Archive for sweaty
Public Perception and Hyperhidrosis: Oh, the Irony!
Posted by: · on April 23, 2010 | CommentsWe all roll our eyes from time to time when the phrase “politically correct” comes up. Remember the good old days, we whisper, when you could tell a good joke without Offending People? I am just as guilty at times as everyone, although I would like to believe I am sensitive to the feelings of others. My sensitivity comes from knowing what it feels like to pretend to laugh at some offensive joke or comment about sweating, while feeling inside like the butt of that joke.
Somehow over the years, we as a species have come to see sweating as shameful and disgusting. In our society, there are only very specific circumstances in which this natural bodily function can be deemed acceptable: when exercising, in extremely hot and/or humid conditions, or when ill. Even if you are nervous, we learn at a young age, you are expected to hide it.
As a result of this unspoken rule that is taught and reinforced countless times in childhood, public perception of those who sweat visibly is negative in every way:
- People whose hands are sweaty must be nervous. People who are nervous are shifty and not to be trusted. People who are nervous are weak and not self-assured; they have no self-respect.
- Somehow, the mental image of a “sweaty guy” is of someone who is overweight. People with Hyperhidrosis come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, as we know.
- Sweating is unclean, so it only follows that people who sweat do not observe proper hygeine.
- Yup, we’re greedy, too. I recently saw this sentence: “…he couldn’t wait to get his sweaty hands on all that money…”
So here’s the kicker, folks! When we get up the nerve to tell a friend or peer about our Hyperhidrosis, what do we hear, almost without fail?? “Oh, so what. That’s okay. It’s no big deal.”
These perceptions are ingrained in all of us. Subconsciously, we judge our own sweating as society does. So, IT IS A BIG DEAL!
The only one way to change this unfair perception is to make it Politically Incorrect. We must come out of the shadows and raise awareness that Hyperhidrosis is real and that we, to quote my friend Anne, are “normal people who happen to sweat”.
‘Nuff said!
Start a Website About Hyperhidrosis? Am I Nuts?
Posted by: · on April 15, 2010 | CommentsYou may (or may not!) be wondering how and why I would choose to tell the whole world about my Hyperhidrosis by starting a website about it. Here is how HyperhidrosisAndMe came to be:
Having hidden HH my whole life, I took a really drastic step in the summer of ’09: I made the decision to start up a website about Hyperhidrosis. I was learning about affiliate marketing to help launch a business I was trying to start with 3 partners, when we decided it would be a quicker learning curve if I started my own blog first. I will never forget looking at my sister (one of the partners), holding up my hands, and saying “I could blog about this.” My sister’s eyes got big and she said, “Oh my God! Yes! It would be so good for you! And you could help people!” And in the heat of that moment I was like, “Yeah! It would help people!” Etc, etc, etc. Then of course I rejected that thought because I didn’t think I could ever, ever “come out” in such a big–huge–way. But the idea followed me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I couldn’t stop thinking about my years of hiding and how much effort it had all been. For what? So that people would like me for who I wanted them to think I was, but indeed was not? Why not be honest, really honest, for once in my life? It was ironic, how I had painted a picture of myself that I hid behind: my friends praised me for being a genuine person, for being sincere and honest. Genuine and sincere, yet I couldn’t entrust any of them with the ugly, sweaty, embarrassing truth. I know, it sounds like I’m being pretty hard on myself (I’m very good at that!); but that really is the way I lived my life.
The idea of living in integrity started to take root. Some days I wanted to shake it off, though, because the reality of it scared me. Some days I asked myself if I really wanted to immerse myself in a subject that I had spent my life denying. Since my ETS surgery, I had tried so hard to put HH behind me despite the frequent episodes of CS. Perhaps not having my hands sweat as often helped me put enough distance between myself and HH that it allowed me to delve into it; who knows?
After a month or so of going back and forth, I was in Door County, Wisconsin with my family and while on a walk/run (gotta be honest, you can’t call what I do “jogging”), a song on my iPod came on, and that was “it”. I knooooowwwww how corny it sounds but it really happened this way! The song is “Unwritten”; sung and co-written by Natasha Bedingfield. I was on my usual route when I decided to hang a left and labor up a steep hill. The song came on and there I was overlooking the beautiful countryside with the words in my ears blaring:
“Feel the rain on your skin/ No one else can feel it for you/ Only you can let it in/ No one else/ No one else can speak the words on your lips/ Drench yourself in words unspoken/ Live your life with arms wide open/ Today is where your book begins/ The rest is still unwritten….”
The rest of the song– pretty much every word– spoke to me just as clearly. It really was a watershed moment in my life. I don’t remember “walking” back to our resort– just getting to our room, grabbing a notebook and writing down what I intended to be my first blog post. If you read my posts “Hiding In Plain Sight I & II”– indeed, the first posts on this site– except for a little editing, that is what I wrote on that July day.
Yes, I have had moments when I questioned the sanity of baring my soul to strangers. I have been overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information I have had to sift through and the volumes of writing I have had to do to get this right. Again, please forgive my “corny” moments here, but if you are reading this and you start to explore this site and it actually helps you, then I know I am doing exactly what I should be doing.
“Reaching for something in the distance/ So close you can almost taste it/ Release your inhibitions/ Feel the rain on your skin!”
