Have you ever stopped to consider how your senses shape your perception of the world around you? For most of us, our senses are an integral part of our experience of the world, allowing us to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the things around us. But what happens when we lose one or more of our senses; how does it impact our world, perceptually or emotionally?

No one ever thinks about what happens to ourselves when we lose our senses. It seems implausible, borderline impossible that such unfortunate events will occur to ourselves. The human brain is so great that it adapts and adjusts itself to whatever issue that may occur. When we do lose our senses, the location of the brain where it resides gets overtaken by the other senses—heightening them and therefore making them stronger. Adjusting the brain to rely on these new senses rather than the ever-disappearing sensation through our journey of grief.

The story of our lost senses is even comparable to losing a loved one—going through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Through the journey of loss, others would not even know the beginnings of hardship of your loss. From people wearing fake eyeglasses or wearing fake ankle braces for an aesthetic—oftentimes, it may come off as uneducated because they simply do not know.