortunate occurances in my opinion, and that's really the awe I'm referring to and trying to explain and to understand."

Bad breath can be neither explained nor understood in terms of God.

Full disclosure: I am not a religious fanatic, so whatever you want to believe about God is fine with me. But I still don't see what God has to do with bad breath.

jen · Post by **jen** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:23 pm

Phantasist wrote:So how does that prove that God is responsible for Halitosisux's bad breath?

Excuse me! I was expressing myself there. I don't have to "prove" anything.

I don't think you understand the purpose of this thread. The idea was not to get into arguments about whether God exists or not OR whether or not God is responsible for bad breath. The purpose is to express our own confused thoughts and in the process attempt to make some sense of our own lives. The idea is to say how you feel, not to analyse and attack other members on this thread.

jen · Post by **jen** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:03 pm

Phantasist wrote:Halitosisux,

there are some inconsistencies in your post:.

Phantasist, this post was directed to HS, but it is so hugely applicable to me that I need to say something. I'm a deeply introspective person (as I'm sure Halitosisux is). Grappling with this horrible affliction for most of my life, made me the queen of confusion. My identity is kind of blurred, because in my mind I am a certain person while I know other people see me as somebody totally different because I always smell bad and that makes me doubt my own perceptions and feelings about myself. I have thousands of conflicting thoughts about everything involving the bb, so obviously my reasoning will not always be very clear.

As for religion, I will find out how God fit into things the day I die. At the moment I can speculate, but I am not clear about anything

I won't speak for HS, but I think lots of the people here are rather confused about these things. Again, the purpose of this thread is to try to sort things out for ourselves. if we irritate you with our inconsistency, feel free to ignore this thread.