Did you know there is a correct way to poop? From when to go, how often, how long it should take, what the poop itself should be like – all of it has a correctness that is restricted and if you don’t meet all of these points, you clearly aren’t normal.
And almost none of this is based on medical science or human anatomy.
Without realising it, this is how much of society dictates to each of us what is “acceptable” and what isn’t. Who makes up these rules and who enforces them? No one told me these little poop fact ‘nuggets’, they’re just things I’ve picked up over the years from videos, conversations, health talks. I’ll start with what medical/health science says.
It is ‘normal’ to poop anywhere from 3 times a day to once a week, depending on diet and how your body works with the food you consume. It should not be a painful experience, and definitely NO blood. According to the Bristol Stool Chart (yes they have a chart for this) a 3 or 4 is considered normal. That’s pretty much the list.
According to what more informed society thinks, you should go between 1 and 3 times daily, take no more than 10 minutes at the absolute max, be silent, no grunting or pushing and use almost no paper because everything just fell away cleanly.
I don’t know about you but my experiences have almost never been like that and I don’t know many people who do fit that narrow criteria. Maybe it’s autism or maybe it’s my IBS. Maybe the only people being vocal on this are the exceptions who did fit into the restrictive criteria.
At the end of the day, we should all be finding out what is ‘normal’ for us and being OK with that. Maybe we should be questioning other areas of our life to see what assumptions, dictated by society, on what is acceptable we’ve just picked up and absorbed. All I know is, the more I travel my path of getting to know autistic me, the more what is OK for me/my body doesn’t seem to match up with the status quo normal – and I’m OK with that.