Coping with the Embarrassment of Incontinence

Health problems, including incontinence, cause many people embarrassment - embarrassment about exposure of what are conventionally regarded as private, mostly erotic, parts of the body, stains on clothes or bed linen, or embarrassment about just talking about certain subjects.

A principle that I have found useful in reducing my own embarrassment is to ask myself whether the person seeing or just talking to me would be embarrassed by what is happening. Would a nurse or carer be embarrassed by giving me a bowel evacuation or inserting a urethral catheter? If they are, they are in the wrong job.  If they aren't then I see no reason why I should be.

Carers and nurses can help a great deal by empathising with and by adapting their conversation and language to what they understand about each patient.  They can make something which could be abnormal to the patient look quite unremarkable.  A few young carers, particularly some of those from different cultural backgrounds, have given me the impression that they would rather not work with men, but I do not decide the matching of carers to patients.  Only a few of my carers show skill or even interest in empathasising with me.  Some of them spend too much time chatting with friends on their mobile phones or when I have two, with each other, paying insufficient attention to what they are supposed to be doing.

Maybe Nature was mischievous when placing both our waste outlets so near to our genitals. Some nursing and caring procedures do sometimes result in stimulation, although sick patients will not see them that way.

Perhaps a more likely situation for embarrassment might be with non-professional people such as relatives, friends or colleagues at work. Being housebound in a wheelchair, I do not meet many people, which reduces the problem for me.  I do not raise the subject without good reason but neither do I make a secret of my double incontinence. I do not hide away my pads, leg bags or other equipment.  If I did, I would be anxious that they should not be found by someone I did not want to know.  But I think I can appreciate the anxiety of others, more active than me, who come into contact with people who are unfamiliar with incontinence and the distress it often causes.  If they make any derogatory remarks, perhaps a good way of coping with them is to see it as their problem, not yours.  For many people, incontinence is a fact of life and it is they who are unfamiliar with it, not you.

Have other readers found any experiences they are willing to share?