Okay, stay with me, I’m serious! This is hilarious and confounding.

So Google provides analytics for every website if you want them, you just have to hook your website up to Google. Then you can go into your analytics account and see how people end up on your site.

I was in digital marketing and website design for 10-ish years, so I absolutely do this. The feedback is good and helps inform and guide website owners what to post and how to reach people. Information is power.

For example, I know that people find my website through the post, My Letter to My Abusive Father.

BUT(T), I also came across THIS valuable piece of information:

In the top three search phrases that brought people to my site, the NUMBER THREE spot was: emotions stored in anus.

Me: Um…whut?

I cannot figure out how people are ending up at Map Your Healing Journey using this search term. I’m not mad – if you know me at all, then you know I can talk about poop et all without blinking an eye (such as, How Emotions are Like Farts). But this was before any emotions-are-like-farts blog posts.

BUT(T) it DID get me thinking about – you guessed it – what emotions, exactly, manifest in the anus? Memories rushed in, and I‘m taking this opportunity to share them with you to determine, once and for all, if emotions are stored in the anus.

Trauma & Grief Hemorrhoids

As I did some research and reflected on my own life, a few anus-centered experiences came to mind.

One of the most obvious signs of stress in my nervous system are hemorrhoids.

Now, hemorrhoids are significant in my life because when I was around 8 years old, I wanted to be a truck driver. Then, at around 10 years old, I found out that truck drivers sit so much that they need to use inflatable donut cushions, because – you guessed it – THEY GET HEMORRHOIDS.

Y’ALL, I GAVE UP MY TRUCK DRIVING DREAM BECAUSE OF HEMORRHOIDS. And ended up getting hemorrhoids anyway.

I tend to get them when there is a big change and not a lot of down time or rest to help process it. As trauma survivors, our minds and bodies have been disconnected. It takes time and effort to reconnect, to trust ourselves, to believe and honor our bodies and emotions. All of this requires down time and rest.

I used to be as busy as possible all the time. Working, not working at a job, be busy busy busy, because my nervous system didn’t know any different. And then, I would feel a ton of stress and get hemorrhoids.

In the last few years, though, I’ve settled down quite a bit. And guess what? No hemorrhoids. Even while maintaining a new small business I started during a global pandemic working with trauma and grief recovery.

Stress and the Anal Fissures

Ah, yes. Ye ol’ anal fissures.

I’ve experienced these once. Completely freaked me out to wipe-wipe and see bright red blood and have no idea what the heck was happening.

So I went to urgent care. In the entrance of this establishment, there was a poster that showed the name and picture of the newest doctor at that practice.

Whew-wy. He was a tall drink of water. Easy on the eyes.

I walked up to the front counter, and during check in, I pointed to the poster of this doctor and said, “Under no circumstances am I to see Dr. Beefcake over there. Absolutely not. My ego will not survive it.”

Fortunately, they had mercy on me. A different doctor diagnosed anal fissures.

Yes, I was under an enormous amount of stress at the time. My marriage was breaking up and my anti-depressants had stopped working, among other things. My body was simply responding to the enormous amount of trauma, grief, and emotions that I was trying to process. Again, without adequate down time or rest, and not really knowing how to settle my nervous system.

The Year I Didn’t Poop

Okay, it was nine months, all told. I wrote about this experience several years ago; you can find Hope Rises in the Poop of Life for Sweatpants & Coffee here.

What was the point of not pooping for nine months? Okay first, I pooped every few days and it was wildly unpleasant.

My nervous system was in a Freeze state, and this was how the freeze state manifested physically.

Now that I know more about how trauma manifests, I can see the cycle of what I went through – shutting down to becoming activated and then back to pooping regularly – using the Polyvagal ladder.

First, I went through a profoundly re-traumatizing event in the summer of 2017. My nervous system went into dorsal vagal shutdown, aka the Freeze state, the bottom of the ladder. I was stuck there, and I didn’t know how to get out.

A PTSD trigger (this was before I had gone through PTSD Remediation in 2020 and learned how to tap into my vagus nerve) coupled with acupuncture helped thaw the freeze and kick me up the Sympathetic Nervous System, aka Fight or Flight. From there, I could more easily access Ventral Vagal, aka the Rest and Digest mode.

And then, I started pooping more regularly.

Trusting a Fart? Usually a Mistake

Okay, not “usually” a mistake, that’s an exaggeration.

There was a stretch of my life, however, when farts could NOT be trusted. Not at home, and certainly NOT out in public.

Why? Undiagnosed and untreated lactose intolerance.

I have done VERY LITTLE official research, but it seems to me that our bodies are intolerant to a lot of things; gluten and dairy, specifically. Personally, I think our bodies are responding to how stressful it is to live in this world, as well as the chemicals that America allows in food that are not allowed in other parts of the world.

Food greatly affects our mental health. When I eat dairy, my depression symptoms shift into high gear, along with the other negative physical symptoms that I experience.

Including, pooping my pants at my colon’s whim. The anus apparently takes some time off, refusing to be an adequate gatekeeper.

So I avoid dairy, which allows my anus to work properly and helps me from getting so terribly depressed.

This Blog Post’s Caboose

Are emotions stored in the anus? One of my friends, who requested anonymity, replied, “Is that a polite way of saying “shove your emotional baggage up your a$$?”

Bwahahahahahaha, no. Not for me, anyway. If anything, I would like emotions freely expressed and not shoved anywhere.

So yeah, that’s my weird “are emotions stored in the anus” tale. This doesn’t count how I’ve noticed emotions gather in my butt muscles and hips, aside from the anus. Ah well, perhaps another blog post.

Until then, I hope my website will rank for the #1 spot when people search using the “are emotions stored in the anus” term. Because yes, yes they are.

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