INTRODUCTION

In December 2012 I nervously hit the ‘publish’ button on my latest blog post.  I was about to tell the world (well, anyone who cared to read it!) about something which I had always thought I would never tell anyone, something which I considered to be my shameful childhood secret.  I was about to reveal that I frequently soiled myself as a child, and had carried on doing this until I was 11 years old.

For many years I had believed that people would think the same as me, that frequently pooing my pants when I was well past potty

The words are spoken by a fictional character,
but they could have come from my own mouth.

training age was a babyish and disgusting thing to do, and would judge me accordingly.  This was reinforced by the fact that for so many years I had thought that I was the only school aged child in the world that did this.  Although I later became aware that this was not the case, it was still something that I kept quiet about, a part of my past that was best kept secret.

My discovery, via the internet, of just how many children and young people regularly soiled themselves convinced me to open up and tell my story, in the hope that it might help some of them to understand that they were not alone in having this problem, and for the benefit of the many parents who were struggling to cope with their children’s soiling.  In the previous few years I had posted on internet parenting forums about my experiences, but this was the first time I had told my story in a blog post that would include my full name and photographs.

Fortunately the response from parents was positive, many thanking me for sharing my history and, in particular, finding comfort from the fact that I had eventually stopped soiling my pants.  I was not plagued by any internet trolls and no-one was judgemental or disgusted about what I had done as a child.  The post was also consistently the one with the most hits on my blog.

The covers of my books
for children who soil.

In 2014 I published a book for older children who soil, called A Child Like You, partly based on my own experiences and have recently republished this in separate editions for boys and girls, called A Boy Like You and A Girl Like You. 

Now I have decided that the time has come to start a new blog, this time concentrating on the subject of childhood soiling, which is still often considered a taboo subject in ‘the real world’.  I plan to write in greater detail about my experiences through a series of posts, which may be TMI for some people but I have found that being frank and candid about my childhood toilet problems is appreciated by parents of children who soil.  This blog will not continue indefinitely, when I had said everything I have to say I will stop posting, but the blog will remain to hopefully help future sufferers cope with the distressing condition that is encopresis.

Finally, please note that I live in the UK and will be using British terminology in this blog, but I’m sure American readers will be able to translate ‘pants’ into ‘underwear’!  There will be several childhood photographs of myself, but other pictures are posed by models.  These images, which are marked '(c)', are copyright and used under licence.

For more information on childhood soiling and constipation, and other continence issues in children such as bedwetting, daytime wetting and potty training, why not visit the website of the charity ERIC who specialise in helping with these problems.