How To Properly Communicate IBS with Friends?

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If the people you're hanging out with get creeped out by your IBS (which is a real physical disease, not something in your head), than they're not worth hanging out with at all. End of story.

These pretentious taboos infuriate me.

Holidays are the absolute worst! Cool whip,MSG,Greasy fatty foods,and lots and lots of meat.Everyone has their special dish and wants to force it on you," You've got to try this!!".I just try and say I can't digest that or I'm allergic or vegan.They really don't want to hear the gory details.

<_<
If I had IBS, it would always be "against my religion" to people I didn't care about or eat with often.

Thanks...so I take it just communicate as necessary, and it is appropriate to ask what they are cooking and offer to bring my own condiments.

I also have IBS and eating at other people's houses is very awkward. I usually just tell them at the time any food they serve me, I can't eat, and if they try and go out their way to try and make something I can actually eat, I tell them not to bother xD I also have allergies too, that are life threatening, so it's just so difficult.

I also have IBS, I found less details are preferable when explaining to people. I usually explain what upset my tummy and that I'll eat when I am hungry or of I'm having a bad day when I can. Stress also sets my IBS off big time, again I just remind people if I'm stressed i probably won't eat

Apatheia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Apatheia (Greek: ἀπάθεια; patheia suffering or passion, a- without) in Stoic philosophy refers to a state of mind where one is not disturbed by the passions. It is best translated by the word equanimity rather than indifference. The word apatheia has a quite different meaning to the modern English apathy which has a negative connotation. According to the Stoics, apatheia was the quality that characterized the sage.

Whereas Aristotle had claimed that virtue was to be found in the golden mean between excess and deficiency of emotion (metriopatheia), the Stoics sought freedom from all passions (apatheia). It meant eradicating the tendency to react emotionally or egotistically to external events - the things we cannot control. For the Stoics, it was the optimum rational response to the world, for we cannot control things that are caused by the will of others or by Nature, we can only control our own will. This did not mean a loss of feeling, or total disengagement from the world. The Stoic who performs correct (virtuous) judgments and actions as part of the world-order experiences contentment (eudaimonia) and good feelings (eupatheia).

Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; ... in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. ... So let us also win the way to victory in all our struggles, - for the reward is ... virtue, steadfastness of soul, and a peace that is won for all time.
—Seneca, Wikisource-logo.svg Epistles, lxxviii. 13-16

The Pyrrhonian skeptics also sought the eradication of feelings when disturbance depends on belief, but allowed for only a moderation of feeling when based on sensations such as pain. The term was later adopted by Plotinus in his development of Neoplatonism, for whom apatheia was the soul's freedom from emotion achieved when it reaches its purified state.

The term passed into early Christian teaching, whereby apatheia meant freedom from unruly urges or compulsions. It is still used in this sense in Orthodox monasticism.

Dinner, movies, or some activity is the "purpose" of hanging out. The bottom line is that the friend wants to spend time with him. The friend's role and intent isn't primarily to feed this guy, but to spend time with him. Cooking is a gesture of friendship, but there's a limit on what you should ask of a new-found friend you just met having to accommodate tons of requests. In fact, it would be easier to suggest alternative activities to the friend. Say, coffee or board game/movie night.

Well, you don't have to stay hours and hours... or you still could easily bring pre-made meals if you plan on staying somewhere 8 hours.
I don't stay at someone's house so long that I have to eat at their house. If you eat dinner, then go to their house for a movie, you could avoid this whole ordeal of them cooking for you.

Asking them how they like to cook their chicken is fine. If you can eat it, fine. If not, you could ask if they could hold off on the seasonings for yours. That's better than giving them some list of what you can and can't eat and so on. Making pancakes for yourself at his place sounds fine. Instead of turning down what he's already cooking while you're over there, I say ... eat beforehand, or bring your own food (either for you or to share). I would be irritated if a new friend accepted my invitation to dinner knowing what I was going to cook, then said they couldn't eat it and left to get food, then I had to wait for them to come back so we could eat. Maybe you should plan to bring food when you show up the first time. Accepting pancakes or whatever that he offered is fine. Plenty of people don't like certain things, so accepting something someone already has is fine.

If this guy really cooks for you that often, sure, you could bring him butter.

Why not invite him to your place and you do some cooking? Or, bring prepared food for you and he to his house? It's nice that he's cooking for you, but reciprocating is good.

Bottom line, you don't want to take advantage of their kindness and understanding by giving them lists of what *you* can eat. Nor do you want to eat whatever and get sick. There's a fine social balance between asking "hey, how are you preparing the chicken," "sorry, I can't eat spices... could we leave my piece spiceless" and "here's my dietary habits, you need to follow them."

Like I said, these people just want to hang out with you. Dinner, movies, or whatever activity... you don't have to stay hours each time nor do you have to make your hanging out time dinners. That might be a lot easier for all of you.