I remember one instance as a 6 year old where I had a bowel movement that was INCREDIBLY painful and not happening. I was in a public restroom with my dad there trying to calm me down and I was just crying from the pain and humiliation because people were coming in. I don't know if that traumatized me and led to that behavior I described above, but it is something that sticks out in my mind.
By Junior High and High School, I had somehow trained my body to ignore the need to go. Like, I would feel the need to go say an hour or two before school was out but the pain and urgency would go away until I got home. It's like my bowels KNEW when I was home because I absolutely couldn't wait a minute longer as soon as I entered the house.
For a while I actually started using public restrooms and it was no big deal to me. It was nice to not have to hold it until I got home.
But the worst thing that could have happened to me in this regard did. At around age 16 I started having diarrhea constantly, horrible burning pain, blood in my stool, and needing to go upwards of 10 times per day. I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease.
It was pretty terrible for a while. I got anemic, I needed to go on steroids, antibiotics, had terrible abdominal pains that would come and go. I pretty much failed my first year of college because of it and depression.
Finally found some medication combos that give me a more normal life with it, but I get nasty flare ups from time to time and I absolutely can't use a public restroom anymore if anyone else is in it.
There's just too much of a humiliation factor because with the flare up, I end up initially making A LOOOOOT of noise (if you know what I mean) and then it smells really horribly bad. And I just can't handle the thought of other people in there to hear it and smell it and the realization they may see my face once I leave the stall. Sure I could just wait until everyone leaves to leave the stall, but to know that I'm making noise and smells and they're there in the first place is just too embarrassing.
Just last week in my campus library I would excuse myself from a study group to play a game of use the elevator to find a floor where nobody's in the bathroom. It takes time to get from one floor to another and it's so very inconvenient and frustrating that I'm having this anxiety... and there always seems to be ONE person in the bathroom no matter what. With a Crohn's flare up, I could need to defecate up to 3 or 4 times in the span of an hour or two, so this problem would get ANNOYING fast.
I'm good at finding the bathrooms that are in places nobody goes and are seldom used compared to the other bathrooms. About a week ago, there was a guy in one of these seldom used bathrooms and he was in a stall for TWENTY FIVE minutes. I went in quietly a few times and could hear him just rustling newspapers. I think he was just using it as a chair and too lazy to come out and finish his newspaper elsewhere. I was SOOOO angry. I honestly wanted him to die.
So yeah, this is still a major problem for me. I hate the anxiety, and I HATE HATE HATE stupid ####ing Crohn's Disease.
Even now, I find myself needing to GO with undeniable urgency every time I walk in the door to my house. My body's still somewhat trained. This is ridiculous. I know it would be disgusting for everyone to walk around on all fours like our ancestors and poop wherever and whenever they wanted, but sometimes you just have to hate civilized societal conditioning for this.
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