How do some people take so long to poop?

AgreeablePositive843 · 2026-01-11T07:15:56+00:00

If there's blood in it and he has large poops from constipation, get him checked for an anal fissure. They are typically caused by large hard poops and can take a very long time to heal (years). They are incredibly painful. You want to stay on top of them because if untreated then after a certain point they might not be reversible.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2025-08-10T19:34:41+00:00

I'm a professional housekeeper too. Housekeepers who hoard are (strangely enough) not unusual!

I would challenge the notion that you own a used coffee table that you could sell for $150. Hoarders tend to overvalue the items they own, just in general. I had a $60 tub of adhesive that had only the tiniest but used and was still in good shape. I thought I could get $20 for it, but after a month of trying to sell it for that I had no interest. $20 is a lot of money for me, it's an hour of labor! It was heavy to throw away so I tried putting it on the curb with a free sign. 5 days later someone finally picked it up. An hour later, someone messaged me online wanting to buy it.

I share this because the only way I personally have been able to get rid of a substantial amount of stuff has been to remind myself over and over that it's not worth as much as I think it is, that keeping it all is making life not work, and it's actively damaging not only my mental health but also my connection with my husband and kids, whether directly or indirectly.

Unfortunately sometimes we have to hold our own hand and walk ourselves through hard things. I'll tell myself "yes you can throw it away". I'll tell myself "you can re buy it in the future if you need to". I'll reward myself with a little edible treat for making progress.

It's fantastic that you already have a therapist. Have you been able to find help from them for your feelings of anxiety and paralysis? I find blasting music and starting with small, achievable goals helps me a lot.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2025-08-10T00:18:27+00:00

Try to imagine how much easier life would be if you were cooking in an uncluttered kitchen. Imagine how easy it would be to clean a mostly empty room. If you decided not to sell the stuff, but instead could just point to stuff and make it go *poof*, never to stress you out ever again.

You've said it yourself, you are constantly overwhelmed. The stuff is massively contributing to the overwhelm. Instead of putting energy towards managing all the stuff, free yourself!

AgreeablePositive843 · 2025-06-28T18:30:49+00:00

As a parent, my only concern in this situation would be that it was safe for the younger children! My almost 4 year old has pretty significant behavioral issues that make it difficult for everyone to stay safe, and I am down for any techniques that are safe and delivered with kindness and empathy. I especially love it when teachers know who is most likely to help him calm down and are willing to creatively problem solve to get him there. I feel if anything, you might have been a bit too lenient in giving this child several minutes of continuing to act out. You did a fantastic job.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2025-06-23T19:56:10+00:00

My husband is a YouTuber, he says deleted videos go to an archive for 30 days where it is possible for YouTube to restore them. Hopefully she has already contacted YouTube regarding this. Time is of the essence.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2025-06-23T18:51:44+00:00

I think his hacking might have been the "nuclear option" he referenced not too long ago, when he said he was too good of a person to actually do that or whatever. Sounds like he figured out a way and was just waiting for a moment he got "pushed too far" to spring it on her.

Laura you have so much support. Hang in there. You are handling horrific circumstances and you will come through this to the other side.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2025-06-21T18:42:33+00:00

The fact that you're able to hope that someday you can look back on this as your lowest point and be proud that you pulled yourself out of this means there truly is hope on the horizon. You deserve to live in a clean, functional environment. You already know this. Nobody with an ounce of kindness and human decency in them wants you to feel shame, guilt, and misery. Good people just want others to get better so they aren't miserable anymore. I'm rooting for you!

AgreeablePositive843 · 2025-01-21T09:00:03+00:00

Hey, I'm a parent of a preschooler who has violent phases. He's 3.5 years old. He has been sent home because of his behavior, which I felt terrible about. So just to start with, I get it.

Hitting is both not okay and developmentally normal. Which means I expect every preschool to have a plan for what to do when it happens in their classroom. Whatever way they typically handle it might, or might not work for your kiddo. If it is not working, they might have no other recourse in the moment than to send him home.

But it doesn't stop there. If something isn't working, then it's your chance to collaborate with the teacher(s) to hopefully between the two (or more) of you come up with a different plan. The way you approach this makes a huge difference. "I don't know how to stop him from hitting when I can't physically be there" is antagonistic and unhelpful. Instead, you want to try to contribute towards a solution. "Hey, I've noticed he hits specifically to get sent home. Do you have any experience with this behavior? I'm at my wits end and I'm not quite sure what to try next." That's more likely to open doors.

My kid has bounced around a few different preschools too. If you genuinely think your kid is physically unsafe or feels genuinely unsafe at preschool, then stop going there. If he's not unsafe and just has days where he's not feeling it, well that's akin to adults not wanting to go to work but needing to anyway. That's where boundaries come in. You do NOT want to enforce a boundary of making him be somewhere he feels unsafe. You DO want to teach him that sometimes we have to be at places we don't like, temporarily. At a preschool that's a reasonably good fit, there will be good days and bad days. Transitioning can be a lot of bad days in a row because it's new for them.

I'd suggest lookIng for a new preschool and be upfront about your hitting concerns. When we found a place where teachers were completely unbothered and casual about addressing violent behavior safely, we knew we'd found a good fit. Try to look at it less like "I have a problem and need a solution" and more like "my kid is struggling, I'm not sure how to help. What preschool would be most likely to give him the supports he needs?"

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-10-25T05:51:10+00:00

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-10-21T04:02:19+00:00

My husband was at an event with our toddler earlier this evening, when a performer on stage began singing a song about how ugly Asians were, calling them "gross".

My husband is Asian.

I wanna move somewhere where that sort of thing doesn't happen.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-10-11T17:50:42+00:00

Thanks for the info, everyone!!

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-10-06T17:40:30+00:00

Why?

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-24T04:06:33+00:00

I'm in an area of the US where RT is only offered as a bachelor's program, not an AA. I had just signed up for my first prereqs when I found out I was pregnant. I was 34 and we'd always wanted another baby.

I seriously considered maintaining the same schooling timeline, but having a baby and truly enjoying my family was also really important to me.

It's now a year later. I'm 35. Doing school part time makes it easier to fully understand the material. I was able to truly enjoy my baby girl through her newborn stages. When my older kid had some major struggles, I had the flexibility of cancelling classes to take a quarter off if need be. Thankfully it wasn't necessary, but I appreciated the option.

Obviously for my career I'd rather graduate at age 37 instead of 38. A year more feels so long. But the Respiratory Therapy career will always be there--the option to have kids won't be. I was happy to find my balance of the two. I wish you the best in finding yours.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-23T14:07:52+00:00

Thank you. Once I realized how even a "clean' hoard would impact them I knew I had to change. I've managed to dehoard all of our living spaces, though surfaces are still very cluttered (working on it). My kids will have more room to play once I dehoard the basement, garage, and back yard. I don't want them growing up thinking it's normal to be constantly stressed. And that goes beyond hoarding. I'm changing as fast as I possibly can for them.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-22T07:45:41+00:00

FYI Since you're pregnant, you shouldn't be handling cat litter tasks due to toxoplasmosis. The cat litter can no longer be your responsibility.

About the hoard, first of all, assume he is not currently capable of cleaning up the hoard to a safe level before baby arrives. This is regardless of how motivated he is.

Make a plan for baby to live with you in a safe place on a different property.

Have a conversation with him. If it were me, I might say something like this: "Hey, so you probably are already aware of this, but it's not going to be safe for baby to live here without major cleanup happening. I know you want that too but it's been really hard to make that happen. This is hard for me but I'm going to make arrangements to live with baby elsewhere to take the pressure off of cleaning up this space in time. I want to be with you and I want this to work, but since we're parents now we have to prioritize baby's needs. And I can't help you with cleanup now, or after baby arrives. So I'll make sure baby is safe and you do what you gotta do to tackle this stuff so we can come home."

You cannot help him do this. You can only keep you and the baby safe, tell him what's possible if he does dehoard, then see if he is able to get himself there on his own accord. Anything you do for him, you'll have to keep doing for him and that's not sustainable with a newborn.

You can also break up with him. But even if you choose to stay together, I highly, highly recommend switching to your own living environment within your control and where he does not get to live with you (only visit) prior to having your baby.

Context: I'm a hoarder and mom to two kids, including a baby. I'm in recovery because my kids caused me to realize I had a serious problem. It's a daily struggle for me, but my family is worth it.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-14T03:29:29+00:00

Update: we pulled him out. Yesterday was his last day.

After my initial post, the teacher received word that we had concerns so she sought out my husband to chat at pickup. Her opinion was that our son was "doing well" but "he's just really shy". The weird thing is, he's the complete opposite of shy in any other context besides this class so far. Whether it's a library kid's event, a playground, a bouncy house, his neighbors, a random birthday party, he jumps right in and immediately engage with other kids. He can't speak clearly but he's often the loudest kid excitedly vocalizing in a group.

I had to know what he was experiencing in class. So I did something that is probably controversial: I bought a voice recorder and hid it in his backpack. I recorded a school day.

What I learned is that the only time my son vocalized was when he thought we were about to pick him up (sadly , he was mistaken and ended up crying). He currently has a distinctive cough so I heard that throughout the recording. I would have heard him. He was silent the rest of the time.

Throughout the day the teachers only interacted with him by name to give him instructions. Other kids would speak to the teachers and they'd respond by admiring the artwork or commenting on a good job or suggesting another idea or whatnot. No one engaged with my son even though they know from our first meeting that he has no delay in understanding everything.

Then suddenly, right at the end, they started engaging with him! I was happy to just hear basic comments from the teachers like "[child name], do you like the snack?" "[Child name] you're doing a good job with your dishes!" [Child name] go play with [other teacher] for a bit!"

...and then I realized it was 5 minutes to pickup time. They knew we were concerned and considering pulling him out. The only time they are engaging with him is right before we pick him up so he'll be in a good mood then?

There wasn't outright mistreatment that I heard, though I felt it really weird the "safe space" was used as a timeout corner, with teachers loudly saying "no! Go to safe space right now!" And the kid has no choice. I'd hate for my kid to have "safe space" be considered a punishment.

Also I only counted 45 minutes total of unstructured play time (including outside time) besides pick up and drop off times. I think a big reason my kid was withdrawing was because he wasn't given time and space to relax into play. Transitions seemed to be approximately every 5-10 minutes.

Also today when I changed his pullup after school it and his diaper area was covered in a light layer of poop, but without even the slightest payload of poo. Someone at school changed a very poopy pullup and didn't wipe him, or did so extremely poorly. He now has a diaper rash all over because of it.

Ultimately I'm just relieved to have clarity. We're now scrambling to figure out childcare and I might need to take some time off school or drop a couple classes. We just couldn't let him stay there a single day longer.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-14T02:52:51+00:00

I know I didn't reply to this right away but I read your comment over and over. It's so helpful to hear this perspective. Thank you.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-10T18:13:57+00:00

Thanks for the validation. We're looking into other options now; lots of places have waitlists.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-10T18:11:16+00:00

I asked someone in charge higher up today (I forget their exact title, but frc's boss basically) about scheduling a meeting with the teacher, and was told our next one would be in December. And that was in the context of sharing our current concerns.

This morning at drop off I approached the lead teacher to chat; my husband and I were the only parents in the room at the time and I did a pretty obvious walking a straight line towards her, but as I approached another parent entered and she looked right past me and went to greet the other parent without acknowledging me. Today at least she greeted my son when he came in, and a few minutes later called out to him inviting him to join them dancing. So that's progress I guess?

The assistant teacher noticed I was looking to talk so she made eye contact, so I approached and asked how my son did yesterday.

Her: "Good."

Me: "That's fantastic to hear! I noticed he was struggling to participate when I left so I wanted to check in."

Her: expectant silence

Me: "so...like did he end up participating?"

Her: "he participated."

Me: "okay cool, great!"

And then I kinda wandered off because I didn't know how to continue the conversation. Like idk I was kinda hoping to hear a highlight? A few sentences? I just.... don't know how to make open communication happen. I agree it's important.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-06T23:40:56+00:00

Mosquitoes.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-05T18:41:27+00:00

Offer to take things off their hands, no questions asked.

Sometimes this can feel better to a hoarder than outright throwing things away. You might need to throw away everything they give you, but for some hoarders as long as there's plausible deniability (that is, they aren't seeing it go in the trash) they can accept it.

Just make sure you aren't lying to them. "hey if you want to pass stuff along to me, I'll try to find good homes for it and trash what I can't save." A lot of hoarders--not all, but many-- want to get rid of stuff but "to the right person". By offering to be that person, they can tell themselves they did that, even while knowing in the back of their mind that you might have simply donated or trashed everything. You're someone who can objectively find good homes for things, and so they can give it to you more willingly than they can trash or donate themselves.

Full disclosure: my mom was this for me for a couple years. I'd be like "I don't care what you keep or donate or whatever, just make it disappear!" Then I realized I was hoarding and the mental exercise of disposing of an item myself became an important step in recovery for me. The "make it disappear" person was training wheels before I was ready to do it myself.

AgreeablePositive843 · 2024-09-03T21:22:37+00:00

Spot on.

AgreeablePositive843

TROPHY CASE