#84: The IBS Chronicles Part One

HUMOR

Because the newsletter has become a catalog of my ills and accidents as of late, I feel you deserve an update on my bowels. They are irritable to a syndromic degree. This is nothing new. A roommate in college told me I was the gassiest person she’d ever met. Despite feeling like I’d won The Gassiest Award, this was not a compliment.

Unfortunately, it is feminism keeping my pooper on the pot and gaseous traces of my fecal matter in the air. I wholeheartedly denounce restrictive eating. Diet culture will not keep me down! Even at the expense of my very own health! (Side note: Several of you were like, “Have you tried cutting out gluten?” after my hyperbolic post about trying “everything” to keep my migraines at bay. You are so sweet! Thank you for caring about my health and well-being. By having tried “everything,” I really meant everything other than cutting deliciousness out of my life completely. Without pasta, I would struggle to find the will to live. This may be toxic. I am the opposite of a doctor, so please do not take this as medical advice. But if the price of a heaping plate of alfredo is 27 minutes stripped down and shivering on the porcelain throne (if you don’t know what I mean, I envy you) followed by the skull-splitting sensory onslaught of a migraine, I will gladly tap to pay. Perhaps this is why IBS is considered a mental illness! Anyway, back to the feminism thing.) And I’m not going to hold in my farts like some dainty demure little 1950s housewife whose husband believes women shouldn’t stink. Newsflash! We stink! Let us stink in peace.

While Adam is fully aware of my stink (#ally), my stench has set off some alarm bells for him. Apparently the level of stink is, “absolutely a medical issue” or whatever. So he found this women-only online IBS community and politely requested I sign up. Because it’s hard to argue with someone who loves you at your most putrid, I obliged. I imagined I’d be relatively faceless among thousands of poop-problemed women, but nope! So far it is an incredibly intimate group of 12 ladies eager to share about their combination diarrhea and constipation. So this will be fun.

Don’t worry. I’ll keep you updated. I know you’re dying to hear all about it. For context — and I swear to you I’m not kidding — I wrote this on the toilet.

ily bye,

Ariana