When Helplessness Hits: A Nigerian Student's Tale

There is one thing I hate most: when I feel helpless about a situation or when I don't feel slightly in control of a situation that seems pressing and frustrating. I believe I am not the only one who would hate being in such a situation.

Thinking about it alone scares me, and it makes me realise I am not the only one in it but other millions of Nigerians as well. The state of this country is helpless, and right now, the fate of the situation in this country is in the hands of corrupt leaders who are only interested in filling up their pockets.

But anyways, I am not here to banter about the country's state but had to mention it as it is difficult to think of helplessness without having the thought that Nigeria as a whole is in a helpless situation and there seems to be no progress but degress in its growth.

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A situation when I felt so helpless that I knew I had nothing to do was during an examination hall, where I was writing an exam while I was sick. I happened to fall sick during the exam period, which made it very difficult for me to prepare for the exams.

Did it not just make it difficult to prepare but also make it difficult to remember things I studied? I had vomitted three times in the last exam paper I wrote before this particular paper. The course happened to be the toughest course in the whole semester, and not just tough but also bulky.

There were a lot of calculations to learn, formulas, definitions, and laws to memorise. Studying for this paper was extremely difficult, and I did all I could. The worst of it all was that I didn't pay more attention to reading the course before I fell sick, as I used to be the kind of person who only reads a course until the night before the exam. This is the period in which I read everything from the beginning of the semester to the end.

It is something I have been doing, and my brain had been able to do this very well, but this time, my brain power was down and failed me when I needed it the most. It was probably because I fell sick that everything I read failed to enter my head.

As I entered the exam hall and was given the exam paper, I did not remember anything from the course—not a single calculation formula or a single definition. My brain went totally blank and failed to boot. I began to have headaches and could not write anything on the paper.

I tried pushing harder to think and remember, but my body pushed back and my brain repelled. I was totally hopeless. I do not know what to write or have any idea of any single question to answer aside from my matriculation number, date, and department.

I didn't know what to do. I had never felt so helpless in my life. I prayed that God would help me bring back my memories of everything I had studied, but nothing came. The only thing my body wanted was to leave the exam hall and go to sleep.

There is something I don't know how to do when writing exams, and that is asking my neighbour for answers. I don't like it, and moreover, I have pride and feel less of myself and my capabilities when I do so. I could not break my ethics, even though I knew it would lead to a carryover. So I submitted a blank exam sheet that only contained my written details. This was the first time in my life I did such a thing, and I did it with the fear of knowing I would come back next year to rewrite that exam.

I accepted my fate and went home to treat myself.

𝙰𝙱𝙾𝚄𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙰𝚄𝚃𝙷𝙾𝚁