"I’ve lived with incontinence for all 25 years of my life, and I’ve yet to see my experiences reflected in any form of media."
If incontinence was treated as a human rights issue, as something many people face and need proper resources to manage, I could have had a vastly different childhood. Even now, shame and stigma surrounding incontinence has caused severe damage to my self-worth and interpersonal relationships. At points, I’ve avoided sex and dating out of fear that I’ll be left humiliated and alone again. Even in my current long-term relationship, I still wonder if and when my incontinence will be too much for my partner to look past. I know I’m not the only person who must feel this way. 25 percent of young women and 44 to 57 percent of middle-aged women (“women” is presumably used here to mean “people assigned female at birth”) also experience “some involuntary urine loss,” according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists journal, Practice Bulletin. And doctors can’t be prepared to offer long-term solutions to incontinence if they’re not even prepared to even talk to their patients about it. 50 to 70 percent of people who experience incontinence don’t seek treatment for it, likely due to the same stigma I’ve experienced for most of my life, which can lead to greater health risks. I’ve done everything I can to shorten the amount of time I use the bathroom. But the habits I’ve developed to do so actually jeopardize my health, increasing the risk of potentially life-threatening infections. To change these habits now would require another $50 per month for the extra supplies at minimum — a price increase I cannot afford as someone who does not have access to comprehensive health insurance. If I don’t self-catheterize everyday, I put myself at greater risk for kidney infection, and kidney failure down the road. But I pay for these necessary supplies out of pocket, and they aren’t cheap.
