Struggles of having sweaty palms

Suffering from sweaty palms or feet is a very common phenomenon. This condition is called primary hyperhidrosis. Some people face these problems on a small scale while others are affected by it pretty badly. However, due to the social stigma attached to this, most people avoid talking about it and try to hide it. So, let's look at the life of a person who has sweaty palms, through their own eyes —

TECHNOLOGY IS NOT OUR FRIEND

The more developed gadgets get, the harder it becomes for us to operate them. Take fingerprint scanners for example, since our hands sweat all the time we constantly have to try and keep our hands dry so that the phone can recognize our fingerprint. The phone almost never recognises our fingerprint in the first try. Sometimes when it takes too long, our fingerprint scanner gets drowned in sweat and then, not only do we have to dry our hands, we also have to keep the scanner dry to make it work. We face similar circumstances while using any touchscreen device. The touch screen of most phones stops working if it is wet. As a result, typos are a part of our daily routine, as my editors will attest.

SOCIALLY ACCEPTED GESTURES ARE NOT REALLY OUR THING

It's no surprise that people who suffer from having sweaty palms have socially awkward moments. Everytime someone wants to shake our hands, we either keep them waiting while we look for a tissue or handkerchief or we have to reject the handshake by making up some weird excuse. Hi5s are no different.

NOT EVERY SHOE FITS US

We have to choose our shoes wisely. Because even if Cinderella can wear glass slippers, we can't. For people with sweaty feet, they tend to have a very difficult time wearing shoes with straps. They slip easily and have constant discomfort while waking. Thus, heels are an absolute no-no for us. Boots and sneakers are our friends. Anything other than that usually gives us a very hard time.

WE HAVE A HARDER TIME WHEN WE ARE NERVOUS

People always assume that we are nervous because our hands are like the source of a waterfall. And at times when we are actually nervous, the sweaty palms don't give us a break. Especially during interviews, we have a hard time deciding what to do with our palms. Do we keep our hands on the table? But the table will get wet and the interview we think we are super nervous. Do you keep our hands on our legs? But then the sweat will just ruin the pantsuit. Exam times are the worst. You know those last 10 minutes of an exam when everyone gets a +50 speed bonus and writes 36 pages in 15 minutes? Well, we can't. Our palms don't cooperate.

WE DON'T DO THAT WELL WITH SMALL OBJECTS

Whether it's about opening a jar or trying to get the grip of a cricket ball, we have a difficult time with all of it. When we try to swing the bat at times the bat slips out of our hands and we make a fool out of ourselves. So, more often than not we try to sit in the audience and enjoy a good game or run to someone else to open our jam jar because, you guessed it, our hands won't co-operate.

Megha is an anxious teenager trying to figure out how university life works. You can send her memes at megharahman26@gmail.com