I once thought about undergoing a surgical operation on my hands in the future — not because I suffered an injury or impairment, but because they don’t fit the expectations of my immediate environment.
For someone who lived through early childhood with a leg impairment that damaged my knee — either it’s called a meniscus injury or a “knee box” injury, I just know there was a shift and quite an obvious knee misalignment on my left leg — this was no small thing. I lived with this trauma throughout my secondary school days, especially in junior secondary school, where we only wore shorts. I always felt insecure because of the never-drying scar on my shin and the flies that fed on it. I would wear very long socks to cover my leg up to my knee, while also laying a short piece of paper underneath the socks to absorb the pus and avoid the smell or the flies. I lived in total despair, believing that associating with my peers was a hurdle. I despised this a lot, for my own mental sake.
This predicament became a trauma I didn’t want to carry into my associations with my colleagues in university. It gradually eased over time: I attended classes, made friends, tutored my colleagues, and so on. When I had my first girlfriend, my visible impairment never surfaced in our discussions. She loved me so wholeheartedly that I sometimes asked myself if she simply couldn’t see that I limped, which was obvious even to myself (this is still quite obvious). In the end, we broke up because I was the busy type. I just wanted to make a first-class degree, because that was my only possible escape from poverty, and at that time, a relationship felt like an impediment to that goal.
My dating life stayed like this until my third year, when I met my girlfriend. I only had a year left before leaving school, and I was also trying to build a reasonable relationship. She understood the assignment, in every sense. She became my total support — especially with things like foodstuffs and cooking — while I focused entirely on providing financial and academic support for her. We both graduated excellently: I earned a first class, and she moved from well below a second-class lower to a second-class upper by the time we met her goals.
But here’s the challenge. Throughout my time in school, especially after meeting her, I became increasingly conscious of my impairment. There were always discussions around it. There’s a subtle way people express contempt for something through joking — and that’s exactly what she did: playful jokes, odd nicknames, offhand wishes, all of it. For the first time in my life, I became conscious of my hands. Yes, my fingers — because to her, they were “too small.” I never knew they were. I started hiding my fingers during conversations, on buses, while reading beside someone, and in other everyday moments. Things never stayed the same, especially after she said she hoped our future children wouldn’t “take after my fingers.” That comment somehow became part of me. Yes, my hands are ugly (or so I came to believe).
There was a profile picture of me on my X account that stayed up for years. I eventually had to take it down because my hand was visible in it, right beside my “big nose” and “big head.” When I met Mr Morris and Sir Dickson a few years back, I was hoping to take a picture but wanted to avoid the camera showing my legs (I cropped the picture to a desired ratio that left my ledgs, haha). But I’ve come to realise that I need to appreciate myself more! I took my physique seriously, working on every part of my body, one step at a time. So why is it that I get genuine compliments about my physique from people outside, while home feels like a mess? I often wonder what this means for my future. Everyone has flaws, but we choose which ones matter to us because we weigh both sides of the world. I honestly cared little about things like that until she started this kind of talk. Now I find myself observing people’s physiques, height, and faces, and “rating” them based on those things. Everything else that actually matters becomes secondary.
I lived in a self-incurred abyss of thought because I had subscribed to the views of my immediate environment. I’ve seen people without legs, hands, eyes, noses, and more, living through far worse circumstances — and still I kept asking myself what exactly was wrong with this gift from god!? I’ve been a good-looking person all my life, but have always felt inadequate where it mattered most. Sometimes I take pictures just to assess myself (a habit born from self-sabotage and from internalising society’s view of me). Sometimes it simply takes a decision to appreciate oneself and grow, because in the end, no one else’s opinion truly matters.
PS: I write my lived experiences here. For other publications, please visit TADEXPROF
