how i overcame my fear of the women's bathroom

With that title, this sounds like a gender dysphoria story. To some extent, it is: there was a period in my life where I rejected feminity. I styled myself a tomboy and wore only pants, but I also wore a hijab, and if you can imagine for a second, a blue-jeans-wearing hijabi playing Pokemon Yellow on the bus... But still, I was the kind of being-person who would read about Susan Pevensie and think, serves you right! Piss off with your nylons and lipstick and invitations! Something like that.

I still got pissed off when I was referred to as "he" by the boys I played Yu-Gi-Oh against in the comic book store. I wanted the admiration due a girl, as well as the respect/usefulness/competency/confidence/freedom that belonged to men, I guess.

I suppose. This experience made me aware that I talked from the wrong part of my body however.  Chest voice? Head voice? I'm not sure what it's called, but I later trained myself to speak in a higher tone--although I still laspe into my tomboy voice when too comfortable.

In any case, I was a homebody whose my parents raised them not to use public restrooms if I could help (they were filthy! You couldn't do istinja in them unless you felt like running out to wet the tissue.) They, like many things not in my house, inspired a sort of foreign fear in me. Just as the cardplaying boy mistook my gender, I would be misgendered by the women in the restroom, chased out and attacked. Or worse, I would enter the men's room in confusion and...something bad would happen. I didn't know what.

Public restrooms made me anxious, for years and years, until I joined the Conservation Corps and learned to pee outdoors and wipe myself with leaves. Digging my own poopholes (proper term: latrines) made me feel like an very accomplished cat, and squatting myself small down among ferns and bushes was often very relaxing. I considered buying a shewee. I kind of still want one.

In many, many ways; the great outdoors was gender-neutral.

I finished my half-month Americorps term with confidence in so many other areas, but the restroom anxiety stuck with me. I was no longer afraid of bars or liquor or distance from my home or so much else.

I think I was at an airport when I decided to innoculate myself against the "something bad" of public restrooms. An airport, maybe a mall where the women's room had a line or was full, and the men's room was empty and hidden in a corner where no one could stop me entering with a funny look. I'd read about women who used the men's room when the women's was full. I'd decided to become one. Maybe my failure to perform femininity would serve as camouflage to help me avoid wetting myself.

The men's room was exactly the same as the women's but with a urinal. Of course. But what was so forbidden about seeing a urinal? The single-occupancy ones were so similar, I really didn't understand the seperation.

In any case, after learning firsthand the banality of baños, my anxiety towards them was gone. 

One of my recent jobs had two genderqueer restrooms. On one of its last days, I remember exploring the men's room on a celebratory drunken buzz. I think I shouted in joy, "I'm in the men's restroom!"

My coworkers probably thought I was joking. But ah, they have no idea what it took for me to get there.

poems about having a booty

JELLY

it takes a french curve --see?

the flare of the tennis skirt

in front versus back

hiked as if beckoning

(& this is why mom called me fast: for having a body)

i spend a lot of time asking

why are leggings flat?

who has straight legs

(besides Sally the Witch)?

this slit ia not enough, why?

how do I become a pencil?

should i, must i be hobbled?

maybe lessness is freedom (more like a boy)

because there is not enough

my lucky fighting panties gingerly

meet the bus seat

& my brown bottom contemplates

being made wanted by an unbrown vulture

(though we were before

& will be after

(before knives and without)

the waistband too takes the longer route

along the french curve

dips like a body aggrieved,

like a grunt, surprised:

i didn't expect to carry this much

unrequited love for the human race

Imagine never feeling comfortable, ever, except with alone (or drunk, or (sometimes) with family). Social anxiety is kind of like having a one of those nausea-inducing crushes, except it holds for the whole human race: you want to make a good impression, you're hyper-aware of everything wrong about you, and failure is your worst nightmare but you can't stop thinking about failure even though it makes failure more likely. So of course 90% of your day is spend imagining and remembering past and possible failures.

Sometimes you manage to do or say something cool, but then you have to immediately run away so you don't fuck it up right after. Sometimes you decide to cut your losses and not even try. That's always easier.

Almost every action is on the conscious incompetence level of the four stages of competence. You know you suck, you know you suck, you know you suck. Or worse, sometimes the stages get broken and you believe you suck and you feel that you suck but you don't actually know if you do. All you have is a constant sucky feeling without adequate proof.

You do know that everything, even smiling, takes extra brainpower. People can probably tell that you have to force yourself, and some will dislike you for being "fake."

The part of your brain that says yes, I am secure and comfortable and loved by others never quite switches on. If you are clever enough, you can reason your way into believing that you're safe, into believing that people want you around. Sometimes. Like, only if they actually return texts and stuff like that, start conversations with you and check in when you withdraw.

And you're going to make social mistakes because they're necessary to learning, but mistakes during adulthood mean missed job opportunities or lost wages, falling behind in life because of the ways you've already suffered. The solution is often exposure therapy, but sometimes you feel guilty for testing things on people:

"Will this person mind if they're the first person I've ever asked on a date?"

"Can I tell them that their behavior makes my anxiety worse?"

"Should I thank this person for helping me overcome my fear by actually showing up?"

"Should I hide that this took all my courage?"

And since social anxiety isn't agoraphobia nor general anxiety nor stage fright, you may be perfectly fine in the anonymity of crowds, but break into a cold sweat when you receive a phone call. Or you may be in your element with public speaking, presentations, and other professional situations that can rely on scripts, but have no idea how to relax or "hang out." Or maybe acting is freeing in a way you rarely feel in the day to day, because it is a mask. But then you go home and can't leave your room and have to skip dinner because you can hear your landlady through the door and you can't deal with another person being in the kitchen the same time as you, especially because you feel like living garbage in the vulnerable state of sweats or pajamas.

I personally wonder if people want me around when I'm not being "useful." A couple friends indicate that they want me around for my own sake, but for most, people there is an unspoken obligation to perform, give, or act in specific ways. Even if the obligation isn't there, I always feel it. Maybe it is always there.

Nothing completely erases the suspicion that most people are only friends with me out of pity. Nothing can turn off the hypervigilance that makes my eyes, my mind constantly scan for signs of rejection. The suspicion does grows quieter, very nearly vanishes with people I can read well. It also alerts me to people I should distance myself from, so that we don't hurt each other. That's one of the upsides of anxiety, that is it a deluxe version of the Gift of Fear.

Something like that.