Learning to love yourself after stoma surgery may not always come easy especially if you didn’t love yourself before and with social media showing a lot of unrealistic stereotypes for a lot of us can be tough.
Loving yourself isn’t something you can teach someone to do and can be extremely challenging giving the circumstances as I have been there and know how hard it can be to get your head around it all, mentally and physically, and a lot depends on the lead up to the surgery, was it planned or was it emergency etc.
My advice is to just take it day by day. Some days you will feel good other days you may feel like crap and that’s ok. It’s ok to have bad days and feel down, after all you have been through a lot and you are now on a new journey with your stoma just try not to stay in that low place. Time is a healer!
You’re not only recovering from surgery you are also learning how to manage a stoma and finding your routine and your correct products and that in itself is challenging so go easy on yourself. You will not get it all at once but it will come. Once you start managing this it does become easier.
Accepting your new body with your stoma is tough and actually you don’t have to accept it. I wouldn’t say I fully accept mine as each day can be different but looking at your body differently can help. I now look at my body that has went through so much and has recovered remarkably.
The scars and stoma bag are there as reminders of what I have over come and survived and now I help others who are going through something similar or have something similar ahead of them, and that gives me a great sense of achievement.
Talk to someone, anyone you feel comfortable with, as talking can definitely help. Let yourself feel all the feels and last of all give yourself a break. ❤️
