The EVILS of Fragrances

I went to church today, as I do every Sunday. I also left church early, as I do every Sunday. Of course, this Sunday, I was pushing to make it through the first half of Sacrament meeting. I made it, but at great sacrifice. Now, for the next few hours, I have to suffer through the headache, dizziness, raw throat, and nausea that accompanies the inability to breathe when I'm around fragrances such as perfumes or lotions. The inability to breathe leaves as soon as I get away from the smell, but if I have let it go on long enough that the chemicals have reached my brain and stomach, the other ailments don't leave for several hours. I've suffered a fragrance induced headache for up to five hours before. No amount of pain killer helps, and allergy medication only makes it so that my nose and eyes don't water (although today the smell was strong enough that they did anyway). It's now painfully obvious that I cannot attend my regular ward meetings and will have to go back to going to my parents ward, where they have already established the fact that you just don't wear perfume to church (another lady in that ward is also allergic, along with my father, where I got my allergy). Now, I've gotten the whole "Oh, I've never heard of that allergy before" or "Just deal with it" or worst "Get over it". Okay. All you people with allergies to peanuts, just get over it. Here, have a peanut, but don't swell up and make it completely inconvenient for us when we have to take you to the hospital. People allergic to bee stings, just deal with the pain, the swelling, the sickness. It's not that big a deal. Why do people assume that because they haven't heard of an allergy it's not that bad? Why do people decide that we're just overstating it, because they can't actually see any symptoms and they think we "just don't like the smell"? No, our symptoms don't generally get so bad that we have to go to the hospital, because when we smell something that starts setting us off (and it is usually immediate, and I can smell it even when others can't) we get out of the situation. We're not stupid. If you were in water, trying to breathe, you know that you need to get out of the water in order to. Same with us. I literally cannot get the oxygen I need because of the chemicals in the air. By the time I was able to leave today, my nose had started tingling, indicating that I was running short on oxygen and I needed fresh air now.
Don't assume, just because you don't understand it, that it's not actually a problem. When we say we can't breathe, or your perfume is bothering us, don't take offense, just understand that we have an allergy and we're trying to take care of ourselves.