Dating has been something that has always been a worry for me, even before I had my stoma surgery in I have only experienced a handful of nasty or inappropriate comments related to my illness or stoma specifically and ironically, some of those came from someone with bowel disease.
Sadly, you come across people in your life who are very insecure and will project their insecurities onto you to feel better about themselves. You have to remember that as much as it hurts at the time, it's more a reflection on them and not you. This goes for any element of life, not just in the stoma world.
Life has its trials as it is without being nasty and you never know what someone else is going through. It costs nothing to lend a helping hand and your support either and could be the difference between what gets someone through a very hard time in their life. I worried I would not be accepted as a human being because I had a bag of poo on my stomach. News alert - everybody poos! How we poo is just different Nobody's poo smells of roses, sadly!
That's normal, no matter who you date. I worried that nobody would want to be intimate with me or find me attractive or sexy because of how my body had changed. I worried that nobody would want to be seen on holiday with me on a beach. I also feared that I would find a connection with someone then when I told them I have a stoma bag that it would be the thing that scared them away.
I was petrified that I would no longer have a right to feel comfortable in my own skin and empowered as a woman because especially early days post-surgery, when I looked in the mirror my focal point was always my bag and the things that surrounded it such as my weight loss, bruises, scars and the fact that my ribs were so obvious, and I had no curves or shape to my body.
