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Loo Phobia
As a boy, Ian Wood knew that part of the deal in growing up was that there’d come a time when it was unreasonable to expect to be accompanied to the smallest room by a parent. And that’s when the problem emerged...
The reality of being in there, alone with the plumbing, was terrifying. Literally. I’d have nightmares - about being trapped in a cubicle with a high-level loo behind AND in front of me, unable to block out the sight and sound, and with no way out.
What if the cistern was to break free from its mountings and the long pipe connecting it to the bowl used to strangle me? Another dreadful dream featured a pocket-sized me in the starring role - setting – the toilet bowl - tumbling round and round in a never-ending flush.
When you’re young it’s hard to talk about things like this, especially if the word "phobia" isn’t even in your vocabulary. The fractured thinking in my young mind came out in odd ways. If I was being taken to on a visit to someone’s house, the first thing I’d do was head for the toilet and flush it, without a word of explanation. I HAD no explanation, and to this day still don’t.
I could always use the loo at home. Public urinals: no problem. But to paraphrase John Wayne, a man’s gotta go when a man’s gotta go.
My stays away from home and the one toilet on planet Earth I could use were limited by the time I could avoid going. About a week was the maximum. I’d eagerly sign up for a week’s holiday at my paternal Granny’s, and hope I’d be able to cope - somehow - with her loo. I didn’t like Granny Wood’s loo. It was this big, threatening, hissing, plumbing monster - it was company to be avoided, like the aggressive, overbearing boss at work, or the playground bully who nicks your dinner money. If I did have to use it, every fibre in my being would urge "Don’t look at it. Hurry up. Get out. No, not yet! Wash your hands. Pull the chain. NOW get out." And I would, fleeing from the bathroom as Niagara gushed in the porcelain, scarcely making it out without flooding the place.
As a boy I was thankfully blessed with the constitution of a camel, and this kept visits to the smallest room down to a minimum. But eventually it dawned that I risked either doing myself serious internal mischief, or ending up with the social life of an agoraphobic.
As I moved into adulthood – I somehow managed to come to terms with the use of modern low-level loos. By now if I were going away on holiday, a little discreet research on the facilities would allow me extended time away from home.
But the problem remained, and matters came to a head having moved away to attend college. I’d been assigned lodgings with a family who lived in a large Georgian house. The toilet there pressed every button in my psyche marked "panic". It was high level. It had a flush so loud it was a health and safety hazard to the ears. It hissed with that blood-curdling (make noise here!) sound while at rest. To top it all, the cistern leaked, and every minute or so a droplet of water would fall into a strategically-placed bucket with a thud that made me jump.
The loos in the students’ union had the cisterns hidden away behind the cubicle walls, so they were fine, so the toilet in my lodgings made life inconvenient but not impossible. But one day I woke up in the early hours, and I was not well. After an hour or so it was clear that my fevered body was threatening to evacuate from both ends. I had to the use the loo. But I couldn’t use the loo. "Get in there, NOW," screamed my body. "No chance!" screamed my mind, even louder. My body won out - if you can call it winning - and I just made it in time to the students’ union when it opened in the morning.
With professional help I made some progress in conquering my anxieties. But I think the counsellor ordering me to put my hand inside a cistern full of water was the point at which I checked out of therapy.
These days my phobia doesn’t stop me doing what I want to do or go where I want. I can travel around fairly confident of finding a loo somewhere I can use. I have a mental list of toilets to avoid, where cisterns are so high they’re almost in the stratosphere - the public loos near Torre Abbey in Torquay, the gents at Ascot racecourse, the unisex loos at Rome’s main public transport terminal. All to be avoided.
I’m not long back from holiday, which included a first-time visit to Los Angeles. I asked my host if there were any exotic Californian wildlife I needed to beware. "We’ve got poisonous spiders," she told me. I later saw that one had made a temporary home in the bowl of her toilet.
Have I mentioned I’ve got a fear of spiders?
If you've a dread of household appliances
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