Out of Sight

Kon’nichiwa, Happy Minds. Having been in possession of a human body for some three and a half decades now (no need to panic-dial the police, I’m talking about me), it still never ceases to amaze me how much I take it for granted that it will work the way it’s supposed to. Most days, I wake up feeling reasonably balanced and I am able to negotiate the world (within reason) in the manner I wish to.

Of course (and I don’t think I’m alone here) instead of revelling in my freedom and autonomy, I usually berate myself for all the things I’m not doing as well as I would like. I left the house five minutes later than planned, I couldn’t find my phone charger because my subconscious mind hates me… You get the idea. But more or less, my body is able to function within the broad parameters we might call ‘normal’. So it was a bewildering and stressful experience when my digestive system seized up more or less overnight. All of a sudden, I wasn’t a regular girl anymore, if you take my meaning. Such a simple thing that I had taken for granted my entire life could no longer be relied upon, and it really threw me out of whack.

Full disclaimer for anyone who isn’t reading between the lines here, I’m talking about chronic constipation. Something that affects around a quarter of us at some point or another as we age. An unhappy side-effect of our sedentary lifestyles, processed food diet and always on the go schedules. Writing about it now, it seems both trivial and silly. Certainly nothing to get worked up over. And at first, I didn’t. I started watching what I ate, staying hydrated, taking probiotics. After the first month, I started taking fibre supplements daily. After the second month, I started cutting things out that I thought might trigger me. Dairy, bread, eggs, alcohol. After the third month, I was using laxatives, and my daily battle to use the toilet was accompanied with growing feelings of pain, anxiety and distress. It was around this time that I started to realise that being in a public place without full control of your body is one of the most incredibly stressful situations we can find ourselves in. How much harder, I realised, must so many people have it every single day.

I am in a busy cafe, working on my laptop. After a breakfast of porridge, flaxseeds, banana and prunes, a cup of black coffee, a fibre supplement drink and a full litre of water, I am expecting to need the bathroom imminently. The only problem is that there are only one cubicle. Now I could, if necessary, consume a fast-acting laxative which will make using the toilet all but guaranteed within 15 minutes. However, if I should choose to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight there really is no telling how quickly he might ring the doorbell. If I take the laxative in my seat, I may find myself caught embarrassingly short by a queue of people in my way. If I wait until I am inside, I may have to wait up to 15 minutes, acutely aware that a queue of increasingly disgruntled cafe patrons are all waiting on me. Does that sound like a relaxing bathroom experience to you? No, nor me. It’s around this time that I find myself reflecting on how easy I’ve had it, how much I’ve taken my bowel movements for granted, and how much harder it would be to manage one of the dozens of common hidden disabilities which affect literally millions of people for their entire lives.

Of course, there are the digestive issues. IBS, Ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease. Conditions with a list of symptoms that make my few weeks of discomfort look like a picnic in comparison. Managing flare ups that are amplified by stress can make going to work, planning a wedding, even going on holiday a constant source of concern. Consider those of us secretly suffering from a debilitating food allergy. You might remember Natasha, the 15 year old girl with a severe nut allergy who died on a British airways flight after consuming a bagel which had come into contact with sesame seeds. Her death galvanised a change in food packaging requirements and the aptly named ‘Natasha’s law’ aims to protect allergy sufferers from dangerous hidden ingredients. 

This is progress, but for the Natasha’s of this world the simple enjoyment of food that most of us take for granted must always be laced by a trace of fear; ‘Will this next mouthful be my last?’ We haven’t even touched on disorders like Chronic fatigue syndrome, Fibromyalgia or Lupus. While researching this blog I was horrified to learn that the average fibromyalgia diagnosis period, from first presenting to the doctor to getting diagnosed, is 6 ½ years. That’s 6 ½ years of living with chronic pain and crushing fatigue, while even medical professionals are insisting there’s nothing wrong with you.

‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’ You can find this quote all over the internet, attributed to everyone from Plato to Robin Williams, and it’s arguably never been more relevant than today. Kindness costs nothing, but it is worth everything. Kindness and consideration for our fellow humans can make those hidden battles that much easier to face. We will never remove all the challenges and hardship from this world for everybody, and arguably that should never be our goal. But, if we can all develop a little more awareness, empathy, kindness and consideration, we can help to share the load and lessen the invisible burden that so many people are tethered to, for just a few moments. We can give up our seat on the train, offer a helping hand to those we observe to be struggling, or just try and bring one single, small act of service for others into every day of our lives. And if you’re one of the millions of people fighting a daily battle with constipation I will leave you with a persian adage i’m particularly fond of and that you may find suitably apt; ‘This too shall pass.’