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Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Amanda’s Story –
I remember
being constipated for the first time in my life – it was a particularly uncomfortable feeling. I’d started smoking the year
before and I drank quite a lot of coffee at the time so I tried upping my intake of both, but to no avail. I think I tried
a fair few times to go, but it wasn’t until after about four days that I was able to, and even then it wasn’t all right afterwards
(there was a quite a “backlog” – if you’ll excuse the pun).
That experience formed the blueprint for all subsequent
holiday or staying away experiences: from going on touring holidays with friends or going away on family holidays to staying
over at friends’ houses or even just having to work long days in my job. As a result they became stressful events rather
than enjoyable ones.
I just somehow accepted it even though it was causing me a lot of internal discomfort both physically
and mentally (I was in denial basically). The internet wasn’t around then and nobody was talking about it in any way seriously
either on TV or face to face. To feel that you are not functioning properly is a horrible feeling.
I realise now that
somewhere along the line I got into a subconscious state of mind that said, “I can only defecate at home or in my “base”;
anywhere near people is dangerous!” And that’s the crux of this condition: it revolves around feeling inhibited to defecate
when others are around; medically speaking it is a specific social phobia.
Around the age that the Parcopresis kicked
in, I also started suffering from AP – Avoidant Paruresis, (which is the same condition only urinary). The AP was causing
me more problems at the time because I wanted to go out clubbing and drinking and was finding it more and more difficult,
and just downright nightmarish, to do so. It’s only since I’ve managed to get the AP under some kind of control that I’ve
been able to start focusing my energies on the Parcopresis.
At an emotional level Parcopresis has lowered my confidence
a fair amount (although I think part of that had to do with being in denial about it for so long). It has restricted my life
in a whole number of ways, especially when it comes to hobbies and holidays (I would love to get into sailing and being part
of a crew for instance).
I think I became more aware of this problem with the advent of becoming sexually active and
worrying about my attractiveness to the opposite sex. Perhaps defecating became something that in my mind I felt I might
get criticised for by my peers and therefore something that I had to hide away.
Regardless of what cause it there seems
to be a spiral effect that comes into play once you have this condition. As a sufferer of Shy Bowel you end up “hanging on”
to you excrement longer than normal, which is not the healthiest thing for your body or mental state. As you get more distressed
by it at a subconscious level, you become more and more preoccupied about defecating generally. Your life stops flowing so
smoothly and one day your bowel starts playing up with the beginnings of IBS. In my case I started getting copious amounts
of smelly gas in my colon, my bowel function started to vary and incline towards cycles of smellier, “looser” stools. This
then reinforced the spiral of me – it inhibited me further not to want to defecate near other people in case they started
thinking “bad things” about me like, “What stinky excrement he does, how unattractive, I don’t want to hang around with him
anymore!” Of course, most of this is in my head and unlinked to reality – sure someone going in to the toilet after me might
think, “Blimey, what a stink”, but they are unlikely to want to therefore disassociate with me! Nonetheless, at a subconscious
level this type of thinking can exert a very powerful influence over bowel function.
And that is where IBS might producing
psychological phobic effects: sufferers start worrying about defecating near other people for fear of possible recrimination
or of people thinking negatively of them, or they start worrying about not being able to get to a toilet in time. Before
too long, their anxiety is magnifying the condition and actually making it worse.
The good news is that the phobic
side of things is all in our heads. This is not to denigrate the reality of it, but it means that our bodies are actually
functioning reasonably well, we just need to work on our brains in a way that will allow us to be less anxious about excrement
generally. For myself I am at the beginning of this process of recovery with my Shy Bowel but I am able to transfer some of
the tools and techniques I learned when I was tackling Shy Bladder. Foremost among these is Hypnotherapy, which helps to
focus on modifying unhelpful thought processes (cognitive) and unhelpful behaviours. It is an ongoing process and change
doesn’t happen overnight but it brings a long-term feeling of optimism in the sense that you are starting to turn negative
spirals of thoughts and behaviour into positive, upward ones.
And finally an area that helps enormously is to start
“coming out” to the nearest and dearest in your life about this condition and the restrictions it imposes on you.
In
a very real sense it’s almost like there are two phobias: the Shy Bowel itself and then the extremely debilitating fear that
other people might find out that you have it. There is an enormous amount of shame connected to this condition and the feeling
of somehow being a freak. In reality there are many, many people out there with this condition or other types of toilet phobia,
it’s just everybody has been too scared to talk about it in the past. For myself I am now focused on recovery. It doesn’t
have to be a full recovery, just as long as it lets me get on and enjoy the things I want to do in life and stops draining
my energies so much.
Please telephone for a confidential discussion if you can associate with any of Amanda’s
story and want to take control back in your life.
Click here for a recent BBC news story on this topic
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