The One Thing I Will Never, Ever Do in Front of My Partner

I asked L, who is newly dating someone, how she managed a recent trip to Europe with her new beau. “I have him use the bathroom first. Then, when I go, I turn on the shower and let the steam take care of the smell.”

Another friend, C, will also not poop anywhere near her husband and finds a public restroom when they travel. She calls her outing “Going to Macy’s,” as in an excursion to the department store.

It’s not just my friends. According to the experts, toilet anxiety is a type of social anxiety or phobia that affects to some degree between 6.5 percent and 32 percent of men, women and children. Except for a few notable studies, not much is known about the condition because people don’t like to talk about it. The official term for it is “parcopresis” and the unofficial term is “poop shy.”

I’ve been poop shy as long as I can remember. One of the reasons may be that I’ve always struggled with constipation, which is a different but perhaps related issue. As a little girl, I can remember making bargains with God if I could just get some potty relief. Even as an adult, I feel self-conscious about how long it takes me, and the fear of stinking up the bathroom. I’ve never been able to poop at work, on airplanes or even sharing hotel rooms with close friends on girls weekends. It’s not that I don’t try. And it’s not that I don’t have to. The pain of holding it in is distracting and often so bad I can’t wait to get home. It’s simply that I can’t let go unless I have the time and privacy to do so.

At one point, when I was a single working mother going through a divorce, I got so brutally backed up that I visited a gastroenterologist who sent me for a colonoscopy and diagnosed me with irritable bowel syndrome. “Your problem is stress,” he said. “Your gut isn’t going to improve until your life does.” The gut biome is indeed like the body’s second brain, and whatever the mind tells you, the body does not lie. I left his office feeling worse than when I arrived.

Cut to 15 years later, and my life and my gut have improved substantially. The constipation is better, but I’m still poop shy around my guy, even in the comfort of my own home. While we don’t live together, he spends the better part of the weekend at my house and we travel together frequently. Perhaps I take my cues from him. I have rarely seen evidence of him going pooping. Once, when we were staying with friends, he cracked the window in the bathroom. Another time when we were returning to our hotel room, he said, “I’ll meet you up there, I’m going to use the restroom first.” I didn’t ask him why.

So what’s a poop shy girl to do? Online medical advice ranges. There’s the psychological, “Remember that everyone poops. Try visualizing someone you respect, such as a political figure or actor, pooping,” and “Breathe deeply or do a short mindfulness meditation exercise if you feel the onset of anxiety symptoms.” There’s also the tactical, including “Carry a small bottle of air freshener and line the inside of the toilet bowl with toilet paper to absorb the sound,” and the twofer, “Flush several times while pooping. This will disguise the sound and reduce the smell.”

I admire women who can live large and take up space even in the bathroom and even if it’s unpleasant for others. Unfortunately, I will never be one of them. And that’s OK. Everyone has quirks, and being poop shy is mine. Perhaps it’s not even as weird, embarrassing and rare as I imagine. After all, a meme came across my Instagram quoting Carl Jung as saying, “Everyone is an atheist until they clog a toilet in someone else’s house.”

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.