Public toilets and "the rules"

[Pebbles16]

Not a TAAT I hope, but I have been truly amazed by some people on another thread who would absolutely refuse to use a public toilet for a poo (and not just public, but also work and other spaces)

Disclaimer: as a person with very limited bowel control, a RADAR key and a card that I try to use as little as possible, when I need to go, I need to go.

However, for many people, I would have thought that "relieving yourself" when you feel the need is normal, and a healthy response is to visit a toilet. It is not some shameful social faux pas.

Perhaps some people can time it all perfectly (a nirvana that I cannot imagine); but surely they must be a small percentage such as us who "cannot wait".

Holding it all in cannot be healthy - would it be like not going for a wee and getting a UTI?

So, as a conversation starter: is doing a poo in a loo anywhere that isn't your house a complete no no?

all these people at work giggling and making a fuss because someone is performing a normal bodily function that we all do are the knobs, not the people creating a smell in a toilet.

Get some air fresheners and get over yourselves.

It's so weird. On office days I'm out of the house for 12 hours, which I'm sure isn't hugely unusual. Of course I poo when I need to

I simply don’t need to go. No discomfort or urges.

My brain and bowel have a symbiotic relationship. My bowel is completely dormant until my brain tells it it’s ok.

I have a bowel complaint so when I need to go I need to go- no choice. I have spent an inordinate amount of time in public toilets in agony - no choice. I don’t always want to go in public toilets but what else can I do?

OTOH, my best friend - when she was dating her now husband, would go HOME if she was at his and return after if she’s needed a poo. When we go away, she also saves it up and waits til she is home to go. I don’t get it (because it cannot work for mr) but that’s her. Different strokes for different folks

I prefer to wait till I get home. I think it's standard to prefer to poo in private. Obviously if I was desperate it can't be helped.

@FlamingoFloss, your friend could go on a two week holiday and not have a poo till she got home?!?!?

Fucking hell. I have moderate IBS. 4 poos in a day is considered a slow day for me. I usually go twice before breakfast.

If i need a poo i need a poo…end of as some might say 😀

i did have a friend who would virtually never go to the loo at work….if god forbid she needed to she would line the toilet bowl with toilet paper so there wouldn’t be a splash 😳

No, but I wish people would clean up after themselves. Had a shocker in a (surprise surprise) unisex loo the other week when a disgusting man went in before me and spent ten minutes making the most godawful mess and made no effort to clean it 🤮

I wouldn't go in a public toilet unless it was a dire emergency. I also will not go to the toilet at work as we have those awful unisex loos. When I need a wee at work I walk 5 mins to the nearby supermarket to use their single sex loos.

It's a bit of an inconvenient nightmare tbh but people are so filthy and unclean in these places I'm just not comfortable using them.

I've never had a UTI or bowel issue though. I have very much trained myself to wait and have done so since I was a young girl.

I don't want to ask, so I am not going to, but I have seen statements on MN about poo trolls before and consistently bemused by it.
I presume there are people who think poo is... erotic? Bloody hell.
With proctosigmoiditis, I could make a fortune!
This is a joke.

I applaud you all with a marvellous - did someone say symbiotic - relationship with your bowels.

However, could you therefore not shame those (us) who have less than predictable habits? I think that's the thing I find hard. The shaming, the disdain and implied shame that we cannot control our bodies as well as you do. And, therefore, our smells, noises and time in the toilet makes life less pleasant for you.

I will poo anywhere but tend to go in the morning so am at home anyway. DH doesn't have a choice as he has IBS.

DS is really picky though. Not sure where it comes from as he has always been like it.

My mum had ocd and made us wash hands constantly so as a kid I'd avoid public loos but now i relieve myself as and when needed, no matter who's around or how dirty the toilet.

i am at home only plus i like my own loo paper
i have been in a public loo and i never forget the look on the woman's face who went in after me

@Pebbles16 I perhaps should have stated that my fear of public pooping is entirely my issue and I certainly don't judge anyone who goes when they need to. The problem I have with the state of public loos is - to be frank - almost exclusively due to dirty men. I wish it didn't bother me so much but my bowels seem to shrivel up at the thought. No judgement from me OP x

I remember being genuinely astonished when a school friend went to the loo twice in one lunch break and I asked her why and she said rather primly "different things at different times". Mind blown! We were 12, and I never had nor ever did poo in the school loos. And it wasn't like I consciously denied myself a needed poo, the school loos were never considered an appropriate location for that to happen. No idea why.

For me, it depends on the level of urgency 🤷🏻‍♀️😂😂
I’m in good health, I don’t have any medical issues that would mean I need to use a public toilet more often that the average person. I’m also very regular, like clockwork: I wake up, finish my cup of tea, poo.
So on a normal day, if I feel that feeling that an unexpected poo is on its way, I can usually wait until I’m home, in the comfort of my own bathroom to get the job done. And I’d much rather do that. So I do. Pretty much every single time.
But then there’s the odd occasion that an emergency strikes 🫣🫣🫣 Like last year, I was at the airport. We’d had spicy chicken wings the night before. And that was a real emergency 😳 I felt the rumble and cramping in my belly that everyone dreads and I quite literally had to run into the loo.

As someone who sometimes has to run to the loo at short notice, a game changer for me has been the "poo sprays", or even just a small spray bottle with a bit of boiled water and a few drops of aromatherapy oil, sprayed on the water before of any activity. Our cleaner no longer makes snotty comments so I reckon it must be working.

”However, could you therefore not shame those (us) who have less than predictable habits? I think that's the thing I find hard. The shaming, the disdain and implied shame that we cannot control our bodies as well as you do. And, therefore, our smells, noises and time in the toilet makes life less pleasant for you.”

I agree completely, @Pebbles16 - it is horrible enough having a bowel disorder that flare up without warning, causing me to risk a horrendous accident if I can’t get to a loo fast enough - but now I know that there are people out there judging me and/or laughing at me for it.

And I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the ‘I’m not talking about people with genuine illnesses’ disclaimer - because how the hell do they know, just by looking, whether someone has an illness or is just choosing to poo in a public loo for shits and giggles? I don’t believe they can, so I am pretty damn sure they will have been judging people like me who had zero choice but to poo in a public loo.

@tripleginandtonic this is super interesting as my mum was (and still is but less) a bleach fiend and a germaphobe. Still hovers and will use Tena rather than a toilet!
She has been totally shocked sometimes with my "choices" particularly an entirely grim public convenience in Gramercy Park which had visible needles and blood. Was not my first choice, but my only choice at the time.

I was stormed in on a few times as a kid, and at secondary I needed a BM and some kids from two years below were hanging in the loo and not leaving, nasty kid sister of a girl in my year said 'plop' every time she saw me after that.

These things can make a person feel anxious going round others.

I have to be relaxed, so it just happens naturally for me that I only need to go when at home. I have never 💩 in a public toilet in my life.

I really try not to as there is no privacy

I used to hold it all day at work or out, like 6 hours +. Then I had a bum tear (3rd degree) giving birth to my son and now I daren’t wait longer than about 30 mins.
@Tontostitis sounds like you might have a little rectocele. There’s loads of physio that can help with that btw.

Unfortunately I don’t have a sticker that states my bowel issues so I must be one of the people that other judge.

I prefer to poop in either of the loos in my own house, however if needs must then I do what I need to do in a public toilet. I actually feel sorry for those who think that's abnormal behaviour. 😧