From Secrets to Freedom: How I Flushed My Shame Down the Toilet with Friends 💩
I’m chained to the toilet for the ninth time that day—my 267th trip that month. I’m fighting back tears. My whole body is beyond exhausted and my mind is spiraling:
“I have nothing to offer. All I can do is poop. If my friends really knew this is how I spend my days, would they think I’m a burden? Would it push them away? Would it forever taint how they see me?”
Cut to years later, the frantic sprints to the toilet are long gone. But the fear? The shame? These emotions lingered and continued to erode my self-confidence.
I’d spent the past decade designing transformative experiences for others. I’m a life coach, an “aha architect.” I help people discover breakthroughs that shift their lives. So why was I still stuck, hiding this portion of my history, afraid to be too much?
Then it hit me: What if I designed something for myself? What if I confronted my biggest fears head on?
I decided to do the boldest thing I could think of—I’d throw a party. But not just any party. A social experiment where I’d be unapologetically too much and take up ALL OF THE SPACE. No more hiding. No more shrinking.
Instead, I’d spotlight and outright celebrate the thing I’d been terrified to share: the vulnerable, private details of my journey to complete remission from severe ulcerative colitis.
Yes, you read that right, the party would be centered around the incurable autoimmune disease I’ve had for 14 years. A chronic illness that periodically shreds the lining of my colon until it bleeds.
Despite the taboo theme, I was determined to make this party fun, educational, magical, and undeniably me (aka ridiculous). I’d spill my secrets in style.
Back then, I thought I could only squeeze 50 friends into the apartment. But now, YOU 🫵 are invited too!
Join the celebration! Get comfy—this is a 20-minute read that I’ve poured my heart and soul into. If you’re reading this from your inbox, your email program will likely try to cut the party short, so click here now for the full read. 🎉
P.S. Expressing myself online is my next big, scary step, 😬 so knowing you’re here means so much! 🥰 Your time and attention are precious resources, and I’m overcome with gratitude that you’re sharing them with me. Whether you stay for the whole post or just pop in, please say hello—it lights me up to hear what resonates. 💛
Welcome to The Colon Party
Imagine this: You’re standing outside a Brooklyn apartment, fingers hovering over the buzzer. You know you’re here for a “colon party,” but the thought sneaks in: “How does a colon even become a party theme?”
The door swings open, and a man in a white coat greets you. It’s my “gastroenterologist,” Dr. Bottom-man. “Welcome to Devin’s annual colonoscopy,” the doctor says with a grin. He leans in, letting you in on a secret: my colon is a star. He’s photographed her many times through the years and she has a flair for the dramatic.
The doctor gestures down the hallway, where a dark colon tunnel glimmers with metallic pink tinsel. He instructs you to bow down before her. With your arms outstretched and your head touching the hallway carpet, you’re directed to say: “I honor you, diva colon!”
Having paid your respects, you’re now on your hands and knees at the entrance to the colon tunnel, wondering, "Is there another way into the party?" Nope! Your head plunges through the plastic fringe and you begin crawling through a tube that keeps going and going and going—for 12 feet!
As you emerge from the end of the colon tunnel, a woman wearing a poop emoji hat 💩 greets you with a beaming smile. “You’re the shit!” she declares.
Inside, the apartment pulses with energy, bathed in soft pink light. Over fifty people mingle beneath a giant colon sculpture made of aluminum ducting, suspended above the fireplace like a surrealist work of art.
Laughter bubbles up from all corners of the room, as friends wearing pink visors usher you toward an array of quirky, colon-themed activities.
You can bedazzle a toilet seat, sculpt the perfect turd out of Play-Doh, or, if you’re feeling bold—devour chocolate “poo” pudding swirled directly into your mouth. Perhaps you watch guests draw anatomically accurate colons on printouts of Beyoncé, Ryan Gosling, and Taylor Swift, or you get pulled into a game of colon trivia where winners score bidet prizes courtesy of Tushy. (Want to see all the experiences? Click here.)
Within an hour, you've thought more about this 5-foot digestive organ than you ever thought possible.
🎶 “We've come a long, long way together. Through the hard times and the good. I have to celebrate you, baby. I have to praise you like I should. You're so rare. So fine. I'm so glad you're mine” 🎶
Camille Yarbrough’s “Take Yo’ Praise” starts playing. My diva colon has nudged me to do an outfit change and make a grand entrance.
I appear, draped in an emerald green tulle robe. I take center stage on the bed in the middle of the apartment. Microphone in hand, I invite you to find a seat on the floor at my feet.
I take a moment to make eye contact with every person in the room, including you, and start my speech honoring my diva colon.
My Speech
14 years ago when I was a 19-year-old college student, I was finally officially diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC) after 5 years of digestive trouble starting my freshman year of high school.
At that time having UC was annoying, but in no way debilitating. I sometimes had to take meds, but the diagnosis didn’t have a huge impact on my life and I paid very little attention to my colon and my body. I was perfectly content to live in my head and come down into my body every once in a while to dance, cuddle, or have sex.
And I continued on that way until four years ago during lockdown. From March through May of 2020, I attempted to write a memoir about some of the traumatic things that have happened in my life.
And it turns out that to write well, you have to feel a lot of stuff and you can’t feel stuff when you’re disassociated. Writing is the opposite of numbing. To write well, I would have needed to be able to feel something so vividly and completely that I could channel words that would carry what I was feeling into the body of the reader.
Surprise, surprise you cannot think your feelings to resolution, so a lot of unfelt feelings had accumulated over the years.
There I was in the early stages of the pandemic, sitting at my laptop alone in my room surrounded by dozens of my previous selves who were all crying and clamoring for my attention.
There was the socially-anxious 10-year-old with debilitating OCD. The bullied suicidal high schooler. The bulimic college student. The sexually assaulted woman in her twenties who kept looking for love in all the wrong places. And each of these parts of me were all carrying so much and very much frozen in time.
I couldn’t hold any of their pain and neither could my colon. There was no space in my body for any of those intense feelings to move through me and be metabolized. The emotional pain of the younger parts of me ate at my insides. My colon just wouldn’t stop bleeding and the physical pain landed me in the hospital for five days.
(Side note, in Chinese Medicine, the colon is associated with letting go physically and mentally, especially of sadness and grief. Checks out!)
Over the course of the next year, I dove deep into healing work and started exploring Internal Family Systems (IFS). It’s a type of therapy that helps people unburden those younger parts of themselves.
By May 2021, I was feeling better but knew I had more healing work to do. I decided to take my life savings and travel the world in search of further healing. I prepared for this trip by getting all the necessary travel vaccines.
The physician’s assistant advised me to get six vaccines over the course of a week. I pushed back—shouldn’t I spread them out, after all, I have an autoimmune disease?
She assured me six vaccines in a week would be safe and not stressful for my body. I trusted her and didn’t listen to the questioning voice inside me. Those six jabs for $1,275 back in May 2021 ended up being the most expensive purchase of my entire life. (My subsequent health bills cost me TENS of thousands of dollars!)
I arrived in New York City for a quick visit to see my friends before I left globe trotting, and my colon started to bleed again. I decided I would stick around and found a place to sublet and ended up meeting my boyfriend, Mark.
But I was getting sicker and sicker every day. I became chained to walking distance from my apartment bathroom. I started avoiding drinking and eating food, because I couldn’t control my bowels as soon as anything went into my digestive system.
By September 2021, my gastroenterologist told me post-colonoscopy that things were really bad and at any moment she might have to remove part of my colon.
My calprotectin, the measure of inflammation in my colon, was at 1,522 micrograms per gram. Normal is ideally under 50 and over 200 is high. The bleeding wasn’t stopping.
My doctor suggested I start on the drug, Entyvio, which would mean that every two months for the rest of my life, I would require an IV infusion that suppressed my entire immune system. Entyvio costs more than $30,000 a year. And while Entyvio is a miracle drug for some, the drug does come with some nasty side effects and risks like cancer.
Something inside me said no. And I listened to that voice, the same voice that had told me not to take 6 vaccines in a week.
To an outside observer this voice was illogical, irrational, some might even say foolish and irresponsible, but it was so strong and steady and sure and immovable that this time I ignored all the experts and listened.
I was just a few months into dating Mark. I called him up and told him I was going to do everything I could to avoid going on Entyvio and my whole life was about to change. My diet was about to get super restrictive and I wouldn’t be able to travel or go out to restaurants or stay up late or go out much and I would need to be in my own bed every night.
I told him I know this was not what he signed up for and I would understand if he wanted to take some time to think things over, and I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to part ways. Mark didn’t bat an eye and told me that of course he wanted to be with me.
The next year was a blur of doctor’s appointments and alternative treatments and searching. I learned how to cook everything I ate and started on a modified version of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.
I cut out all food except fish, meat, fruits, vegetables, non-seed oils, and spices. That meant no starch, no soy, no gluten, no dairy, no grain, no refined sugar, no potatoes, no rice, no nuts, no seeds, no alcohol, and no caffeine.
Ulcerative colitis has multiple levels of remission. The first is that the bleeding stops, the second is that your calprotectin levels return to normal. The third is that your colon looks free of disease during a colonoscopy and fourth, biopsies of your colon come back free of any microscopic signs of disease.
This diet change plus my normal meds got my UC into the first two levels of remission, but my brain fog, fatigue, and chronic pain continued.
Walking 4 blocks to get toilet paper felt like an Olympic feat.
I would joke to Mark we were regularly having threesomes at night with the hot water bottle we named Heatith.
I watched my savings dwindle.
I tried everything from dozens of supplements a day to cryotherapy to even seriously considering allowing a doctor to blow ozone up my butt.
Managing my health became a full-time job. I was living a double life, sleeping during the day and getting out of bed at 5pm to have a few hours to socialize with friends. I looked healthy but was very sick and it was so confusing to not have my insides and outsides match.
A year later by October 2022, my gastroenterologist was shocked to report that the biopsies of my colon revealed that I had no active colitis anywhere. She did add however that inside my colon looked like a forest fire had happened, but nothing was actively on fire any more.
My poor charred colon was healing itself! I took that as a sign to keep going despite my low energy.
Prior to my hospitalization in 2020, I felt like I had an optional battery pack strapped to my back that I could pull out at any time that would allow me to stay up late going on adventures or work long hours. Now when I reached for it, it was empty. I felt like if I pushed myself any more, the special buffer popping wouldn’t pop out, instead I’d be standing at the edge of an energetic cliff.
With little energy, I had to constantly ask myself what actually mattered. I abandoned any tight fitting clothing, rocking a permanent bloated belly. I decided that I never wanted to deal with tight pants or a waistband again. I shifted my entire wardrobe to flowy clothes and caftans.
All the inflammation in my body made my brain really foggy. A simple task like trying to write a basic paragraph could bring me to tears.
At some point I almost lost hope, wondering if this is just my life.
How will I make money and provide for myself?
What if my body is just not compatible with my dreams?
What if I can’t keep up with my friends?
When would I ever return to normal?
Was interesting, shiny, productive Devin gone forever?
I had already given up so much—what more was there to let go of?
Eventually I gave up any time frame for normalcy.
My friend, Megan Goering Mellin, helped me realize: “What if I need to help my past selves die so they can finally rest and become my ancestors? What if I need to properly honor this relay race of Devin so they can let go of their burdens and transmit their gifts forward through time to me?”
Right? What a concept! A concept that fueled this party.
I’ve been very private about my health journey. I worked so hard to become the version of myself that moved to New York knowing one person and dove into the world of immersive art and community building.
I didn’t want to be defined by something I didn’t choose.
I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t keep up or that I was no longer fun or suddenly a downer or unemployable or undesirable.
At the core, I think I also couldn’t let myself identify as sick because that label was too sticky and too heavy with ready-made, confining stories that didn’t appear to have room for my aspirations and dreams.
Instead, for better or worse, I chose delusion. And delusion paid off! Four months ago in November 2023, I had another colonoscopy. My gastroenterologist informed me my colon was completely normal and healthy. Soft pink instead of charred forest fire.
I hugged my gastroenterologist and cried. She later told me I was very lucky.
Mark greeted me at this finish line, holding a handmade A+ colon sign over his head.
My parents and I cried on facetime. I’d never seen them be as proud of me for anything I’d accomplished in my entire life. You know shit has gotten really real when your parents are crying that you can poop normally, something they first celebrated when I was toilet-trained at age three.
The other day, I was walking up the big set of steps at 8th Ave station and an elderly man was walking slowly in front of me. Growing impatient I began to pass him but then saw he was struggling carrying two bags. I offered to carry them for him.
I remembered once being so tired by these kinds of stairs that I’d have to pause and collect myself at the top.
Carrying his bags, I found myself tearing up with each step. I thought to myself, I’d survived, and now I’m the kind of person who can carry bags for someone else. What an unspeakable joy to be able to extend such bodily generosity to a stranger.
I didn’t want him to see me crying and be confused. When he thanked me profusely at the landing, I thanked him and told him I had been very sick and by letting me carry his bags, he gave me a gift.
These moments of reconciliation have been so private and so personal. There are things we all know how to celebrate with those we love—a big promotion, an engagement, a pregnancy, etc. But I think there are a whole host of milestones in life that get overlooked, are too much for one person to hold and process alone, and have no roadmap for how to honor.
And today, I want to invite you to celebrate one of those kinds of milestones with me. It’s been a wild four years and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that my greatest superpowers are my attention, my creativity, and my ability to make my own meaning out of anything that happens to me.
I freaking love my colon. She’s been one of my biggest teachers.
She is a major diva and unapologetic about her needs. She’s sensitive and knows that being sensitive a superpower and there is nothing wrong with her that needs fixing or changing.
She knows that she just wasn’t set up to flourish and she is unmovable in her assertion of her inherent right to the proper accommodations.
I’ve had to redesign every aspect of my life—how I eat, sleep, where I live, how I move my body, how I manage stress, my boundaries, all to meet her exacting needs.
And truthfully, I’m better for it. I am the most intellectually, emotionally, creatively, and spiritually satisfied I’ve ever been in my life.
I think my colon could have written the quote, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
My colon helped me understand the value of rest. I finally found joy in taking care of my body instead of seeing it as a means to an end. Its finiteness and fragility are part of its beauty.
After living life with one foot on the gas and one on the brakes, I’m excited to find a new rhythm.
My colon has helped me learn to trust my no.
I started my career as a scientist—studying judgment and decision making and the quirky irrational things that people do, and now I’m a believer in intuition!
My body is a genius and has access to so much more complex information than my brain.
It took my body screaming at me at a 10 out of 10 to be able to hear that voice. And now I’m learning to hear its whispers.
My body is the best friend I never knew I had who has been by my side this whole time but I couldn’t see her.
My colon inspired a whole new career path: life coaching and executive coaching.
When I couldn’t work, I studied, training in every healing modality I could find diving deep into modalities described in the book, The Body Keeps The Score. I’ve studied power with Kasia Urbaniak, trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing (SE), Reiki, and now Family Constellations, hypnosis, and somatic EMDR.
Every day, I feel so grateful to be able to share this work with others.
My colon taught me humble courage.
She initiated me into a new identity that can hold so much more. Before, I didn’t fully understand the difference between empathy and compassion: how to be with something and not take it on and become merged with it.
Now I know nothing inside me is inherently scary or shameful. I am so much more free. I will no longer shrink myself. I am big. I contain multitudes. I’m so proud of the woman I am today. And I want you to see me and the dozens of girls and women I’ve been—my ancestors, the relay race of Devin that led to the woman standing before you today.
I want to show that socially-anxious 10-year-old with debilitating OCD: hey, you’re in a room full of people who really really like you, enough that they’d crawl through a 12-foot fake colon to come to your party.
I want to show bullied suicidal high school Devin who clung to achievement that someday everyone who loved you would be thrilled and proud of your ability to perform a basic bodily function.
And even if you couldn’t work for a while or build anything impressive, you were still so worthy of love and so beloved.
I want to show bulimic college student Devin whose feelings were too big to be held by her body and who believed her sensitivity was inherently overwhelming to everyone else, how glorious it is to take up all the space and to be too much and have it be received.
In her honor at this party, I’ve decided to be the most: The most open. The most creative. The most ridiculous.
I even emailed a colonoscopy prep drug company asking them to support this party. Thanks Suflave!
This party is for sexually-assaulted Devin who was looking for love in all the wrong places. I want her to know that we found Mark, someone who loved us and thought we were beautiful even back when our career was at a standstill and I was wincing in pain in bed.
And lastly this party is for the part of me that was worried about being flattened into a chronic illness poster girl…but I contain multitudes and no diagnosis can define or contain me.
Today we’re not celebrating my remission, but who the journey to remission made me. I got to remission because of a combination of hard work, luck, and privilege. My journey with my colon would still be worth celebrating even if I was not in remission because it made me me. And all these younger parts of me can go rest now, I’m taking the reins.
My vision for my thirties is to do this work with as many people as I possibly can. To get curious, shine a light on any darkness, and re-make our stories together.
Life can break you in increasingly complicated ways, but inside each of us is the creative potential to repair things in the most unique and exquisite ways.
Shame knots up our life force, life force that could be spent creating or solving pressing problems or just soaking in the sheer amazingness of being alive.
I really feel like I’m in life school and my life is my art project.
Each one of you has been an expander, cheerleader, teacher, and/or classmate in this school of life. Thank you.
As the writer Tim Kreider once said, “If we want the rewards of being loved, we must submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”
Thank you for seeing me today. I want to offer you the same opportunity.
As a nod to our guest of honor, my glorious diva colon who takes in nourishment and lets go of anything that doesn’t serve her, I’d like to invite you all to take a moment and write down something you too want to let go of. Something you’ve been holding onto—perhaps a belief, a self-concept, a story that no longer serves you?
After you write it down on a piece of toilet paper, our ushers Jess and Rina will one by one invite you to dramatically place your wad into the ceremonial toilet you’ve all bedazzled for me. Then our DJ, Tess, will kick off our dance party.
Nothing inside you could ever be inherently bad or shameful. We all have taken parts of ourselves and exiled them away, hiding away their pain along with their gifts.
Today see if there’s anything, even something small, you want to experiment with no longer carrying.
The world needs all of us to be at our most free and alive. Play and imagination are two of our society’s most underrated tools for transformation.
In this room are some of the most incredible people I’ve met in my entire life. What magic can we co-create together?
In a moment, as each person approaches the toilet, let’s send them a wave of love. I will start us off with shame! (I flush a piece of toilet paper with “SHAME” written on it down the toilet.)
A moment of silence for the flush please… (Cue an actual toilet flush sound 🚽 🔊) Alright, your turn! LET IT GO!!!
The Ritual
Suddenly, you’re swept up in a conga line of people laughing and belting out the chorus to Let It Go from a Frozen soundtrack remix. In your hand is a wad of toilet paper, scribbled with something you’ve been holding onto for far too long. As you reach the end of the line, you ceremoniously flush it down the bedazzled toilet.
The After
The social experiment was complete.
My inner child, the parts of me that had always braced for rejection, stood in disbelief. I watched the room, heart pounding, something inside me still expecting reactions of distance and discomfort. But instead of recoiling, my friends rushed toward me, some with tears in their eyes, their voices trembling with love and appreciation. I saw the intensity of my own journey reflected in their faces— not through pity, but awe.
Being unapologetically too much hadn’t pushed my friends away. It had drawn them in, like a gravitational pull I never knew I had. Everything I’d been afraid to share—my rawness, my vulnerability—hadn’t repelled them. It had inspired them. In that moment, the mismatch between my fear and my friends’ love became so clear: my truth wasn’t a burden. It was a beacon.
Using all my training in life coaching and experience design, I made the intense, hidden struggle of my invisible illness impossible to ignore with a bold, campy, taboo-busting Colon Party. And I did it by embodying the audacity of my unlikely guide—my diva colon.
By celebrating something most people would never dare talk about, I found freedom and relief. In one unforgettable afternoon, I flushed away decades of shame. And all it took was the courage to be seen.
So, I ask you: Is there something in your life that’s gone unseen, uncelebrated, or unhonored? What part of your story deserves the spotlight, even if it’s uncomfortable, messy, or unconventional? Let me know in the comments.
Why do we reserve our time, energy, and community support only for birthdays, weddings, and baby showers? What about the victories we achieve in the depths of our personal struggles?
There are so many overlooked milestones that you’ll never find a Hallmark card for, let alone party decor or a pre-frosted cake. Moments big and small, taboo or mundane—like finally mastering the art of folding a fitted sheet, the five-year anniversary of a loss, outgrowing a friendship, or simply making it through election season without losing your mind.
You deserve to celebrate these moments. You deserve a custom ceremony of your own.
No matter how stuck, overwhelmed, unsupported, or uncertain you feel, we all have the power to become our own aha architects. The first step? Shining a light on the overlooked moments that matter most. Because every one of us deserves to feel seen.
Know someone struggling with chronic illness or their physical/mental health? Please share this essay with them—I hope it brings comfort and inspiration! My dream is for the Colon Party’s message to ripple out and reach those who need it most. 💛
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About Me
I’m Devin Karbowicz. I’m a trauma-informed, somatic life coach and “aha architect” who combines a background in social psychology research at Princeton, Harvard, and Cornell with extensive training in healing modalities like Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing (SE), hypnosis, somatic EMDR, Family Constellations, and creative play.
I specialize in crafting transformative rituals and learning experiences that foster meaningful connections and empower people to navigate challenges with courage, curiosity, and creativity and turn their lives into works of art. For fun, right now I’m offering a few pro bono ritual design consulting spots for people with health journeys they’d like to honor.
This piece blew me away with its rawness, wisdom and heart. I’m so inspired by your spirit. Thank you for sharing this with us!
I teared up multiple times while reading this - especially reading your reflection on the experience carrying that man’s bags up the stairs. Powerful, inspiring stuff 🙏💚