Stigma refers to a mark or characteristic that sets an individual or group apart, often leading to negative perceptions, stereotypes, or prejudice. It could be a social stigma, where everybody knows you in a negative light maybe a particular character or condition like madness or your family suffers from a particular illness. It could be self-stigma not comfortable with your health condition maybe having HIV/AIDS.
It could be community stigma in some parts of Igbo land some people are called the outcasts. Because they are outcasts, sons or daughters of the soil can't marry them.
Let me tell you about a cousin of mine from imo state that a stigma has affected so much that she has to relocate out of the state entirely and they are not planning on returning. They are from the outcast clan, while she was growing up, she noticed that anything she travel home for holidays, people behave strangely around her.
Some people won't want to sell something to her or take anything from her hand, she is a devoted Christian, she doesn't believe in all that traditional jargon. According to her, everybody was created by God. So nothing like outcast and son of the soil.
When she came to the city, she met a guy from the same state as her and they got along very well, she rejected many suitors because of this guy, so finally when they decided to get married, the man's family found out that she is an outcast, problem from all corner. That is when she understands the full meaning of outcast.
They both refused and got married, they were told that they wouldn't have children because of that and the guy would never progress too. Well, they didn't give birth and she kept having miscarriages till they separated, out of her heartbreak, she and her family decided to leave the country till date.
One stigma that almost held me back in life was when I had a lung infection, I was breathing so fast that they had to rush me to the hospital and some neighbors followed us and stayed back. After that the doctor said that I had a lung infection and I should avoid cold places, dust, and other things, then inside the drugs, he added an inhaler.
Before I was discharged from the hospital and came back home, news had spread that am asthmatic and I was just hearing sorry, sorry at first I thought it was because of as I was coming back from the hospital. Not until one day, I had an issue with a girl in my neighborhood and she said that she would have beaten me if not that she didn't want to help me die quick.
I didn't understand what she meant until she said I should carry my asthmatic body and avoid her. I held her back to explain what she meant until she said that that's what our neighbors have been saying that I almost died from asthma. Since then if anybody wants to ask me out they will tell the person that am asthmatic, without even asking me, they just avoid me. Well, I know that am not asthmatic, so I honestly don't care but because they see me striving without caring and still healthy more than them, that is how the rumors die down and close out.
Don't let what people say or think about you define who you are. Your past should be a ladder for growth and to be better than you were before.
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