I’ve been reading a thread on Meetanostimate when a member asked, “How do you tell someone you’re dating that you have an ostomy?”
This has become a particularly relevant question for me since I became acutely ill last winter. For over a decade, I’ve been satisfied being alone. No, not satisfied, actually happy. I preferred doing my own thing with my own time for my own reasons, after spending my entire youth chasing the non-existent “perfect” man. Ruined my life in the process at a few points, too. I never had a healthy view of relationships or how I should feel about my partners, and I constantly sacrificed myself, my life, and my friends in that irrational need to be paired up constantly. When I hit my early 30’s and my last disastrous relationship imploded, it just struck me: I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t care about getting married. I never wanted to have kids. So I just stopped dating.
Poetically, I became very ill a few years later, when I was trying to better myself by finishing my second Bachelor’s degree. First hospitalization, tests upon tests until they discovered it was a wobbly IBD diagnosis of “probably UC, possibly Crohn’s.” Then… I guess everything just stopped. I couldn’t get the pain or symptoms under control for very long no matter what medications I was taking. I was weak and tired all of the time, and was terrified to leave home and be away from my own toilet. My physical condition left me more or less housebound. The only time I went out was for doctors’ appointments. Luckily (ironically), that state of being got so bad that my doctor sent me to a psychiatrist, and unluckily, I earned a whole bunch of new diagnoses and medications. So I was still stuck in my home, but I was well medicated and out of danger from myself.
Needless to say, I felt less than human, and any inkling of desire I might have been harboring to find a great partner to spend the second half of my life with went right out the window. After all, what would you say to someone? “Hi, I’m Heather, I have a possibly fatal chronic gastrointestinal illness that leaves me at death’s door a couple of times a year and for which I have to take medicines that crush my immune system and make me sick the rest of the time. Oh, and also, I have bipolar disorder, so I’m in a bad mood a lot of the time as well. Don’t you want to go out with me and possibly get married?”
I’m such a prize! And take this with as many grains of salt as you feel necessary, but… on top of all my other strikes, I’m also very heavy. You may or may not know (or have an inkling) that unless you’re on a website specifically for fat people and you’re fat, you can forget it. I’ve gotten the nastiest comments and notes on dating sites — just randomly! I mean, what the Hell is wrong with people that they just take some time out of their day to tell a perfect stranger that they’re hideous and should not only not date, but die horribly?
Not a situation that engenders a whole lot of hope. The worst part is, before I got sick, I had really hearty self-esteem. I’ve never been a beauty queen, but I was cool with that. I’m intelligent and funny, interesting and colorful. I never had a problem with gentlemanly company. When I chose to step out of the meeting and dating arena, I was okay with that, too. I wanted to get to know myself and enjoy my own company. I don’t know that I ever really planned to be alone for the rest of my life, but at least the possibility was there. But now… now I felt like Quasimodo, and my hunchbacks were many, both physical and mental. I suspect this was part of why I resisted surgery as long as I did when my GI had started suggesting it as a possibility a couple of years ago. I saw THE BAG as an end of the line sign. I even said I’d rather be dead than carry a bag of shit around with me for the rest of my life (I think I’ve mentioned that before, but it was so central to my thought process when it came to my UC, that I’ll probably talk about it a lot).
Now here I am. While I’m adjusting to the day-to-day of the Bag Lady Lifestyle for myself, my desire to leave the house and get into the world is less than ever. The ironic thing is after going through this last health crisis — the months in bed, the weeks in the hospital, mostly alone, in pain and frightened, it struck me like a claw hammer that I might not be interested in being solitary and completely independent anymore. I might be ready for a partner to shore me up when I’m feeling weak; to tell me that things will be okay when I feel like I might die from their NOT okay-ness. Someone who can make me laugh, who’ll watch cartoons and horror movies with me. Who’ll give up pizza until I can eat it again just so I don’t feel left out. (There was a whole big thing where I had a stupid breakdown over pizza… it was really dumb, but it’s one of those psychological bruises that I seem to have come out of the hospital with.) You know… my parter, my buddy.
The problem is… I’m less of a candidate for a relationship than ever. Sure, I’ve lost 60 some pounds, but now I have all kinds of floppy skin covered with stretch marks in its place. Now I have a hole in my gut with a bag hanging off that produces shit all day and night. Sometimes it makes noises that I think are hilarious, but I suspect the average person would think were disgusting. In fact, I assume that most people will feel about my condition and accompanying gear the way I did for the first few weeks. I couldn’t look at it, I couldn’t bear to smell it or touch it. I though it was the most disturbing thing I’d ever encountered, and I had no idea how I could possibly deal with it in any way. And that was me — on my body, and I didn’t have a choice. Why would a normal person even consider caring or putting up with it?
On the support forums I belong to, all the people (most of whom I suspect are in relationships that already work) keep saying the old saw that if someone doesn’t want you because of your ostomy, then they’re not worth spending time with. I hate to say it, because I know they mean well, but that is such a load of crap. It’s like when your mom says almost the exact same thing about kids that are mean to you in elementary school. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t worth your attention — it still hurts, and you still want people’s affection or friendship. You still feel like a freak that they reject you, no matter why they reject you or if it’s a reason that’s just wrong for rejecting someone. It’s bad all around.
I have no confidence that I can meet someone, and now that I actually want to, that actually bothers me the way it hasn’t in a long time. I do still have a lot to give, but no one is going to offer me a chance to give it.
File today under “Whiny Pity Party Day,” could you?
Holy Bag Lady! 