God knows, I have already come out of more than one closet in my lifetime. Obviously, there's the great big "Gay" one, but that was many, many years ago and is hardly news to anyone. I have come out as Grammar Nazi, and I have come out of the closet as someone who has seen a UFO, as well. That's not as easy a thing to do as you might suspect, unless the people you are with already know and love you despite your little "quirks", or else someone else in the room has already confessed to something equally as worrisome, like believing in Bigfoot or being a Republican.
Anyway, there are still a few more closet doors I have yet to fling open. Obviously, I can't enumerate them all right here and now, but I can hint that at least one of them involves eating while I'm not actually, technically, awake. But all of that is for another day. Today, however, I am prepared to come out of one more closet. If you've ever had to shake hands with me at a wedding or hold my hand to dance the Hora, you may already know this. I am the guy with sweaty palms.
There, I said it.
Why is this any kind of big deal at all? Well, think about it. Think about meeting that person for the first time, at work, in a coffee shop, wherever. They seem perfectly nice, friendly smile, decent clothes; and then you shake their hand. Cold, clammy, and wet. Gross. The person gives you a weak, embarrassed smile and then wipes their hand on their jeans. You do the same. Nothing has been said, but you both know, and your first impression of that person has just been completely altered, and probably not for the better.
Well, that person could be me. It actually has been me, many times.
Turns out that being the guy with sweaty palms is actually a named, medical condition (then again, what isn't, these days?). It is called hyperhidrosis. I have known this since about the fourth grade, because this kid in my class named David Baker who was a total genius told me so one day, probably after I had unintentionally touched him or left a wet handprint on his desk. I actually just took David Baker's word for it since then; that is, until today when I finally looked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out he was right. Now I am starting to wonder why a nine year-old kid would even know that, but once again, that is for another day.
Wikipedia also says in its lead paragraph: "It is associated with a significant quality of life burden from a psychological, emotional, and social perspective. As such, it has been referred to as the 'silent handicap'."
Woo-hoo! Vindication! The "Silent Handicap!" Now you know why I felt the need to "come out". And now that I know that it's "associated with a significant quality of life burden," etcetera, I'm sure I can receive some sort of disability compensation from the government for it, possibly even preferred parking at the mall.
How can I describe hyperhidrosis to people for whom the most stressful part of a job interview isn't necessarily the handshake when they first walk through the door? It's not that my hands sweat all the time, although they can start sweating at any moment for no reason. Any kind of stress can start it happening, even imaginary stress, like watching a bungee-jumper on TV. And after a lifetime, any situation where I am meeting new people or where I might potentially have to shake someone's hand has been classified by my subconscious as "stressful", so the waterworks begin long before anyone has uttered the phrase, "How do you do?" Oddly enough, I can make my hands (and feet) start sweating at will. Basically, all I have to do is think, "Sweat, palms!" and they do, as if Harry Potter had just mastered the astoundingly useless "Perspiro manus!" spell. I only wish there were a spell to make them stop sweating, but neither I nor Harry Potter have learned that one yet.
There is a physical sensation that accompanies the condition as well. Just before they begin to sweat, the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet feel a weird, tingly sensation, as if they were pressing against a metal plate with just the slightest electrical charge. Not painful, but definitely there. This will continue for just a few minutes, when it either fades away or my attention is drawn elsewhere and I just stop noticing it. The actual sweating, though, can go on for mere minutes, or hours; as I said, even after a lifetime I have no control whatsoever over making it stop.
One of the earliest memories I have of dealing with hyperhidrosis goes way back to elementary school, probably around the time that David Baker was studying Dermatology and Endocrinology in his spare time after Cub Scouts. Back then, we used actual chalk and chalkboards in the classroom. I lived in abject fear of being asked to work out a math problem or fill in the capital of Vermont on the chalkboard, not because I didn't know the answer, necessarily, but because my hand would leave a long, dark, possibly drippy, and embarrassing sweat stain across the black or green slate as I misspelled "Montpelier" or worked out 8 x 14.
Please, don't call on me. Please, don't call on me.
Hypothetically speaking, that is to say, without admitting any violation of the penal codes of Maryland, Florida, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do you have any idea how hard it is to roll a joint with sweaty hands? I'm sure that if I had ever, hypothetically, attempted to try such a thing, I would have learned pretty quickly that even a double-wide will disintegrate pretty quickly in wet fingers.
Everything dwarfs, though, in comparison to the actual anxiety I can get in social situations. There is so much weight put on the handshake in our society, especially for men. Your handshake is somehow supposed to convey your integrity, your trustworthiness, your overall health, as well as your career path, net worth and political affiliations. Nobody, but nobody, likes a clammy handshake. Nor, by extension, do they like the guy with the clammy hands. He's automatically sort of suspect, and possibly unsanitary on top of that.
Here's the thing: I am none of those things. And I can't help it that my hands sweat. I'm hoping we can just move past this as quickly as possible.
I'm lucky. I have a husband who accepts me warts and all, with all my faults, even this one. He has a code word which means "don't touch me": it's "graveyard!" He accepts the idea that there are times when we just can't hold hands, and he forgives the fact that sometimes when I've had my hand on his knee for a while in the car, I might leave behind a bit of a wet spot once in a while. I imagine that for some people, that could actually be a deal-breaker.
So, now you know. I am the guy with the sweaty palms. There are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people just like me, in every conceivable corner of the world. We suffer "the silent handicap". So, the next time you shake that guy's hand and he explains apologetically, "Sorry, I've been, uhh, running..." despite the fact that he's wearing a business suit, don't judge too harshly. Give the guy a second chance.
We're just born this way.
No comments:
Post a Comment