Chronycles

I had built a life on a lie I told myself convincingly enough to believe that I had healed. Then my father was scammed, and the wound I had mistaken for a scar tore open, a dehiscence so precise it felt almost instructive, as if grief had been waiting all along to correct me. Growing up, I was never sure my father loved me the way he loved my other siblings, or the way I needed him to. Some days he would say something kind, enough to send me soaring in a euphoric high.

I don’t really know whether to call what I experienced “bullying,” but looking back now, I think that’s exactly what it was. I was bullied and teased from a very young age, and I never told my parents about it. As a child, I was very dark-skinned and very slim—extremely thin. I grew up in Kano, Nigeria, and in primary school, my classmates, and sometimes even people I considered my friends, would make comments about my skin and my body.

I had always thought that the main reason for occupying a house was needing somewhere to live. In three related encounters, the world’s metropolis would correct this misunderstanding. “August 16 – Abuja. Warm and sultry. Brother Kassim sent me photos and costs of various rental apartments in Evanston, and I began to wonder whether the World grows more exorbitant the closer one moves towards it. This evening is one of re-education.

‘We all have our life’s troubles. Just because ours manifests outwardly doesn’t make us less human.’ September 5, 2026 People constantly asked questions I didn’t know how to answer, like “How did that happen?” or “What caused it?” Back then, I didn’t even know the word vitiligo myself. Sometimes, little kids would see me and run away crying as if they had seen a monster. I vividly remember walking past a house where a girl my age was sitting on the veranda.

It was early 2025, around the end of February, that I started noticing hypopigmentation on my left leg, but I ignored it because it wasn’t much. Later on, I noticed it was spreading, and spots appeared on my thigh. I was told it was spiritual and tried treating it with different herbs, applying them to the patches and also drinking them, but it didn’t work. My mum and people around started noticing too and asking questions. Around August 2025, I went to UCH, Ibadan.

I’ve been living with vitiligo for the past 11 years, and my experience so far can be summarised in one word: “hard”. For someone who used to be fair with milk-spotless skin, it totally wrecked me. It started with a small patch I thought was eczema, so I used every cream possible. Eczema was a thing of shame then, and it meant you were dirty, so I covered up. I’d wear cardigans and use scarves, hoping it would clear up, but it spread further.

Vitiligo came into my life in 2004, quietly at first. Small depigmented spots appeared on my hand, chest, and forehead. At that time, I didn’t know the name for it. I just knew my skin was changing, and I was scared. After a year of taking Vitamin A and selenium supplements, the patches faded and disappeared. I thought that was the end of the story. I was wrong. The condition returned after I completed my Master’s in the UK, in November 2011. This time it was bolder and less forgiving.

The white patch appeared on March 22, 2024. I wasn’t thinking about my skin that day. I could barely swallow, talk, or eat because of a severe sore throat. I reached for the usual medication and hoped it would pass. Days later, the sore throat pain eased, but my skin kept changing. On the third day, I spotted small white patches on my left arm. I didn’t think much of it at the time. It didn’t seem serious. Then weeks passed, and the patches spread to my second arm. That’s when the worry set in.

I was born in a nuclear family in Saminaka as the second child, but the first daughter, and my first couple of years were full of sunshine and rainbows. My mom didn’t give birth to another daughter till I was five and at that same age I experienced the biggest change of my life. At a funeral, an aunty noticed a pinkish colouration on my lips and pointed it out; my mom had noticed it earlier, but she didn’t know what it was. I was taken to a hospital in Zaria as soon as they found out.

It started around 2014. At first, I didn’t know what it was. It began as a small dot on my leg. I had thought it was just a normal skin reaction. Over time, it started to spread to different parts of my body. When it started, I was away at school in a polytechnic. On one of my home visits, my mom noticed the spot and suspected it might be vitiligo, though she wasn’t sure. We went to see a dermatologist, who confirmed it. I was then placed on medication. My official diagnosis was around mid-2014.