What It’s Really Like to Crap Your Pants

This is a topic that’s not talked about often, for obvious reasons. Who wants to talk about crapping your pants? No one! I’ve had this disease for almost 18 years and I think I’m ready to dive into this and spill all the details. People should know this and also those who have been in my shoes should know they aren’t alone.

For some reason today I had this weird flashback to a time I was with my friends at Universal Studios in Orlando. I was about 23 at the time and at that point, I had been living with Crohn’s Disease for almost a decade, so I had already been to hell and back again.

We were there for Halloween Horror Nights and for those who don’t know, it is a special event at the parks that takes place at night and it’s totally insane and a lot of fun. We got to the parks earlier in the day to enjoy some of the normal stuff before the crazy Halloween festivities. My stomach started to act up and I found myself running to the bathroom. I didn’t make it.

Yup. I crapped my pants at Universal Studios (wasn’t the first time). I ran to the bathroom and sat in the stall trying to figure out if I could salvage anything. I knew I would need to head back to my hotel and change completely. I was wearing dark jeans so I knew I could just walk really fast and make it to the car. This is the reason I never wore white pants until I had a colostomy.

This is a pic of me after rejoining the group with clean pants

While I was sitting in the stall I heard a few ladies come in and start complaining about the smell. Not only were they complaining, but they were laughing. So there I  was physically feeling like crap and then I wanted to cry because two grown ass women were laughing at me. They didn’t know I was still there in the stall.

I’d like to imagine if I was in that scenario today that I would  yell out something like, “Hey, maybe someone got really sick and maybe that someone is still in here and maybe that someone doesn’t need people laughing at my misery right now.”

I can’t remember everything but I probably threw away my underwear and tried to clean up as much as I could using the public bathroom at a theme park. Not easy. I then scurried away to the car and drove back to the hotel, which thankfully was only 5 minutes away. I’m sure people smelled me as I walked by them, but I couldn’t worry about that. I had a spare pair of jeans with me and was able to properly clean myself up and reconnect with the group at the park. Somehow I managed to enjoy the rest of my evening.

On top of having uncontrollable diarrhea, the humiliation on top of it just makes the awful situation worse. I know I always tried to hide it because I worried more about what random strangers were thinking. It’s not easy to hide and I know the smell is the one thing you can’t get rid of until you shower and completely change your clothes.

I’m really trying to give people a perspective of what it’s like. There’s the mental agony on top of the physical aspect. I’ve lost count of how many times I went through that. I remember one time crapping my pants in Target and I was with my mom who went and quickly purchased some sweatpants and underwear. As many times as I suffered through this, it never got easier.

I am so fortunate to have a colostomy now and not worry about making it to the bathroom. The anxiety I would go through any time I went out was never-ending. I never felt safe until I was home near my own bathroom.

For any of you reading this, please don’t laugh or make loud comments when you walk into a bathroom that smells. It’s a bathroom and people poop, get over it. If you have the luxury of being able to only poop at home then good for you, but there are those of walking amongst you that have to poop in public. You never know what pain or struggle someone is going through. Remember that.

Thanks for reading.