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Can't go in a public restroom? You're not alone:
Most of us don't give much thought to going to the toilet. We go when we need to go.
But for a small minority of people, the act of urinating or defecating can be a major source of anxiety—especially when public restrooms are the only facilities available.
Paruresis (shy bladder) and parcopresis (shy bowel) are little known mental health conditions, yet they can significantly compromise a person's quality of life.
We don't know how many people have shy bowel, but research has estimated around 2.8%-16.4% of the population are affected by shy bladder. The condition is more common in males.
[...]
Most of us will feel a little "grossed out" from time to time when using public toilets. But what we're talking about here is different and more serious.
People with shy bladder and shy bowel experience significant anxiety when trying to go to the toilet, especially in public places like shopping centers, restaurants, at work or at school. Sufferers may also experience symptoms in their own home when family or friends are around.
Their anxiety can present in the form of increased heart rate, excessive sweating, rapid breathing, muscle tension, heart palpitations, blushing, nausea, trembling, or a combination of these.
Symptoms range in severity. Some people who are more mildly affected can experience anxiety but still be able to "go," for example when the bathroom is completely empty. Others may urinate or defecate with difficulty—for example their urine stream may be inconsistent. Some people will sit on the toilet and not be able to go at all.
[...] We canvassed 316 undergraduate students in an online survey on shy bladder and shy bowel. Some 72 participants (22.8%) self-reported symptoms of either one or both conditions.
- We found these symptoms were influenced by particular patterns of thinking, including:
- a misinterpretation or distortion of information (for example, interpreting laughter in the restroom as being directed towards them)
- fears around potential perceived negative evaluation (for example, a fear of being criticized for taking too long to defecate, or for sounds and smells produced during urination or defecation)
- fears around potential perceived positive evaluation (for example, a fear of being evaluated too positively for a strong urine stream).
Using statistical modeling, we found fear of negative evaluation was the factor most strongly associated with shy bladder or shy bowel symptoms.
As such, people with shy bladder or shy bowel may benefit from the sorts of treatments that help people with social anxiety disorder.
Cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, is known to reduce social anxiety symptoms.
The best way to help people with these conditions will be addressing the thought processes behind shy bladder and shy bowel, especially concerns around the perceptions others might evaluate or criticize one's urination or defecation.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Citation: Can't go in a public restroom? You're not alone—and there's help (2020, January 22) retrieved 22 January 2020 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-01-restroom-youre-aloneand.html
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday January 24 2020, @02:44AM (6 children)
>I'm going to guess that being a partner in an accounting firm self-selects for people with this problem? Just visited my CPA... had a developer build a new building to their spec in the 'burbs. The men's room has no urinals and separate closed stalls with floor to ceiling walls around each toilet, regular doors and door knobs. In effect you are in your own private space with complete visual privacy and pretty good acoustic privacy.
Have you never been outside the US? What you're describing is totally normal for public bathrooms in Europe and Asia. It's only in the Americas where public bathrooms are so, well, "public", with those humongous spaces between the partitions and floor so that people can play footsie while sitting on the toilets. Perhaps whoever ran your CPA firm was not born here in the US and finally got tired of the lousy public bathrooms Americans seem to think are perfectly normal.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Friday January 24 2020, @03:01AM (1 child)
I've been outside the US and I think France was the only place where a double occupancy hotel room didn't have a door to the bathroom. So, on the throne anyone who was in the room was your audience.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:26AM
Hotel room? We're not talking about hotels here, we're talking about multi-person public restrooms. The way hotels are arranged has absolutely nothing to do with that.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @03:07AM (3 children)
> ...totally normal for public bathrooms in Europe and Asia.
Interesting, you must frequent higher class places than I did. When I was in southern France ~20 years ago, I watched a farm worker piss in the field, easily visible from the road. Restaurant bathrooms were no more private than typical in USA and at least one had a squat toilet (hole in the middle of the floor).
In England I think I remember some toilets with complete enclosures, but still had open urinals.
In S. Korea the urinal at a car factory was a long trough, same as often seen in older sports stadiums in USA (still that way at our local drag strip). In Korea there was only one damp towel at the end of the common sinks and I got a hand rash after a couple of days (started drying hands on my shirt after that). Restaurant toilets were all squat style, often with no door.
In Taiwan the urinals had motion sensors and ran a little water as you approached (for some people I understand this tends to help get "started"). There were no privacy dividers between multiple urinals.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:29AM (2 children)
This isn't about urinals or open fields, it's about the stalls. Restaurant bathrooms aren't generally representative of public restrooms in any country; even in America the nice restaurants have very nice fully-walled restroom stalls, and the crappy ones look like a phone booth. We're talking about public restrooms, the ones you find in airports, corporate buildings, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:55AM (1 child)
Why are you so invested in this issue? People are pointing out that what you're saying is simply not consistent with reality. And you respond and backtrack into describing an increasingly contrived scenario where you can still pretend to be "right".
Is it that you just can't accept being wrong? You want to appear well-traveled? Or something more?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:18AM
No, people are pointing out things that have nothing to do with "public restrooms". Why are *you* so set on being right anyway? And yes, I do seem to be much better traveled than anyone here, since I've actually used public restrooms outside the US.