tomorrow I am getting my nails done, and I don't want the woman to touch me

[emily91]

a bit of background to this one: you know how there are people who can smell numbers or colours?

well, I can smell names. someone can tell me their name and I can smell them in my mind before meeting them. it doesn't work with all names, only some

well, tomorrow I am having my nails done by a woman who works there, and her name is a trigger name for me (puts a really bad smell in my mind)

I am trying to figure out how I can let her touch my nails or my body without thinking she's dirty, or she smells- and that I don't want her skin to touch mine

[ErinKC]

Synesthesia. My daughter sees colors for music, numbers, letters, and words.

It seems like you have two options. First, you can remind yourself that the way your brain correlated senses doesn't equal objective reality and go to the appointment. For example, the letter A is not actually objectively red and Math is not green, even though my daughter insists it is and very much subjectively sees it that way and your nail tech does not smell despite what your mind tells you. Or you can cancel the appointment because synesthesia is a real thing and you have a real reaction to this person's name and getting your nails done is meant to be relaxing so why put yourself through misery over it?

[Lencoboy]

Synesthesia. My daughter sees colors for music, numbers, letters, and words.

Sounds kind of familiar. I've often seen colours for numbers myself (1-red, 2-orange, 3-yellow, 4-green, 5 grey, 6-brown, 7-amber, 8-purple and 9-white).

I also have quirks and foibles over things that are relatively trivial and insignificant to most other people in the grand scheme of things; e.g, certain typefaces (lettering fonts), brand names/logos, especially if they're associated with being reprimanded/chastised or simple bad luck when I was a child.

In fact, there's even one specific brand of lawnmower that I've always have a morbid hatred of and can't even bring myself to type out the name on here, though that particular lawnmower brand is now no longer a mainstream brand, and to give a bit of a clue, has now mostly been superseded by Bosch themselves, who were actually the final owners of that hated lawnmower brand of mine, and said brand seemed to largely fizzle out over the course of the 2010s more in favour of the Bosch branding itself, which I don't have any issue with.