My Most Serious Phobia (Public Restrooms) and the Reason For It

What looks harmless to some is a source of major anxiety to others.

IMPORTANT DISTINCTION; This blog entry describes an event  that happened to me. It does not, nor did it ever, define who I am. It was merely a day out of my life -- one that cause a bit of fallout, but still just one day, nonetheless. A victim is not who I choose to be.

Before moving on to my more serious phobia, I should report that everything is fine on Catalina to the best of my knowledge. Chances are that somewhere on the island someone is drinking himself or herself ill, or someone is quarreling with a significant other, but since it's happening in neither room sharing a wall with my hotel room, I'm blissfully unaware of it.

Furthermore, the babies are doing fine in our absence. If  one of them misses any one of us, no one is sharing that information with us. Baby Camille is up to four pounds, fourteen ounces.  As soon as she gains six more ounces, her interval between onset of feedings can be increased from its present one hour to ninety minutes.

Now I'll move onto my most serious phobia. It's long and convoluted, but I cannot make it otherwise. Sorry.I cannot enter a public restroom by myself without someone checking it out to make sure that no one is hiding in there, just waiting to harm me. If I'm  by myself when i really must use the restroom, I wait until someone else who looks safe goes in, and I follow that person. i take the stall nearest the door. If wash my hands as quickly as possible. I carry germicide gel in my purse that I can use once I'm outside of the restroom to more fully decontaminate my hands. I know that stuff  [germicidal gel, soap, or other products] is bad for the world of bacteria and should ideally be reserved for use in hospitals and other clinical medical settings. Its widespread use i contributing to the development of bacteria that are more resilient to germicides and antibiotics. Still, I use it in such occasions because I feel as though I have no choice.

 I have no issue with private restrooms which have locks on their doors. Furthermore, I'm not like my dizzy brother, who until he was almost five thought he would be sucked down a toilet if  It was not a random attack. he stood too near it when it was flushed. I wish I could say my fear was based on something so irrational.

When I was fifteen and in my final year of high school, I was assaulted in a school restroom. The attack was not random. Another student had stolen a paper I had turned in two years earlier. The teacher to whom I had turned it in had a practice of keeping photocopies of all   "A" compositions so that if one appeared again, or if large chunks of one appeared again, he had proof that the paper, when turned in for the second time, was not original work. (There are websites that will catch most college and university plagiarism or use of purchased papers from organized sites, but high school teachers are usually on their own to catch low-tech thieves.)

It's a very long story concerning the person who helped himself to my paper. I'll borrow from an earlier blog that tells the account in part. 

The whole incident, as I didn't learn until after hours of sitting in the principal's outer office under the watchful eye of the Rottweiler-turned-secretary, centered on a paper I had authored in my sophomore year of high school for my required U. S. History course, for which I took the Advanced Placement option in order to earn college credits. The title of the paper was, "The Cold War, McCarthyism, and Accusations of Communism Infiltration." As my compositions go, it was somewhat unremarkable. It was technically and factually sound, and met the requirements for an Advanced Placement-calibre paper, but wasn't one of my more creative efforts. Considering the topic, it probably shouldn't have been one of my more creative efforts, anyway.

The instructor for my course had a policy of photocopying all "A" papers, filing them by topic, and keeping them for at least ten years so that in the event that a paper seemed familiar as he was grading it, he could consult his file to see if the paper had been recycled from a previous author and submission. The file cabinet in which the papers were kept was usually locked, but there were occasions in which it wasn't secured. The student seated across from me in the office had been my U. S. history's teacher's assistant for a Freshman Studies course the next year. At some point the file cabinet containing "A" papers was apparently unsecured and unsupervised for just long enough for him to go through the cabinet and purloin my paper.

The moron was so lazy that he didn't even bother re-typing the paper in its entirety. He merely retyped the title page, then whited out and retyped the header on each page, ignoring the differences in formats required. Because I wrote the paper for a social science course, the APA format was used. English courses almost exclusively require MLA formatted papers. The essence of this was lost on my peer.

The plagiarism would have gone undetected -- and I really wish it had --  except that my plagiarist's English teacher was so incredibly impressed by her student's work, as it was far beyond anything he had ever done, that she submitted it for a writing award. She retyped the paper for the thug into the MLA format, which is standard for English department papers. (The thug who stole and submitted my paper probably couldn't tell the difference between the APA and MLA formats and whatever format it is that graffiti artists use when sharing their gangs' messages with the world at large. The committee charged with deciding upon the winner of this award happened to consist of both the English teacher who submitted the student's paper and my U. S. History teacher, who had originally received the paper two years earlier. My teacher immediately recognized it as having been turned in by one of his students immediately. The English teacher disagreed vehemently and accused me of being the plagiarist even though, once my U.S. history teacher realized the original source of the paper, knew that it had been turned in to him two years previously. The English teacher, who offers proof positive that not all English teachers are of even average intellect, offered as evidence the plagiarist's originally submitted paper, with the title page and headings not even in the same font as the body of the paper, then showed how she had helped him to retype the composition into the correct format.

The argument between the two faculty member of the panel charged with choosing a recipient for a particular writing-across-curriculum  award,   soon made its way into the principal's office, where it immediately became a disciplinary matter. The principal was unimpressed by either the lack of match in font of the title page and page headers of the body of the paper to the overall lack of pertinence of the topic of McCarthyism and communism to American literature.  (A skilled arguer and writer could have bridged the disparity between the topic and the course's subject matter, but this plagiarist made no attempt to do so, presumably for reasons both that he saw no need to do so [both the course title and the composition's title contained the word American; that alone, in his mind would have been more than sufficient commonality between the content of the composition and the subject matter of the course and, by extension, the topic for the specific composition as assigned by the teacher] and that he lacked the skill to create such a bridge or segue of sorts  had he known one was needed.)

Parents were soon involved in the dispute. The plagiarist's father, a prominent local banker, argued that even if his son had plagiarized the paper from me, I, too, must have plagiarized it from some other source, as the paper could not have been authored by any high school student. My former social science teacher asked that my English teacher send in samples from my English portfolio to refute the plagiarists' father's assertion. My mother pointed out that my SAT writing score had been a perfect 800. The banker didn't understand that. His son hadn't taken the SAT, and the writing portion did not yet exist in the olden days when he himself took the test. The principal seemed to be swallowing some of the plagiarists' father's arguments. The plagiarist's mother was oblivious to the significance of all that was occurring. When asked a specific question concerning when she might have observed her son working on the composition,as he claimed to have written it entirely at home, his mother smiled and uttered, even though her answer didn't come close to addressing the question she was asked, "I can hardly believe my son was nominated for a writing award. I'm just so proud of him." 'Thank God the superintendent took over.

The U. S. History teacher left to consult his file, but found my paper to be missing, even though it was indexed. He came to the outer office to ask if I still had a copy of the paper. I keep hard copies of all of my papers, in addition to copies in backup files of computer and on an external Q-file device. I told my mother exactly where she could find it in my room. I told her that even though the paper had been typed originally on the desktop in our home library, it was on my laptop in my room as well. I told her where to find the hard copy in my file cabinet, where to find the external Q-file device, and where I had put away my laptop. She was back twenty minutes later with my laptop containing the composition, and with a copy of the original paper, complete with title page and date, which matched the index maintained by my history teacher. The text and font matched the plagiarist's copy of the body of the original document before his teacher retyped it (which was, incidentally, against the rules for papers submitted for the particular honor). Furthermore, the topic was well-matched to my assigned topic of mid 1900's politics, as opposed to the plagiarist's course topic of American literature. (I believe his actual assignment for the paper had something to do with using both a poem and a work of prose, each written by an American author or poet -- ether the same or a different author from the same time period would have been acceptable - to capture and illustrate an aspect of the popular culture of the time. My paper in no way met the requirements of this assignment, as works of American literature were not featured prominently and only appeared incidentally in the few literary allusions included in the paper.

The plagiarist's father remained unconvinced of any guilt on the part of his son, or at least pretended to believe such was the case . The mother continued to beam with pride and to make inane comments such as, "I always knew [thug] was bright, but I didn't realize writing ability was part of his giftedness," to no one in particular, as no one was either talking or listening to her.. The superintendent told [thug's] father that it didn't really require his assent to decide in my favor, but, just to prove the point, each of us would be called into the inner office to answer questions about the composition's content. Following that, we would each be assigned a five-paragraph essay on a given topic, which would need to be completed in the inner office in the presence of parents and administrators, after which the essays would be analyzed for writing style. The superintendent even conceded that the topic would be one about which the plagiarist should have presumably more background information than I.

I answered each question asked, in each case, elaborating beyond what was presumably expected. (Senator Joseph McCarthy and his "anti-communism" platform had long held my fascination. My parents owned several non-fiction texts including biographies by actors who were black-listed and lost work as a result of appearing on McCarthy's lists of actual communists or sympathizers. The movie and subsequent motion picture, The Way We Were were based on the chilling effects of McCarthyism on Hollywood and on specific actors .The plagiarist apparently had no answer for most of the questions. He had no idea who Joseph McCarthy had been and any of the significance of political work. eventually he made some connection with General Douglas MacArthur and went off on a brief tangent concerning General Patton, citing scenes he remembered from a movie about general Patton's life. I didn't see any of this, as we were questioned separately, but my social science/ U.s. history teacher said, as wrong as what the thug did was, he was almost beginning to feel sorry for him except that the thug was so utterly witless than he though his answers were on the mark and were helping to establish his case. The boy''s father said, "So [thug] is confusing a few generals with a senator. That hardly proves he stole the paper."

The original plan for the essays was that they would be written by hand, but the plagiarist's father complained that his son had problems with spelling and would be at a disadvantage if computer use were not allowed. A couple of non-networked laptops were brought in for use to use. We were given a seventy-five minute limit for our essays. The topic announced. The topic was "Advantages and Disadvantages of the BCS System in Determining the NCAA Football Championship." I'm far from an expert on this topic, but I evidently have more knowledge of the system than does my plagiarist. I focused upon the lack of objectivity in determining who gets into the major bowl games in the first place, the disadvantage created by an early loss by an otherwise superior team, and the lack of a playoff system in determining who makes it into the actual bowl game that is determined to be the championship game. I conceded that the BCS system is clearly superior to the old poll system with sports writers and coaches determining the national champions (sometimes without consensus between the two voting bodies) but insisted that the current system was in need of major overhaul before it can be deemed acceptable. My plagiarist didn't even complete a single paragraph.

So I spent almost an entire day helping adults who should have known better to decide that I did not plagiarize a composition. Most of the day was wasted, although, since part of the day was spent writing, that portion could not be considered a total waste of time. The next half hour was devoted to an argument concerning whether my plagiarist and I would be required, or even allowed, to make up the work that was missed. In an extremely rare show of support for me, my mother said that if the district wanted me to continue enrollment in the district, I would be given full credit for any daily assignments missed in the day's classes. Any portions of the classes that were devoted to projects, she said, should be my responsibility to make up. The plagiarist's father insisted that his son be granted the same privilege. The superintendent told him that his son's privileges and consequences would be discussed in private shortly. At that point, the school day was over.

The head varsity football coach had heard of the situation and had made his way to the office, demanding to know what was happening. The superintendent dismissed him and told him he would be notified as soon as any decision that affected his team had been made, still, he lurked in the outer office, waiting to here of the resolution to this issue, as it impacted likely would his starting lineup for Friday's game.\

Note: I'm adding this to the original text. It can be found in greater detail in a subsequent retelling of the assault in a later blog (though even then, some details were omitted because I felt too humiliated to share them. I'm no longer humiliated by any of the details. The humiliation should and now does belong to my attackers,. but at the point this blog was originally written, and even in a later post when I shared more details, I was not yet up to full disclosure of the assault. I now have little problem talking about it.

This should have been the end of the whole matter, but it wasn't. I had been stuck in an office all day with no food or bathroom privileges. Although I was hungry, I was even more in need of a bathroom visit. I hurried as fast as my crutches would allow me to a bathroom just down the hall from the principal's office before heading home. I heard the outer bathroom door open as I was in the stall, but thought nothing of it. When I emerged from the stall to wash my hands, I saw two girls standing idly. Girls sometimes stand idly in bathrooms, so I still thought little of it. Then one of them said to me, "Just what the fu@&amp did you think you were doing?" I recognized her as the plagiarist's latest hook-up.

"Using the bathroom," I answered.

She slapped my face with sufficient force that I fell against the wall. Fortunately I was using the sink located against the far wall, so I fell against the wall instead of onto the floor.

The other girl said, "That's not what she meant, and you know it, [female dog]."

I still had my baby cell phone, which my parents had traded for my original cell phone because I had exceeded our the minutes or numbers or whatever of texts covered by our plan in an outrageously expensive manner because I had been under the mistaken impression that our plan included unlimited texting. It ended up being one of the few times if not the only time that, after the fact, both my parents and I were unbelievably grateful for the action that led to seizure of my real cell phone and what had seemed at the time like a rather draconian punishment my parents had handed out and they were grateful that I had run up the huge bill, motivating them to take my real cell phone away and replace it with a kiddy cell phone. The kiddy cell phone had the capacity to dial my home, my parents' cell phones, my mom's work numbers, my Uncle Steve's and Aunt Heather's phones and home, and 911.

A quick mental survey of the circumstances told me that 911 would be my best bet, especially since it was the top button on the phone. The phone was in the pocket of my jacket, which I had been wearing all day because the principal's thermostat was set at about 65 degrees. I talked loudly and made liberal, virtually non sequitur references to my precise location, hoping that the 911 operator could get information about my whereabouts from my end of the conversation, and also hoping my voice would cover up that of the 911 operator. It's possible that knowing 911 had been called might have caused the girls to abort their operation, but then again, they might not have known about the GPS on my phone, and furthermore, I didn't really know how quickly law enforvememnt could determine my location from the GPS-tracking device,

I still don't know if I made things worse or better by hiding the fact that 9-1-1 had been dialed. It's possible the girls would have run out as soon as they learned of it, or it's possible they would have bashed me over the head with my own cell phone, then continued to beat up on me, confident that law enforcement would have no way of knowing where to find any of us. I didn't know it, but my kiddy phone also had a GPS-like device on it, so the 911 operator was able to locate me. I decided that the best thing was to keep the girls talking as much as possible. I lied to them about how I had tried to take the blame but that the superintendent wasn't buying it. I told them that I deliberately blew my essay, but that the plagiarist had blown it worse. When it became plain that they weren't buying any of my lines, I tried pleading to their senses of dignity, asking them if they really felt right about two relatively tall and normal-sized girls double-teaming someone who weighs 77. (I still hadn't gained back all the weight since I was hurt and sick.) Eventually the talking ceased to stop them; one of them pushed me to the floor, The other one crawled on top of me and put her hands around my neck. The one not on top of me kicked me in the mid-right portion of my rib care, then stepped onto my leg, more or less directly on the portion of my leg that sustained the worst of the fractures. I lost consciousness.  

When I regained consciousness, the male who had plagiarized my paper had joined the girls and me in the bathroom. He directed the girls to undress me from the waist down, He unzipped his zipper and removed his male appendage. from the direction he seemed to be headed, It appeared that my mouth was his first intended target. I vomited, which appeared to have the effect of causing him to lose the ability to perform the function he had intended to perform on me. He kicked the side of my head hard my head so that it would be forced into the vomitus. He then kicked my side, kicked my leg in the approximate area of the original injury, and delivered an especially vicious and bruising kick to my vaginal area.

At that point, a security officer entered the restroom, followed closely by another security officer, the school football coach, the superintendent, add the principal. (My mother had been sent to a meeting in place of the superintendent, who had assured my mother that he would see to it that I arrived home safely. The girls tried to run out, but were stopped by a teacher and and by approaching law enforcement personnel, who had been dispatched to the scene.. The perps were carted off. I don't know if they were transported to the police station or to holding facilities. At least one of the two perps was already eighteen and a legal adult as such. Another of the three, as it turned out, was also above the legal age of majority, but I don't believe any of that had been sorted out by then. In any event, they were all released to their parents on their own recognizance with preliminqary charges pending. The attorney my parents later hired to represent my interests said that it was wrong to release any of them prior to sorting out charges.

The football coach, who lived around the corner from my family's home, suggested that someone should put my pants back onto me. The officer in charged said that photos of the crime scene needed to be take first. The coach told them to hurry it up with the pictures, and took off his shirt and covered me with it as the officers were organizing the photo shoot.

The fall itself didn't hurt me, nor, in any significant way, did the initial slap, but the various kicks and the step upon the area of my leg that was healing from the earlier serious compact fracture, as well as kicks to my rib cage, head, and groin area were all considered signnificant injuries. An ambulance was summonned, and I was transported to the university hospital in an adjacent city, where I spent the night.

The attack on me in the school restroom was not random, while any future attack in a public restroom would likely be random and is, furthermore, highly unlikely to occur. Still, I can't just walk into a public restyroom and take care of what needs to be done, without first going through certain steps to preserve my safety as well as I can. Will I live the rest of my life this way? I have no way of knowing. I've sought professional help to deal with PTSD steeming from this situation. Perhaps some sort of "public restroom therapy'" should have been part of my treatment,  

My chief therapist, Dr. Jeff, says there are some things you have to live with the best you can and compensate in any way you can.  I consider myself lucky that, for the most part, I can function as a more-or-less normal  adult. I may have to leave things as they presently stand. I tried just forcing myself to go into a restroom by myself once, and I ended up waking up with a nightmare followed by an hour of almost continuous vomiting.  It may be that having someone check out public restrooms, much as the way royalty and importnt politicians have to have someone taste their food before they're allowed to eat it. 

It's my phobia, and I'll deal with it as I please. Anyone who refuses to check a restroom out before I enter for me it is not my friend. Period.

Again, it's an event that happened in my life, and is not representative of who I am as a person even though it did have it's effect on me to some degree.

Sorry for the extra-long post, but I had no easy way to cut to the chase. I also have a fear of smoky rooms or buildings, but I susect anyone who has every been traped inside one deals with issues related to it, so I don't even consider it a phobia.