Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Best mood medications

It may be that medications would help you, but I wonder if we'd be better off trying to handle our emotions better, rather than simply drugging them away.

Just speaking personally, I think what I need to work on is actually allowing myself to experience the emotion. Just sitting with the feeling for a few minutes, being with it. Then observing as the feeling passes.

I think my IBS is related to an inability to fully intergrate my emotions in a healthy way - therefore the emotions find their expression in the bowel. When I feel angry, for example, I automatically feel guilty or frustrated by my anger, and I rush to analyze/judge/reason with it. I rush to think before allowing myself to feel. And as a result I get stressed by the feeling. Instead of just acknowledging that anger is a normal human emotion and doesn't make me a bad person.

This is a long rambling which is maybe unhelpful to you. Point being that I think people with IBS truly need to learn how to cope with "bad" emotions like rage, sadness, envy, resentment - to accept them and realize that you are not your thoughts, that these feelings don't define you. Learn to recognize and have compassion for your feelings - through walking, talking, writing, breathing, meditating - instead of suppressing them with drugs, ignoring them, or pushing them down (into the bowel).
Just my two cents.

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IBS-C, lots of spasm and trapped gas.

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