My reflections on confidence, catheterising & finding your way back to yourself following episode 9

Sometimes the hardest part of a new way of managing your body isn't the technique. It's everything that happens in your head before you even get there.This is my reflection following last week's conversation with Dr Angie Rantell, consultant nurse in urogynaecology at King's College Hospital, and Keira McGarrity, psychological wellbeing practitioner and intermittent catheter user. We talked about how long bladder symptoms can go unheard, what a negative test actually does to someone who knows something's wrong, and the moment everything shifted for Keira as she stopped trying to do it "right."I keep coming back to that. How much of healing - physical, practical, everyday healing - depends on how we're relating to ourselves while we do it.A few things I sit with in this episode:Why self-blame so often fills the gap before a diagnosis arrives, and what that does to the nervous system over time.What it really means when a test comes back clear but the symptoms don't.Why easing up on perfectionism changed Keira's catheter use more than any equipment could, and what that tells us about the mind-body loop in chronic and intermittent health management.This conversation connects closely with the work I'm doing with Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec.More resources and references for this episode are at www.howwereallyfeel.com