16th August 2016
In such a privileged country, there are so many
things we take for granted. Now, I’m not saying this to shame us western
first-worlders (as I’ve mentioned, suffering is relative); I simply wish to
bring to light a topic that's typically flushed from the general conversation.
This isn’t news for those who know me well, but for those who don’t: my mental
health is sub-standard. I have a pretty bad mood-disorder, and it has a
tendency to fuck my life around. I’m not sure whether it does this for shits
’n’ giggles, or if there’s some metaphysical reasoning behind the whole thing;
but either way it sucks arse.
“Ah,” you’re thinking. “She’s going to talk to us
about mental health and the surrounding stigma in our Australian society.”
Well, that stigma is a thing (I’ve been called crazy more than once) but it
isn’t my exact point. Keep reading.
In May I was admitted into a psychiatric ward due
to mentioned mood disorder. I was in there for a little over a month. There
were nurses, and night checks, and group sessions, and doctors, and all of the
things generally associated with mental health hospitals (except for
straitjackets and lobotomy utensils). There were also patients. Obviously.
Now, think of any psych wards you’ve seen on TV. ‘American
Horror Story: Asylum’, ‘Girl, Interrupted’, ‘Suddenly, Last Summer’, ‘One Flew
Over the Cuckoos Nest’, etcetera, etcetera. And now think of a group of people
eating in a food court. People in modern, real life psych wards look more like
the people you’ve seen eating in food courts (at least the wards I’ve been in,
anyway). Nobody’s swinging from fans, there may be the occasional crier, and
they’re all pretty civilised unless there’s an extreme disorder at play.
They’re just normal humans with overactive minds and underactive bowels.
Because the medications we take will block you up something chronic. And if
you’re on more than one kind of medication, you may not have a bowel movement
in over a week (raises hand).
Pooing. We all do it. Nobody talks about it. And there are SO MANY people who take their bowels
for granted. I know someone who is capable of doing three poos a day. A day.
And their fibre intake is below sufficient. Then you’ve got people like me who
love a good salad, and struggle to squeeze one out three times a month. I’d
never even heard of an enema until this year, and that was when I was told I’d
have to give myself one. I ate a whole bag of prunes one time in an attempt to
solve the ever-prevalent issue of bum-clogging tablets, and still nothing.
So, please, when you take your next shit: be
grateful. Eat your vegetables; raise your knees when you’re sitting on the loo;
use the extra-soft four-ply toilet paper; and make the experience luxurious.
Because you never know when your next bowel movement may be.
*Tapoo