LOS ANGELES — GoAskAlex is featured on CBC Radio’s "Now or Never" show, hosted by Ify Chiwetelu and Trevor Dineen.
In the episode, “Afraid to Show it Off? Here's How to Love the Skin You're In," Alex discusses her life in the public eye as an ostomate.
Alex explains that after undergoing an abdominal colectomy in 2019 in which her entire colon was removed due to ulcerative colitis, she was left with an ileostomy, or a permanent medical device on her abdomen.
In the interview, she touched on how this event shaped her body image and confidence.
“It’s difficult when so much of your career is in front of a camera and you’re so used to looking at modeling photos of yourself, editing your own videos and seeing your own body from every possible angle," she said. "That is already a difficult thing to have to do — to be scrutinizing your body all the time — but then to see your body drastically change, whether that’s weight gain or a disability… seeing your body change and feeling like you don’t have any control over that is a difficult thing."
Although happy to be relieved of the physical pain she'd been experiencing post-operation, Alex shared that she also felt insecurity about her new body.
"When you have these surgeries done, they give you a book of pamphlets on what it’s going to be like to have an ostomy and different medical devices, and there are some things they don’t talk to you about, one of them being sexuality," she said. "It’s an assumption that disabled people are not having sex, or that we wouldn’t want to have sex, or that nobody would want to have sex with us because our bodies are not sexual, and they’re gross or wrong or damaged... and that’s just simply not true."
She continued, “I didn’t feel like I was represented or that I had body-positive role models growing up, and as a woman with a disability I want young people to have those role models. I want to help create a world where people… have a better relationship with their bodies and can accept themselves as they are."
Listen to the full CBC episode and read Alex's article on the subject.
Follow GoAskAlex on Twitter.
