From the trenches: Anja Christoffersen on living with unpredictable bowel and bladder conditions

Let’s sit in the shit together for a moment. Even with confidence, acceptance and incredible experiences, the hard moments don’t disappear – they ebb and flow at every stage. These are some of mine.

My goal over Christmas and New Year’s in 2025 was simple: go to the beach. It’s only 2km from my front door to the sand. It had been beautiful over the summer – rolling, crystal-clear waves and the buzz of excited tourists discovering local beaches for the first time.

That’s what I’d been told, at least. The barrier, for me, wasn’t geographical. It was my bowels. My non-stop, unpredictable bowels.

I had enough energy to go to the beach, but not enough energy to endure a spectacular accident in my bikini, in front of holidaymakers. This wasn’t guaranteed to happen – but it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. 

I never made it to the beach. I barely even made it to my family Christmas.

While I’ve been faecally incontinent my entire life, this was my first family gathering since early childhood where I found myself in a nappy. And it wasn’t even one of the cool ones. It was a bulky, male diaper designed for seniors that we’d tried to push on my dad.

He’d refused to use it, so I relied on his stash for holidays. Seeing myself standing in front of the mirror in this grey, pillowy thing, was demoralising. I didn’t feel sexy. I hardly felt comfortable. The only good thing I can say is it made for a cheap Brazilian butt lift.

I soften the blow by making jokes like that – and saying things like ‘I’m glad I have regular accidents, as it keeps me down to earth’. It’s hard to grow an ego with sh*t dripping down your legs – and for that I am grateful. But there are sides to living with incontinence – having bowel and bladder conditions – that people on the outer wouldn’t believe.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a stranger’s fingers up my bum. Or had to sit on a toilet after a rectal enema with a nurse I’ve met that very day, supervising me and examining the toilet bowl afterwards.

Holding a conversation and eye contact while your bowels uncontrollably release, sound and all, is an art I have perfected. A quick cure for social anxiety.

I’m very difficult to cannulate so I have sigmoidoscopies – procedures to examine my lower colon – without medication or sedation. Seeing three huge screens broadcasting the insides of my bowel wasn’t as weird as watching them insert the sigmoidoscope tube. I should have looked away.

Each examination reminds me of what I can’t feel. Most days I forget about my lack of pelvic nerves, but watching clinicians put fingers, catheters and tools inside me without feeling anything is terrifying. Although I know I should count myself lucky.

Doctors wanted to be sure I didn’t have feeling. I remember laying on my side, during anal electrical stimulation testing, with sensors on my thighs to detect muscle reactions and a catheter with electrodes in my bottom.

I watched on as they turned up the voltage to the max, realising they’d already started minutes earlier.

Most people don’t know about getting electric shocks in your anus.

After enough years on doctors’ tables, your body is just a body. It’s not private. It doesn’t really feel like it’s yours anymore. After enough nights in hospital beds, an ordinary life can feel out of grasp.

Every day I seek opportunities to make my life feel like mine – rather than shared with a medical team, or dictated by illness. Even when it feels relentless, and hopeless, your infinite ability to adapt will conquer all.

I know this because I’ve been there. Time and time again.

I’ve laid in my bathtub with a mirror and catheter, stabbing it in every direction until I finally found my bladder. The pee that spilled all over me was gross but the victory was sweet.

I’d taught myself how to self-catheterise. In one appointment I went from rectal enemas of 60ml to colonic irrigation of a full litre – a new device, a new catheter, a balloon inflated inside me. The first time was so overwhelming. I cried the entire way home.

Within a few days, it became normal. I navigated hypergranulation only two weeks into having an appendicostomy. I attempted my first 750ml flush through my chait all by myself. It took me a few weeks before I could handle the chait with confidence, without cringing at the sight and touch of it.

But now, I can’t imagine my life without it. Through some of my hardest challenges – new routines and constant adjustments with my health – I’ve always worked it out. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve always found a way. You will, too.

We all want a life full of sunshine and rainbows – and maybe even a pot of gold at the end of them. But we are hesitant to welcome, accept and endure the rain. Something that doesn’t only precede rainbows, but gives us the polarity to appreciate the sun when it’s here.

So I say let it rain until the clouds are empty. Dance in it. Float in the floodwater until it recedes. But don’t forget that rain doesn’t last forever. The sun is on its way.

This article was originally published in In Crowd magazine.