Finding confidence and finding yourself after stoma surgery can be a struggle. It can feel like you are in a body you no longer recognise and changes how you have done things all your life up until this point.
It’s something I struggled with massively. I honestly thought I would never get my head around it. All the things I thought were ‘normal’ had changed overnight. As a trained personal trainer/fitness instructor, what I thought I knew about how a body should look couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Flat, toned, ripped bodies is what I saw daily in my line of work or people trying their best to achieve that look, so that’s what I thought was pretty normal but once I now stepped into the world of stoma bags, scars and unfamiliarity I was lost.
Mentally and physically, I found things tough and even looking at my stoma and scars was a struggle at the beginning. I questioned “why me?”.
But there was a turn around point and I knew I couldn’t go on like this so that’s where I began to work on myself.
Realising there was so many others out there like me, helped. I soon realised what I thought was ‘normal’ wasn’t everyones normal and whilst some people have toned bodies, with no scars or stoma bags, there are just as many people out there that do. It’s finding your own normal that’s most important and communicating with others who are in similar situations, that really helps you do this.
I started posting online with my stoma and this helped me feel so empowered. The more I did it, the easier it got. From this, I went on to showing my stoma on holidays in a bikini and knowing that I didn’t have to hide away like I thought, took a massive weight off my shoulders. Knowing I could still do what I done pre-stoma, still wear what I wanted and that I didn’t smell like I thought I would changed my way of thinking about my stoma bag; I wouldn’t have known any of this is it wasn’t for the online community.
I would say I am now more confident than pre-stoma and content with my body which I never would have been before. Sometimes things happen to us that teach us so many lessons and my stoma taught me that your normal is not everyone else’s normal, and what you think everyone else thinks is none of your business! Focus on you and what you have not on everyone else and what you can’t change.
