Sit on your toilet at home and take some pictures of your surroundings. Print them and take them with you to the office or other foreign toiletories that you frequent and focus on them while you try to go. Just looking at the familiar things in your own bathroom might be enough to trick your mind into relaxing your bum.
_______
Always looking out for number two!

I think Motherload's advice is good. But seriously if you don't have to poop, why worry about it?

If you think it's important, eat an overdose of Metamucil every day on your next trip away from home.

Take the home toilet seat with you. It'll only take a few minutes to switch on and off the "foreign" toilet. It can be carried discreetly in a briefcase.

I've had similar experiences. I've noticed that when I'm travelling or staying at someone else's house I don't go at my usual time and sometimes don't go for a couple of days. I think you're probably eating and sleeping differently, which effects your poop. Metamucil is a possible solution. It helped my little brother when he was suffering. You're also probably psyching yourself up so much that you can't go....don't obsess about it, just go when it feels natural.

I'm with DungDaddy on this. I think I'd gladly trade places with you. I'm currently traveling, and I hate checking out of a hotel room given that it means that I'm giving up my toilet without knowing for sure where or when I'll find the next one. If I knew that I could "leave home without it," and not worry about shitting my pants, I think I'd get out more. So do some traveling and enjoy yourself while this lasts.

You are shameless in your heart...that's all that counts dude!

Why force things? You dont have to really go it sounds like so why be concerned. Be glad you can poop on your home toilet. You spend most of your time at home anyway probably unless you always on the road. So you have a .500 or better record crapping on the home toilet. Be happy with that be glad you dont have such strong urges that you are ready to shit yourself because you have to hold it in. Heed your starfish. Obey your starfish.br>_______
The Thunderous Crapper 63 Enjoying home toilet advantage since 2004!

I'm just gonna throw it out there cause I am so curious...what happened to the dumpster?

I'm 35 and have had this problem for years. I've often wondered if it's the overall height of the toilet and when I'm away from home, trying to be productive on a toilet that is higher or lower than what I am accustomed to at home. I also feel the comfort of the seat is another issue. I've gone two or three days without a crap and when I'm at a basketball game at our city's sports complex, I'll sit on the older, more larger-contoured black seat and not be able to push it out. Within 8 hours early the next morning I wake up, and I'm able to completely evacuate after just a few seconds on my apartment toilet. I don't, however, get any sympathy from my husband. He can shit within seconds of sitting down--anywhere--port-a-potties included.

Pooteronomy, Welcome to Poopreport! You have certainly come to the right place for help.

I really like Motherload's advice, because it sounds like you have a mental block, not a colonic one. And it's good to take care of this. If you don't poop for a few days, you surely must feel like shit. If you don't poop for a week, you might end up in the hospital.

You might be able to take the visual triggers one step further by using a scent trigger. Is there anything in your home bathroom that you smell besides poop? Like baby powder, a certain cologne?

Maybe you could start smelling something every time you took a dumper. Buy a bottle of obscure parfum or cologne, and smell it when you take a crap. Take the bottle with you on the road. Sit on the foreign pot and smell it - who knows? Maybe it will help.

If you decide to try this method, let us know if it helps. I guess it's an aromatic version of Pavlovian Thought. Besides, I read somewhere that the sense of smell is the most powerful of our senses when concerning memory. If you employ this suggested sniff method every time you crap, it might reprogram your mind without you having to!

And yes, drink extra water and use Metamucil. Never a bad idea.

_______
.....hugging bunnies since 1969
www.daphneszoo.com

_I think this is ass security issue, plainly your anal retentivness,is attributible to the fear of being discovered as a pooper. the very mention of the word shameless, indicates your frustration spiraling out of control, rather than your backside. advice would be as follows: when away from home, try do 'double bolt' yourself into a secure area---- for instance - a locked hotel room, with en'suite, and a locked en'suite. -I have a similar problem, exacerbated by terrible IBS.....but i have found to my relief that the double bolt theory, actually works

______
i just cant work this one out????

I don't know if age has anything to do with it, but if it does, I'm 13 years younger than Anita and have a couple of "theories" about why I have so much difficulty taking a shit away from my dorm room. I agree with Anita that the height of the toilet and the frame of the seat may have something to do with it. As my failure-to-produce problem only seems to worsen, I find myself only being sure to shit if I take the walk (and sometimes its more than a mile on my campus) back to my dorm room bathroom. When I'm in the student union, in a classroom building or the library, I can sit down, feel it needing to come out, but waste 10 minutes or more without any results. Last year, a friend suggested that I was making my public toilet shit too "formal" compared to my dorm room because I was putting a layer of toilet paper on the seat for me to sit on. So then I tried sitting directly down on the seat and the cold seat (I'm in Wisconsin)also was a discomfort to me. I worked part-time at Wal-Mart where they have those toilet seat tissues in the employee break area lounge bathroom and when I would place one of those on the seat, that also seemed to keep me from relaxing and immediately dumping my load. I almost got a crap out one morning by spreading my legs, but I ripped the seat protector and after I looked down and saw that part of my thigh was off the paper and directly on the seat, I wasn't able to complete the task. A half hour later I was able to go and left a three-day dump in my dorm room toilet. Figure that!

Must be the cheese.

It's definitely a mental thing. The same thing happens to me when I'm not relaxed and when I am conscious of a stench that might be left behind. It usually helps if I have my Ipod on, tune out all of the background noises, and pretend that I am on my porcelain throne (in my master bedroom). I drop the load and flush simultaneously (drop one, flush one) and this helps me tremendously.

_______
A Giant Log Would Be Worth Its Weight In Gold!!!!

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I may try daphne's suggestion of sensory association.
Baron von Crapalot may also be onto something.

I want to be shameless, and consciously I am. If I have to fart while on the toilet I do, and take great pride in some of them :) However sub-consciously I am probably not shameless.

I know I should count my blessings, as LogJam suggested, but I'd like to have a bit more control of myself than that. Traveling worries me because I never know if I can go. Usually, as mentioned, I don't. This means I eat less, feel like crap, and worry quite a bit. I am always trying to get back to the hotel room, or to the nearest toilet because "I think it's a-comin", but in the end it doesn't, and I waste my time, and everyone else's. As I said, I feel it is strange. I actually get the "poo gurgles", the minute I turn off the highway to go to my apartment. Regardless of what time this is, something inside of me is saying "we're almost home, time to poop".

On the bright side, I am free to jump on trampolines all I want, while traveling!

Pooteronomy, here is a suggestion that might help. From now on, when you are pooping at home, close your eyes and listen to a certain song (or set) on your ipod. You will condition yourself over several weeks to put yourself in that specific place. When you do travel, try hitting the can both when you have to go and when you don't. Both times sit on the pot with your eyes closed and listen to the same music. Let me know if this helps.

Oh, and I travel a lot, and I hate it when I can't find a good trampoline.

hey ur not alone....i have the same prob...and it sucks! I mean it be nice to beable to crap@work,at least then i'd be getting paid to poop!

I know! At my middle school I'm so embarrassed to go. Last year I had this weird schedule. I only pooped once a day.
Now I have to go twice a day or maybe even more!

Once at the Cosmosphere I couldn't poop for 3 days.
I couldn't signal myself...or whatever...seriously. I couldn't.

What's really weird for me is that my poop is sort of "stimulated". I can poop better at home when it is raining or snowing or something. It's really weird...

Are you sure you're a shameful shitter and not just having TP anxiety? I know I avoid shitting in public not because of the act of shitting, but because of the act of wiping. I'm terrified (because it happens EVERY FUCKING TIME) that I will be stuck in the bathroom for hours with a million wiper because of lousy toilet paper. Try bringing some of your own, mentally remind yourself that it is in your briefcase, and see if things change.

_______
Born right the first time.