Rosel M. T.

Philippines

When I was young, I knew something was really different about me. Something that normal people don't experience day to day like I do. To this excessive sweating: why does it have to be me? Living a normal life is my topmost dream. At first, I didn't know what this condition was called and I even thought I was the only one who experienced this on earth. But as I grow older I have observed that this excessive sweating I have is getting severe and hard to control everyday. And so I happen to search this condition on Google and just recently knew this is called hyperhidrosis. Hyperhidrosis has become a part of my life and journey and having to experience this only made me feel miserable. It ultimately affects me in so many terrifying ways. Everyday I always strive my best to overcome this horror in my life. As much as I can elaborate I would and here it goes... - Hyperhidrosis lowers my self confidence in everything that I do. It makes me feel worse. - Makes me panic easily also because my hands will turn cold eventually and feel numb at the same time. - Makes it harder for me to write, touch and hold things. - Hearing friends say that it disgusts them whenever I touch them and it absolutely hurts me because it's not my fault to have this condition in the first place. - Seeing people wipe their hands after I touch them and this puts me in an awkward situation. - I distance myself to people that doesn't know I have this thing called hyperhidrosis. Which later on made me to socialize awkwardly and isolate myself to people furthermore. - I chose not to have a debut party because I'll have to dance with partners and that requires you to hold hands and I can't put them in that uncomfortable situation. - It embarrasses me when people are looking at me wiping my hands with various towels. - Makes me overthink when people are watching me do something, because they'll notice my sweaty hands and it would be too embarrassing. - It makes me uncomfortable especially when we have experiments to do in school laboratories. And that requires you to wear surgical gloves and there were a lot of times that the sweat coming from my hands were just dripping to the floor. - I had to bring 3 towels every time with me in school and 1 handkerchief. The reason why I have this 1 handkerchief is for me to look presentable a bit while wiping my hands but will still get wet later on. - I can't wear sandals because of the slippery feeling and even with slippers too, I can't walk properly and comfortably. - Whenever I go outside, I always have to wear closed shoes so that the "mud like" sweat coming from my feet won't be visible and catch others' attention. - I hate it when I grab others' attention because of me wiping my hands thoroughly. - Makes me uncomfortable when wearing dark colored shirts because of the sweat coming from my underarms, that is visible enough for others to see and also because of this I can't actually move comfortably. - I can't unleash my artistic side because it's a hassle to wipe my hands from time to time while getting my artwork done. - Makes me worry about how I clean those "mud-like" footprints on our floor. -Makes me uncomfortable when eating with my not so close friends at same table. And with this my hands won't just stop from sweating. - It's a struggle for me to swipe the screen of my phone. - Makes me doubt myself in some ways because maybe I'm not capable of doing this and that due to my perspiring hands.