I get self conscious in public bathrooms?!
Question: Whenever I am in school and I am in a stall I get very self concious. I usually go when nobody is there and when somebody comes in I clear my throat or cough to make sure she knows I am in that one and when I need to pee or poop I wait untill she is gone. I lift my feet up so she can not identify who I am by my shoes. Why do I do this and are there any tips to help me?
Answers: Whenever I am in school and I am in a stall I get very self concious. I usually go when nobody is there and when somebody comes in I clear my throat or cough to make sure she knows I am in that one and when I need to pee or poop I wait untill she is gone. I lift my feet up so she can not identify who I am by my shoes. Why do I do this and are there any tips to help me?
Hi Honey,
This is sooo normal. One thing that helped me, as I too HATED it with a passion!!!! I tried to be the other person. I mean, I pictured myself as the other person coming into the bathroom. Seriously, when you go into a bathroom and someone is there, do you look to see who it is and what they're doing? To be honest, no one cares what you're doing there. It took a LOT of public bathroom experiences for me to accept it. I can now breathe. I don't know why I was phobic either and I had it into my late 20's !! This trick did it for me and now I don't use any tricks, I listen to music on my ipod while Im going and I focus on something, generally I pulled something out of my purse and/or started texting friends lol. Once I started hearing and seeing what other people were doing in the bathroom ie: loud farts and noises lol im serious!!! It helped. Don't stress! You deserve to be there and it IS normal to makes noises and take up a stall!
Good luck my dear!
It is a common problem that affects many people. From a boys point of view, you girls have it easy. You have cubicles. We have to use urinals.
Its quite normal to get this when you are young and in school, I did, but I grew out of it.You will just grow out of it.Its a part of growing up and has to do with the fact that you are advancing from puberty into adulthood and you are self conciouss about your body and how it works.Dont worry.If what you do makes you feel comfy for now do it.It will soon fade when you are more confident around others as you get older.
This is extremely common. You aren't abnormal at all.
You will get more and more used to it as necessity arises.
Just try to remember the old adage: Don't give other people a second thought - they aren't giving you one.
In other words, they don't care who is inside relieving themselves, so you shouldn't care that they don't care.