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Emotions in Motion
The Emotional Side of Incontinence
By Katherine Bontrager
The necessary first step is to consciously recognize what is happening, Gartley says. "We talk to thousands of people every year and many times they don't realize how it's affected their lives," she says. "Specific words come up: 'used to.' 'I used to play tennis; I used to be active in my church.'"
To manage such feelings, Dr. Susan Bartell, a licensed psychologist specializing in family issues, suggests that each day you make a plan to do something from your "normal" life and then follow through with it. "It doesn't have to be complex or difficult, but as you resume these normal activities you will begin to see that self-imposed isolation is not necessary," she says.
Lampe ensures incontinence doesn't rule her life and still manages to work and play with great enthusiasm. "I still do what I want to do, I just plan ahead for incontinence," she says. "I jet ski for fun ... and sometimes lift heavy boxes of books at work ... I don't let incontinence, or the threat of it, turn me into a sedentary old lady."
If you don't conquer the fear and frustration that often comes with a diagnosis of incontinence, it can quickly lead to depression, an experience with which Missy Lavender is intimately familiar.
Lavender became completely incontinent following the forceps-assisted birth of her first child five and a half years ago, awakening the morning after giving birth in complete disbelief. There was no mention of this in childbirth classes or the books and magazines she had so carefully studied. "I was horrified and went on the web and spent all this time doing research," says Lavender, who lives in Chicago. "And nothing I found looked like me. I was very upset and very depressed."
It wasn't until she found a urogynecologist, who helped her understand how to manage and treat the condition, that Lavender began to feel less isolated. "The years following, until I had a full pelvic reconstruction in December 2001, were miserable, to put it mildly, for me and my husband as I struggled to feel good about myself," she says. "It's a hard thing even now. Years after pelvic surgery I'm still working on feeling sexy, feeling like a woman."