For the third time in 30 minutes, I ask my first-grade teacher to go to the bathroom. I don’t have time to explain, and I don’t understand why my stomach continues to twist. I widen my eyes and scrunch my face to show my sincere desperation. She looks at me, unconvinced at first, then hands me a hall pass. Squeezing my eyes shut, I walk to my destination, wishing that it could all just make sense.

I’ve struggled with digestive issues, specifically diarrhea, for over ten years, and it isn’t something I used to disclose. But I grew tired of feeling like it was something I needed to hide. While this wasn’t something that I have to share, funky digestive systems and stomach pain aren’t uncommon and they’re some of many bodily dysfunctions that I don’t hear much conversation about. I’ve discovered through discussions about my digestive issues with friends and family that a lot of people struggle with conditions like eczema that present unwanted symptoms, and though we may not share the same issues, we’re able to understand and sympathize with each other, and offer support and advice.

My stomach aches didn’t become a serious, near-daily recurrence until middle school. Over the course of the pandemic, and the start of my return to in-person learning, I developed a lot of anxiety, which I found out affected how often my stomach would hurt. Somehow, I convinced myself that moving too much would also increase the stomach pain and I would limit or freeze my movement, hoping that it would go away.

I was terrified of using public bathrooms in middle school due to their lack of privacy, but when I entered high school, my discovery of gender-neutral bathrooms at Lowell became a huge relief. However, when the sign-out policy and keys to these bathrooms were administered, that personal reassurance felt compromised. I’d used a sign-out system in middle school involving giant neon orange papers my teachers had to sign, with my ears burning. I tried to be discreet about it but ended up having to ask in front of the class anyway, which was something I didn’t want to repeat.

Sometimes, my stomach felt so awful that I would miss half of a class to relieve myself, because the alternative was to uncomfortably squirm around and being unable to pay attention. Once, during my sophomore year, I decided that it would be better to find a restroom than to go to my class for attendance, and by the time I felt alright again, two-thirds of class was over. It didn’t feel worth it to go to class afterwards, knowing that my friends and tablemates would ask where I’d been, and that the lesson would be paused while I explained in a silent classroom to my teacher why I had been gone for so long. In my mind, there was no reason why I should have to share my business in the bathroom, and I worried that this wasn’t an acceptable or believable excuse to be gone for so long.

Over time, I learned that ingesting certain foods and drinks also led to digestive unrest, and I’ve done my best to mitigate them since. Lactose-laden, spicy, or cold foods and drinks were things I tried to avoid, or consumed in moderation with a Lactaid pill to lessen the effects. I also began trying to drink more water. Even though I still had some anxiety, slowly but surely, I started to feel a bit better.

Gradually, I started feeling silly that I would sneak around the school in search of a bathroom. I realize now that most people don’t really care, and are just trying to go through their day. Even though I still find myself visiting the bathroom more often than I’d like, I’ve accepted that this is something I’ll have to coexist with for a long time. I can face this with a little less worry knowing that I have ways to curb the pain, and that there’s people out there who share how I feel.