I was 22 when I found out I barely had a sense of smell. Random allergy test for something else flagged up some weird lactose intolerance thing that knocks the smelling device in my headholes on its a**e when I eat dairy. Gave up dairy for a few weeks. Turns out the world f*****g stinks, and life without cheese or milky delicious cereal isn't worth living. No regrets.

[eats large piece of cheese].

Crow_eggs , Runshi Zheng/Pexels Report

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I didn't know until I was in my twenties that people had different faces, unless there was something usual like a really big nose or a scar. Turns out I have me some face blindness. When I was working in a grocery store around 2000, I saw this woman walk in. I thought she was really cute, so I watched her as she shopped in the produce section. It wasn't until she came up to me a greeted me that I realized she was my then live-in girlfriend. Once I learned there was something called face blindness, it kind of changed my life.

utnapishtim , Cameron Casey/Pexels Report

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Period pains that no otc d***s would touch and that kept me home from school several days every month.

I was just told it was the curse of being a woman and that periods are supposed to hurt.

Turns out I have endometriosis and the pain was caused by internal bleeding every period.

Thanks mom.

luckyjayjay , cottonbro studio/Pexels Report

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I thought music has colours for everyone until I realised no one understands what i'm talking about. 10 years later I discovered there's actually a name for it - synaesthesia. Thanks, criminal minds :)

anon , Mikhail Nilov/Pexels Report

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My science teacher held up a color blind test, the one with all the colored dots, and everyone in class is yelling out the answers and I'm looking at them like the guy at the beginning of Ghostbusters getting shocked and wondering how the girl is getting them right. This cleared up a lot of confusion with my crayons.

anon , Pixabay Report

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Being born with only one ear and a few other issues with my face. Potential diagnosis of mild Goldenhar's. I thought it was the best thing ever and totally normal until I got to school and tried to make friends. Nobody likes the ugly freak. Had a new ear created in 2001/2002 by the wonderfully renowned Dr. David Matthews of NC. It failed and had to be removed. They never learned why. I've since accepted it and no longer give a f**k what others think about it.

anon Report

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My internal monologue is entirely in song. My mind is a musical and I didn't know that was odd till I was talking to my GF when I was like 25...

anon , Chinmay Singh/Pexel Report

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Being able to dislocate one of my shoulders at will.

An orthopaedic consultant then told me that I shouldn't do it even if the Queen asked me to. Fortunately that situation has never actually arisen.

FuckCazadors , Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels Report

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I genuinely believed that everyone's hands and feet turned blue in the winter, and hurt all the time during the summer, or in high temperatures.

Turns out I just have Reynaud's Phenomenon.

Danger_Possum , Angela Roma/Pexels Report

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My best friend got glasses when she was 10. Until that point she had no idea that trees had individual leaves on them, she thought they were just green blobs on brown trunks like you draw when you are a kid.

Edit: To clarify, of course she knew they had leaves, but she just thought they fell from the big fluffy tree blobs. Not sure about if she had climbed a tree, maybe she was just too busy playing to make the connection.

psprouse , Ksenia Chernaya/Pexels Report

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The constant ringing in my ears. Took me years to realise that not everyone experienced it and it was actually tinnitus.

surpluslime , Kaboompics.com/Pexels Report

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Hypermobility - apparently it freaks people out if you stand with your knees bending the wrong way.

_Hopped_ , Jonathan Borba/Pexels Report

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I didn't realize people breathed through their noses till I was 18. I thought they were just there for occasionally smelling things. Turns out I had a severely deviated septum.

2194779109 , Ivan Samkov/Pexels Report

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Turns out its not normal to have constant feeling of fight or flight due to anxiety.

vTimx Report

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The two little toes next to my big toe are connected part way up. My mums are the same. Didn't know it was weird until i bought toe socks when i was about 10 and they really hurt my toes so i told my dad and he was just like yeah you and your mum are actual freaks.

TheDanaA , Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels Report

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My friend has a 3-inch tail, he didn't seem to think that was abnormal until I told him no one else has tails.

H20fearsme , CHUTTERSNAP/Unsplash Report

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For decades I just sort of assumed everyone's head would fill up with these terrifying, violent scenarios that would make you feel like a terrible person. It was either that or I was a psychopath. I figured everyone felt the need to do stupid little things like me, but it turns out saying a made-up prayer in your head every time you have a violent intrusive thought to keep yourself from going to hell is abnormal.

I found out much later that OCD wasn't always just counting steps while wanting everything neat and tidy.

(edit): To anyone reading or commenting here, now thinking they have OCD or any other related illness - trust not what you read on the internet to give you a diagnosis. Take what you've read and written here and think long and hard; if you still feel that my experience fits your symptoms, talk to your doctor, male an appointment with a therapist or psychiatrist and be open and honest about what you experience. Leave it to experts who are sitting in front of you to diagnose what you're experiencing.

bigsie Report

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I never thought much about the weird yellowish lumps I'd sometimes find in my mouth until I realised they were tonsil stones and not everyone gets them.

kellswastaken , Pavel Danilyuk/Pexels Report

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Food would routinely be very hard to swallow.
Often would get stuck and involve either throwing it up or forcing it down with other food or water.
Lived like this until 21.
Turns out I had eosinophilic esophagitis. It's basically a constriction of the esophagus due to allergic reactions that are more or less permanent without treatment.
I sought after medical help, upon my first endoscopy the scope found my throat to be 7mm in diameter.
A normal one is 20mm for comparison. I've since had upwards of 10 dilatations to achieve a normal status of 15mm.
All is well now.

Burfie Report

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Grew up with PCOS. I thought everyone had periods once every 2 or 3 months which would completely flatten them. I'm talking 10-12 days of pain so bad you can't get out of bed.

mydearestangelica , Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels Report

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Even though I have a year long tan thanks to genetics, you could still see all my veins across my whole body. I looked like a human road map. I also shook a lot.

It wasn't until someone mentioned how weird it was that I went to the doctor about it.

Turns out I had been severely deficient in many nutrients for years.

anon , MART PRODUCTION/Pexels Report

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I thought everybody got itchy and bumpy in the cold. Then a friend told me my face was terribly swollen. I was diagnosed with "Cold Urticaria". I am literally allergic to the cold. And I live in Michigan.

TropicalSnack Report

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I thought everyone had tiny red bumps on their shoulders and arms. Turns out I have keratosis pilaris.

Emilina_ , Kaboompics.com/Pexels Report

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Getting an itchy mouth after eating chinese. I figured it was part of the whole "hungry one hour later" thing. Turns out I'm allergic to soy.

teriyakiburns , Polina Tankilevitch/Pexels Report

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I have anosmia (can't smell). When I was younger, I just thought that I was being stupid when people said "ohh, can you smell that?" and I couldn't. However, now I'm older, whenever someone asks if I can smell something I just can't. It became pretty obvious when a manure truck drove past me and a friend one day and I had no reaction.

Alfetta , Ninz Embalsado/Pexels Report

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Occasional crippling headaches where any light or sound would destroy you and sometimes you throw up but to feel better you take a 4 hour nap in the middle of the day. Legit thought all that was normal. In other news, migraine specific prescription pills are a godsend.

PastorOfPwn Report

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I didn't know it wasn't normal to start daydreaming during a test or have periods of time when you got hyper-focused to the point of shutting the world around you out.

Until I started studying to become a special education teacher. Then it was like, "Huh... imagine what my life would have been like if someone had actually diagnosed my ADHD while I was still in school...".

newenglandredshirt Report

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Looking at the sun makes me sneeze. I know it happens to a lot of people, but I thought it happened to everyone.

quarky_uk Report

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Getting blisters under your tongue.

It suddenly started when I was 21 - I'd get little blisters that would burst and give me a really horrid taste in my mouth for a couple of seconds. Then it would be fine, and a day or so later a new blister would pop up. It was irritating, but I thought it was like mouth ulcers, nothing serious. I went to the chemist after a couple of weeks and asked if mouth ulcer stuff would work on the blisters - she told me what I was experiencing wasn't at all normal and to go to my dentist.

Turned out, I had the teeniest tumour you've ever seen in your life growing under my tongue. Its location had interfered with a mucus gland and that was causing a build up of mucus to form little blisters and then burst, hence the rancid taste.

It was caught obscenely early because of the mucus build up. If it had went undetected for a longer time, I could have needed more extensive treatment. If it had went on long enough, the cancer could have even spread to other parts of my body and put me in real danger. As it was, once they removed the tumour, that was me cancer-free. It was no more traumatic for me than a trip to the dentist. I'm pretty lucky.

So, feel pretty lucky to have had my little mucus blisters giving me a heads up.

**EDIT:** So, I've apparently sent a lot of people into a bit of a panic by making them think getting oral blisters means they've got cancer. Sorry about that, folks. No panic was intended in the making of this post.

I got blisters because the tumour grew in a way that interfered with a mucus gland. Blisters aren't actually a common symptom of cancer, so if you're getting oral blisters, please don't panic. My case was unusual, and you're probably fine.

I am not a medical professional however, so if you're concerned I encourage you to get checked out by your dentist. Even though you're probably fine, better safe than sorry, right? And getting checked out will help put your mind at ease.

For anyone concerned about mouth cancer, here's a list of the most common symptoms to look out for.

PantoHorse , Jenna Hamra/Pexels Report

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That only using the phone on one side was completely normal, and everyone picked a side.

Turns out I'm just deaf in the other ear. Explains why headphones never worked properly for me.

lacedragon , Hassan OUAJBIR/Pexels Report

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My friend has no mind's eye. He can't picture things in his head.


He didn't know this was unusual until he saw a documentary on it on the BBC earlier this year. He never understood why books had so much descriptive stuff in them and thought 'picture this' was just a phrase.

reverendmalerik , Marcelo Chagas/Pexels Report

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I have visual snow, which is sort of TV-like static that overlays your vision. AFAIK, I've had it since birth, or if not I developed it at such a young age that I don't remember a time when I didn't have it. I thought that everyone's vision was the same as mine until I was in my mid-teens.

anon , Pixabay/Pexels Report

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I get panic attacks and twitch uncontrollably if someone goes too close to my right ear, or if there is a particularly loud sound or even a high or low frequency noise on my right side. Turns out I have Hyperacusis, and many people I know still think I'm making up and just being a wimp.

BetelJio Report

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I have scoliosis - not bad enough to be immediately noticeable, but because I'm so aware of it I know that one half of my ribcage sticks out more than the other and one of my shoulders slopes while the other is at an almost 90 degree angle.

I didn't realise there was anything wrong until I was in Year 9 at school and one of the girls in the changing room called me hunchback of Notre Dame.

anon , cottonbro studio/Pexels Report

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I am 32 and thought that everyone has a torus palatinus. I recently asked my sister (who is a doctor) to look at the roof of my mouth as there was a sharp bony part on the lump in the roof of my mouth. I was astounded to find out that not only was the sharp bony part abnormal, but that the whole lump on the roof of my mouth is only shared by a small minority!

Redditor1512 , Beyza Kaplan/Pexels Report

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When I would sing, hum or even talk loud my eyes would vibrate and turn 45 degrees. I had superior canal dehiscence. Also was able to hear my eyes moving in my sockets as well as the blood whooshing through my arteries/veins in my neck.

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I have a bifid uvula. Kind of looks like a ballsack. I thought for the longest time that's what everyone's looked like because, well, how often do you look at other people's uvulas? I can remember as a kid watching the intro to Rugrats where it zooms out from Tommy Pickles crying and you see his and thinking it was weird that they drew it like that, but then I figured some cartoon characters also have 4 fingers so that must just be how they are drawn. I found out my uvula is weird when I was in high school.

erinarian , Picas Joe/Pexels Report

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I can make both my calves painfully cramp just by flexing my foot a certain way. Works every time. Like a Charley Horse on command. And if I hold it long enough (20-30 seconds) the pain will start to kind of ease, at which point I can briefly make it cramp by pointing my foot instead.

Apparently this is not normal.

ceeceea Report

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This is being buried because I'm late to the thread but, I was born 2 and a half months early and because of this I formed a hole in the abdomen wall that separates my ball sack and my stomach. Well a small pocked of fluid had formed in the hole not letting it close.

I grew up with this and didn't think anything of it. It would only hurt it I would sneeze, and I didn't do that, that often so I didn't worry.

Well fast forward to when I was 18. I was getting my before college physicals and the doctor saw it and said, "Well that shouldn't be there" and we scheduled the surgery to fix.

3 Days after I had my HS graduation I was getting ready for the surgery. It was suppose to only take 45ish minutes, but it ended up taking 2 and a half hours because of how bad it was.

Apparently the pocked that formed was fused with everything and was a b***h to separate. On top of that my small intestine had started to fall into the pocket. I was told by the doctor that if we had let it go another year I would be dead because my small intestine would have kinked and burst.

tl;dr: Born with a hernia never got it fixed. 18 years later got it fixed. Almost died from waiting that long.

Blinsin Report

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I thought it was normal to sneeze after drinking beer. Turns out I have an allergy. I do not drink any less after figuring that out.

anon Report

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I can not for the life of me feel low/high temperatures as long as it is not pain.

i can put my hand on an (apparently) really hot radiator and don't feel anything, as long as i am not burning myself.

I realized i wasn't normal when I went to a mountain lake with some friends, and jumped in the "ice cold" water, and telling them it was fine.

themoonisacheese Report

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I have a thing called dermotographia where basically my skin swells whenever you scratch it. I used to think this was normal and just draw things on my thighs and they would swell into pictures. It wasn't until I was like 11 that i realized that other peoples' skin didn't swell up like that when they got scratches. Still pretty cool though cuz its like a non-permaneant notepad on my body since the swelling goes away after about 15 minutes.

AsianMuthaFucka Report

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I occasionally have vivid hallucinations; normally they're benign, but every so often I see thousands of ostriches around me. I never realized it was abnormal, until I climbed into the ostrich cage in a zoo because I thought they were all just hallucinations. After I hit one of the ostriches to try and prove it was a hallucination they told me I'm no longer allowed to return to that zoo.

MattSimmons93 , Saul Ticona/Pexels Report

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I'm double jointed and I thought everyone had the same rage of motion. I hurt my friends hand in elementary school because she said she couldn't get her thumb to touch her wrists, and I was convinced she just didn't try hard enough.

anon , RF._.studio/Pexels Report

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Not me but a cousin of me asked me if it was weird his third nipple was turning red.

P4NCAK3 Report

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My wife has no proprioception. Like, she can't do that thing where you close your eyes and touch the third toe on your left foot without having to think about where it is.

The afternoon she figured out that I could do this was really fun with me closing my eyes and her being amazed that I could just TOUCH MY NOSE without having to grope around for it.

Chalicechick Report

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I can move the toe next to my big toe on it's own. It just looks like a little worm head-banging.

anjadup Report

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I didn't know what circumcision was or that I was circumcised till I was 18 when I came and used public showers in the UK.

anon Report

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I got stung by fire coral for the first time. Same type of sting as a jellyfish. Well, it was just three little bumps that pussed a little, and was itchy. Took a few months to heal. I thought it was a completely normal reaction.

Fast forward 6 months, a dive buddy gets stung, and i was like oh dont worry, it'll just be annoying and pussy for a little bit. No worries. But for her, it was nothing worse than an ant bite.

Fast forward another 3 monts, i get stung again, this time a larger surface area. Turns into an oozy mess over the weekend.....turns out, im super allergic to Cnidarian stings.

bridges12791 Report

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My facial tics.

Ever since I was a little nipper I've always scrunched my nose and flared my nostrils. My parents just said it was a habit.

It wasnt until I was just browsing wikipedia that I discovered I have torettes.

anon Report

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