‘Don’t be afraid to fart’ – Woman who lost sight and healed her IBS ‘completely’ turns experience into book to help others

A woman who lost her sight and claims she healed her IBS “completely” has turned her experience into a book to help others and spread the message that people should not be “afraid to fart”.

Marion Bevington, 61, based in Islington, London, said she was diagnosed with thyroid eye disease in 2008, which has caused her sight to slowly deteriorate until she lost her vision in 2023, and she now only sees “a thick, dense, white fog” in both eyes.

Her disability has “taken everything” from her, and Marion, who worked as a software engineer for 30 years, says she is “grieving” for the life she once had where she would travel alone and where her passions lay in cooking and sewing.

Alongside the issues with her vision, Marion, now a yoga teacher and public speaking coach, has also suffered with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) since the early 2000s, but around the time she lost her sight, she claims she “completely” healed herself from the condition which affects the digestive system.

Marion believes alongside food and drink, people also digest “situations, emotions and thoughts”, and by “clearing out old, unprocessed dramas or traumas”, she has been able to “seek clarity and heal”.

Determined to share her methods with others, Marion has detailed her journey with IBS in a textbook titled Afraid To Fart – And The Fine Art Of Following Through, and she is now seeking help through a GoFundMe to create a magazine-style workbook to illustrate her techniques with cartoons.

Marion has also been sharing her story on TikTok, where one of her videos went viral with more than five million views, and overall, she wants her metaphorical mantra to encourage others to “express the true version of yourself”.

“Being afraid to fart can ruin your life, it’s a natural process and there’s no life when there’s no movement,” Marion told PA Real Life.

“It’s really about helping to uncover the traumatising impact of shame, and seeing that shame from a different perspective.

“It’s about expressing yourself in your own way, and saying ‘it’s OK to be me’.

“Everybody farts, we all do, and if you try and stifle your farts – if you don’t express the true version of yourself – you’ll die quicker.”

Marion said she was diagnosed with thyroid eye disease in 2008, a complication which can develop from an overactive thyroid, according to the NHS.

Thyroid eye disease, also known as Graves’ ophthalmopathy, can cause eye problems such as sensitivity to light, blurred or double vision, and bulging eyes.

If Graves’ ophthalmopathy is particularly severe it can cause vision loss, the NHS says.

“I had double vision to start with, so I still had full vision in both eyes, but I would see two of everything,” Marion said, adding that her sight “slowly got worse over time”.

Marion said she was offered medical treatment at the time, but she “decided not to go ahead with it”, as she said there were conflicts around her diagnosis and she was told the treatment would involve multiple and complex surgeries.

Over the next 15 years, Marion said her vision became progressively “more distorted”.

“In 2022, it started to get really, really foggy and my left eye stopped being able to see things,” she said.

“At the beginning of 2023, I lost the vision in the right eye.”

Marion said she fully realised the loss of her sight around her 59th birthday in September 2023, when she could not read her birthday messages on Facebook and she stopped being able to see people’s faces.

Becoming emotional, she said: “It’s the faces that really upsets me.

“Not being able to see is a very lonely world to live in when there’s no faces around.”

At present, Marion said her vision is “like someone shining a light in both my eyes”.

“At the moment, what I see is like a thick, dense, white fog and it’s light, not dark,” she said.

Marion, who now uses a cane to guide her, said she lost her independence when she lost her sight, saying she used to love travelling alone and enjoying a selection of hobbies.

“It has taken everything in the way that I was living my life, in the way I was working,” she said.

“I’m very independent and I’ve never needed to ask anybody for help.

“I used to love cooking, I love knitting and crocheting – I can’t do any of those things anymore.

“The grief and the loss of what life was like for me before has been the most disabling part of the process.”

Marion has also suffered with IBS, a common condition that affects the digestive system, since the early 2000s.

But Marion claims she has healed herself from the condition “completely”, around the same time as she lost her sight.

“I was so focused on my vision and wanting to help restore and reclaim my vision, that I’d sort of missed the fact that I’ve been IBS-free for quite a few years now,” she said.

“We don’t just digest food and drink – we digest situations, emotions, thoughts, everything.

“We hang on to stuff that’s not good for us, but clearing out these old, unprocessed dramas or traumas from our past can help us seek clarity and heal.”

According to the NHS, IBS, which causes stomach cramps, bloating and diarrhoea, is usually a lifelong condition but lifestyle changes and medicine can help.

Determined to share her experience with others, Marion used speech-to-text software to produce her textbook titled Afraid To Fart – And The Fine Art Of Following Through, where she details the techniques she used to become “IBS-free”.

Marion said the title is also a metaphor to help others see “it’s OK to be me”, and she hopes to publish it within the next four to six weeks.

“The textbook is to help people use the knowledge I’ve used and the wisdom I’ve used in their own way,” she said.

Marion said she also wants to create a magazine-style workbook to illustrate her journey with IBS.

She is now seeking support using GoFundMe to create the workbook, as she would like to enlist the help of designers, illustrators and accessibility assistants.

She anticipates she will need around £10,000 to “make the workbook a reality”, raising more than £2,000 so far.

“I want it to be a cartoon book to make it really fun and easy, but at the same time, I want it to include really powerful and profound exercises,” Marion said.

Marion has also taken to TikTok, under the handle @afraid.to.fart, to share the plans for her books with her more than 48,000 followers.

There, Marion created a community where she shares her mantra that “being afraid to fart can ruin your life”.

Some of her videos have gone viral, with one gaining 5.6 million views.

“I had not used social media for over two years, and it’s crazy how it has taken off,” she said.

“The other day, we had a Fabulous Farting Friday and I asked people to tell me where they were able to fart that day.

“I’m giving challenges for people to fart, and I had no idea this was where it was going to go – I’m a fart orator.”

Overall, Marion hopes to spread the message that people should “be true to themselves”.

“Laughter is the best medicine, and you should not be afraid to express yourself truly and live free from shame,” she said.

To find out more, visit Marion’s fundraiser here: gofundme.com/f/help-recently-blind-author-complete-fun-ibs-workbook-4-all