However, during a stay in the hospital, when I was 2,5 years old, the nurses made me wear diapers again. (I don't know if this was because I already had parcopresis at that age and didn't tell them, when I needed to go to the toilet, or if they simply didn't have the time to bring me to the bathroom.) Anyway the result was, that I was not toilet trained anymore, when I came home.
I sometimes wonder if this could have triggered my parcopresis and if there are people who have similar experiences in their childhood.
The age that I really became aware of having parcopresis, was when I was 11 years old and had to join a school camp. I didn't go for a whole week. Even now I still can remember that I lay awake till everybody was sleeping and then slipped out to go to the toilet, but even then I wasn't able to go. It's true what Baz says; your bowel does have a mind of its own. I simply didn't had the urge to go, even though I felt that I had a full belly and found this very unpleasant. (Therefore the name I have chosen to use on this message board.)
Strange thing is, that I also know for sure that I have never urinated on the (dirty) toilets at school, but always waited till I got home. This was not much of a problem, because in the Netherlands (where I live) kids usually go home during lunchtime. Apparently I did not have problems with doing that during school camp, otherwise I would have remembered it.
What I do remember, however, are the reactions of teachers, when other kids asked for permission to go to the toilet. It always appeared to me, that they found it very inconvenient and annoying, that their lessons were interupted by this question. And it also ocurred that a kid didn't get permission to leave the classroom and was told to wait till the break. As young as I was I always found this very humiliating for those poor kids. I also believe that this negative reaction of teachers can contribute to developing parcopresis. I can only hope that teachers are more aware of this nowadays than they were in the seventies, when I went to school.
I will write more about my experiences with parcopresis and how I try to cope with it.
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