Did you poop your pants when you were a teenager?

[Airborne532]

I was almost 13 by the time I finally stopped pooping my pants. I was always extremally constipated and avoided using the toilets at school or when I was out somewhere. When I tried to go at home nothing happened, or it hurt too much, so I usually just ignored what my body was telling me. If I didn’t take the opportunity to go to the toilet it seemed like my body worked against me. The problem with that was those opportunities almost always seemed to be during class or while I was out doing something on the weekend. I was also extremely shy so putting my hand up and asking to go to the toilet was far to embarrassing.  Letting it come out in my underwear when it wanted to worked because it didn’t hurt, so that became normal. The anxiety of starting high school seemed to make my constipation even worse and I spent most of the first day with a load in my underwear. That just increased my believe my body was different and doing it in my underwear was normal for me.

My parents thought I was lazy or doing it on purpose and going to great lengths to hide it only confirmed their belief. I got quite good at keeping it secret and that became a challenge for me, rather than admitting there was a problem. Going unnoticed at school or out places on the weekend made me feel like I was in control of my situation, but it also made it a lot worse. By the time I started high school I was doing it almost daily. My logs were always big and very firm and without much odor, so I usually just kept wearing my underwear until I got home. It also meant there was only one a day to deal with. The only time I changed was if a teacher or someone said something but that hardly ever happened. All that made my parents and teachers sure I was doing it on purpose. It wasn’t until a teacher decided to make me her challenge that I finally began to change.

[specialmom]

Ah, well, thank goodness for that teacher, right.  Have you ever heard of encopresis?  It's the condition you likely had.  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bursitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20353242  Hopefully you now have strategies to manage bm's to stay comfortable.  good luck

[Airborne532]

Back then I had never heard of it and my parent’s belief I was lazy or doing it on purpose didn’t help. Getting home from school before my parents gave me time to hide my situation and I developed other ways of keeping it secret, like putting clean underwear with my washing. My school must have known I had a problem and there was time I got questioned but for the most part nothing much happened. Not being to smell must have meant I went mostly unnoticed, or they chose to ignore it.

At about the same time as the new teacher started, I began to wear black soccer shorts rather than the standard uniform pants. They were a lot cooler and most of the other boys also started wearing them. That was ok for them but the downside for me was narrow crotch didn’t conceal my underwear very well when I was sitting. I was aware of it but like most boys my short attention span meant paying attention to it didn’t last long, especially during class or when something exciting was happening.

A while after the new teacher started, she asked me to stay back at lunch time and asked me if I had pooped my pants. My first reaction was to deny it until she told me there was no point lying and how she knew. I don’t remember exactly what she said but it was something like. “I can see the evidence in your underwear when sitting, if your going to lie about it maybe you should think about wearing the normal uniform pants or pay attention to how your sitting”. I just stood there not knowing what to say until she said, “come on let’s go to my staff room and see what we can do about it”.

By that time it had become a very established behavior for me so it was quite a bit of a challenge for me to change but she was also very persistent.