if you had the choice

[pete24]

So there you are in the morning and you have been for a poo and you see something not perfect...do you sit and woory all day....or go again [several tiomes maybe cos people with HA dont beleive what they see]......Thats the dilemma i face most days....i dont look down toilet but something will trigger checking....any ideas?

[PanchoGoz]

Well if its anything other than brown and poolike then I know its an upset stomach. Simple as that. I got a christmas card once detailing all the different types of poo eg. spikey, black poo, eggy poo, slug poo etc. Very interesting indeed. Gosh I wish I had it now to show you.
And what is the "perfect" poo? Is there such a thing?!

[dodo]

If I had a funny poo sure I would think about it but I wouldn't go again. I;d wait to see what the next one is like. Have you seen a Dr about your OCD with poo checking?

[Vixxy]

I think everyone has that whole worry that they cannot believe what they saw and therefore worry they missed something important. however when it comes to checking your poo, unless something is screaming at you that its not right, then its probably ok.
If its blue, then you need to worry :p Trust that unless its got an obvious problem youre ok and dont need to revisit it.

[fightingmyself]

Amazingly this happened to me about half an hour ago. And the thing is you do have a choice.

I did 3 checks yesterday, and 1 first thing this morning.

I had just done my thing and had been mulling it over at work what I should do, once at home with all my checking paraphanalia. The sun was streaming in through the window, so I couldn't get better lighting.

I know for an absolute certainty that checking makes me worse. The anticipation of whether I will get the outcome I want or not can get me in a state before I even start a check.
I sat there not wanting to check, but desperatly wanting to check at the same time. I wasn't going to just have a quick peep, I was going to start disecting and examining. I turned round with my hand covering my eyes and squinted to see that there was nothing on the pan, and saw that my wife had put some blue toilet cleaner down which had foamed abit so I couldn't see what was in there.
My hand was shaking as I flushed the loo. Then it was gone.

To any normal person, the above would sound ridiculous, but it has been my main focus throughout the day.

When I came downstairs, I felt proud of myself, that I managed to abstain from checking. Yes, I felt anxious, but I know that it is the right thing to do. I now feel less anxious than before, and I know I have the choice.

Realistically checking doesn't work. Anything there now would most probably have been there this morning. If it worked, I wouldn't have checked 3 times yesterday. But yesterday I checked, then checked again because I was unsure, then again cause I was still unsure. I was completely empty by this time so had no choice about checking. Went to bed at 11, woke up at 4am, and guess what was on my mind?

Still i'll have to go through it all again next time, but i'll try and control my anxiety, rather than let it control me.

[joannap]

unless you are passing blood which can be obviously seen or have a change in bowel habit for more than 2 weeks such as chronic diarrohea or constipation then there is nothing to check lol x

[pete24]

hi my wife thought i wrote your comments fighting myself

[fightingmyself]

Hi pete24, its somehow nice when someone else is like you. I know the first time I went to cbt and saw the printed literature it made me feel a bit less mad.
For what its worth, I haven't checked again yet. A bit like AA, one stool at a time...

[fightingmyself]

Incidentally, although I haven't checked the toilet, I have checked something else, so its only a horizontal improvement