The topic for this week is poop. Or rather, my relationship with poop. Before we begin, two quick things:
Not loving the word poop. How do we feel about shit? I’m worried my swearing is offending you. There’s crap I guess, but isn’t that a better word for say, garage sales? Fecal matter? Quite scientific. Defecation isn’t bad... Going forward let’s use shit sparingly (for emphasis), defecation, and throw in a little BM (Bowel Movement) for good measure.
This is not a journey for the faint of heart. You’re going to learn some things. You’re going to hear new BM terminology. At times it will be disgustingly foul and crass. If that’s not for you, I get it. Close down this window and I’ll catch you next time.
If you’re still reading, I’m assuming you decided to stick it out and see what this is all about. So let’s start the story, shall we?
When I think back on the start of my troubling relationship with BM’s, it began with my official launch into coffee addiction. And by coffee I mean the Mocha Frappuccino. We all know the frap is the actual gateway drug for kids getting into hard-core drugs and I, sadly, was no exception. (For more information on the gateway drug pipeline, see Exhibit 1, below.) In college, I began experimenting with the Iced Annihilator at Dutch Bros. Why? It made me feel cool and the baristas were hot. Also, there were no other options on my walk to campus.
Exhibit 1: The Actual Gateway Drug Pipeline for Teens in the Early Aughts
Now I don’t know what exactly goes into an Annihilator (yes I do: milk-fat byproducts, high fructose corn syrup, coffee(ish) substance) but the Annihilator was the closest I’d ever come to the energizing effects of cocaine. And I loved it.
I’d start the morning tired and sluggish, but after pounding my morning Annihilator on the way to the student government office (nerd alert!), I had fully transitioned into a jittery, energetic, hot mess. And every morning thirty minutes later, I’d be violently shitting in the public restroom near the student advisor’s office. No big deal, no second thought. Just a part of the ‘ol routine.
Fast forward a few years, and I began noticing weird things about my BM situation, generally. For instance, there were specific events and foods that would cause various BM-related problems. See Exhibit 2.
Exhibit 2: Various Events That Cause BM Issues, the Causes, and What To Do About It
Now listen, before you get all judgmental and tell me that I have some kind of GI issue (spoiler alert - I do!) can I just say that some of these things are totally common! I’m not alone! And the running trail issue? C’mon. Surely you know about carbo loading.
So up until recently, my BM abnormalities were just part of the gig of life. I truly thought that going five days without defecating followed by one day of constant defecation was normal and that everybody had this exact same issue. Why? Because our society has decided it’s not cool to talk about BMs. Ignorance is bliss, am I right ladies?
However, I’ve recently had a few realizations that made me begin questioning my reality, outlined below:
Realization #1: Floating BMs Are Not Normal
I recently talked about my BMs with some people and revealed something embarrassing that I didn’t know was embarrassing until the moment right after. This is how that conversation went:
Person 1: “Blah, blah, blah, shitting, blah, haha, blah, lolzy”
Person 2: “Blah, blah, blah, shitting, blah, haha, blah, lolzy”
Me (Smugly): “Well, yeah. Except that everyone knows that floating shit means you have a healthy digestive system. And mine has floated every single day for years.”
Person 1 and Person 2 (heavy side eye): “ ... … ”
Me (backtracking): “I mean, I think I read blah, blah, blah, shitting, blah, haha, blah, lolzy”
Person 1: “Floating shit is not healthy. That’s a sign that something is wrong. Sinking shit is what you want.”
Person 2: “Timeout. Your shit floats? It has floated for years?”
Me: “Kerfuffle backtrack abort shitfuckohmygod”
Person 1 and 2: “Blah, blah, blah, shitting, blah, haha, blah, lolzy”
And if you guessed that this conversation sent me into a spiral where I obsessively googled whether floating BMs are a problem and then self-diagnosed myself with all of the GI conditions ranging from malabsorption through colorectal cancer, then you would have guessed… correctly!
Realization #2: Bathroom Mappers Unite
I was doing some general research one day, when I came across the term bathroom mapping. What is bathroom mapping, you ask? Well, it’s a skill that all people with “toileting issues” have in common: mentally mapping out locations of all the bathrooms, everywhere. In short, there is an entire cohort of people who have mentally mapped all of the toilets in a certain mile radius because they expect needing one at all times.
Bathroom Mappers are people who know where every single multi- and single-stall bathroom is within the urban office building in which they work. They know that there’s a secret bathroom near the bodega that is down a creepy dark hall that nobody ever uses. They know that the Port-a-Potty three blocks away from the start of their running trail at a construction site is always unlocked and ready to go. They know that the hostess at the diner in whatever-the-f-small-town-on-the-side-of-the-road will allow them to break the “Restrooms Are For Customers” rule when they lie and say that their small innocent child really needs to go but really it’s for them to unload the liquidized contents of their intestines while their small innocent child stands awkwardly outside the stall yelling, “I DON’T NEED TO GO POTTY!!!” and the shitting person inside the stall is yelling back, “JUST BE QUIET FOR ONE GD MINUTE OR WE’RE GOING TO GET KICKED OUT OF HERE!!!”
Anyway, I don’t know. I guess this concept just resonated for some reason.
Realization #3: Many People Have Reliable Bowel Motility
I learned that there are multiple people in my life that take a (sinking) BM at the same exact time every single day without fail and it’s never an emergency, but if it is it’s like once a year and is directly correlated to spicy jalapenos or bad take-out and then they decide to never again eat the thing that caused the problem. And get this: they talk about this bowel motility phenomenon like it’s normal. Zero afterthought, no stress, not even worth noting because it’s just so completely ordinary and utterly boring.
And to that I say, well aren’t you just so effing special. And also, WHAT THE HELL?! Is there something wrong with me???
Toward the end of this journey, things started going from bad to worse (digestively speaking). The examples from Exhibit 2 above intensified, my bathroom mapping perceptions increased from a 50 to 300 mile radius, I started experiencing other physical symptoms (acne that would put a teen to shame, general gloom, constant sickness due to poor immunity), and most worrisome, I developed a constant dull ache in the left side of my lower abdomen. I became afraid of eating, the spiraling and self-diagnosing increased, and my quality of life had gone, well, down the shitter.
It was time to take matters into my own hands.
Eventually, I called a naturopath and began a long journey of figuring out what was wrong with me. I took breathalyzer tests, stool sample tests, filled out long questionnaires about my health history. It was a fun little self-exploratory journey. And I learned a lot. The good news? I’m basically just a neurotic person with an over-active gut-brain connection problem. And also I was eating a lot of garbage food. The bad news? I’d no longer be able to blissfully eat a lot of garbage food. I was also put on a strict regimen of probiotics and herbal supplements. I still take them on occasion.
At some point I’ll post a part II on this - sharing what it was like to show up at a doctor’s office and beg them to help you stop bathroom mapping. For now, I’ll conclude with the moral of this story, which is that you can’t count on children to go along with your lies about using the bathroom. And also, maybe stay away from the Annihilator.