IBS - Emotional Responses

IBS Emotional Responses

Sufferers of IBS, generally develop a number of fears related to their condition.  Theses fears often relate to incidents that occurred in the past where they may have not been able to reach a bathroom in time.   This area of IBS is often neglected, as for most sufferers that outcome is locked away in the mind and to a degree unspeakable.

If this has happened to you, how did you deal with it ?  It is a very common occurrence for sufferers, but most of us will lock those memories up and throw away the key.   Sometimes we may analyse to try and understand what lead to a mishap, but rarely do sufferers spend to much time dwelling on such an unpleasant event.  Is that the right or wrong way to deal with it ?

Whilst it is easy to diminish failing to reach a bathroom in time, the cold reality is that such an event is traumatic, it is embarrassing, stressful and undignified.   Whilst we may not think about it, it is there in our memory, burned in.   Due to the nature of such an event the likelihood is that it is trivialised and ignored.  Most of us are bought up to be strong, and carry on no matter what the circumstances are, some will see it as weak to allow something like this to take a heavy personal toll.

Dealing with trauma

There is clearly no right or wrong way to deal with anything, as we are unique and react differently to life's challenges, however we certainly do recommend that you try and look at this differently.  We spend much of our lives locking away the many traumas that we confront, which has been shown time and time again to be the very worst thing we can do.   As human beings we need to confront the challenges we face, as Karl Jung said 'Man needs difficulties, they are necessary for health'.   Failing to deal with emotional traumas will allow those incidents to fester inside, and what is usually occurs is the manifestation of trauma in another activity.

If you have people you can talk to that is great.  There are many IBS support groups available and they will clearly be able to empathise with your predicament.  Whatever method you find comfortable to confront this, we recommend you take.

If misfortune happens and you do fail to make it to the bathroom use it as a spark.  It can be the motivation you may need to make the changes that improve the quality of your life.  It may be the start of you understanding your body better,  try and turn a traumatic event into a positive catalyst rather than allowing it to eat you up inside and to increase your sense of anxiety.  This is not easy, however is anything worthwhile ever easy.

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