Bathroom Wars

I don't care much for passive aggression.  It rankles me in particular ways.  Couple that with some sensitivity regarding my needs for the bathroom, and, well, we have an incident.  

Our office shares the bathroom with two other companies, which has four stalls and two sinks.  I have a favorite stall in the bathroom at the office.  Everyone has a favorite stall, I think, even if no one talks about it.  I like the first stall, for no particular reason except that it's my usual stall.  I sat down one day recently and noticed that there was a notice taped to the back of the door:

"Sometimes a second flush IS necessary..."

I was instantly furious.  It still pisses me the hell off.  

In the first place, yes, that's passive aggressive.  The intent is to shame someone into behaving a certain way instead of making a direct ask.  The emphasis on "is" and the ellipsis, yeah, it's definitely doing that.  It is implying that there is a correct way to behave and expecting you to adhere to an unwritten rule.  Strike one.

Part the next, I took this as a personal attack immediately.  That's on me, but here's why:  I have not had a "solid" poop in eight-plus years.  Truly.  Think about the last time you had diarrhea--did everything go down the toilet the first time you flushed?  Maybe, maybe not.  I do not have two feet of large intestine, meaning that my stool is ALWAYS loose.  Always.  Permanently and forever.  In order to get it to flush in its entirety, I would literally have to stand there and flush about five times or come back in twenty minutes after everything had "settled" for a second flush.  This is common for me.  I'm aware of it.  I'm frustrated by it.  I'm sensitive to it.  This is how my body is.  Strike two.  

To anyone thinking "what's the big deal?  Just flush it again."  Firstly, I'll flip that question around:  why doesn't the next person just flush it again, if it's not a big deal?  If it's "no big deal" then why is this even an issue enough for someone to put up a sign?  Okay, if we agree that it's a big enough deal that needs to be addressed and it's my poop ergo I should monitor it and make sure it goes down?  I refer you back to the previous paragraph--either I'm wasting a lot of water or a lot of time to go back an ensure that this toilet is flushed.  I still have other things that I need to accomplish in my day--I cannot take a half-hour bathroom break in the middle of our busy summer season or any work day, for that matter.  But here's the REAL issue--one more thing to anyone else might not seem like much, but to me, one more thing that I have to monitor in the bathroom is HUGE.  

When you go to the bathroom, what do you worry about?  These are what I remember thinking about:

• Is there a free stall?
• Is there toilet paper in my chosen stall?
• Where can I put my phone down so it doesn't fall?
• How can I pull down my pants/skirt/whatever so that my clothes aren't touching the floor of a public restroom?

The list I worry about now is much more expansive:

• Is there a free stall?
• Is there toilet paper in my stall?
• How can I pull down my pants/skirt/whatever so that my clothes aren't touching the floor of a public restroom?
• How can I hold up my shirt/dress/skirt/whatever so that I can access my ostomy bag and not drop it into the toilet water while I'm managing my bag?
• Do I need to empty it or just vent air out of it?
• Does the stall have enough room for me to tend to everything?
• Shoot, is that a leak?
• Who could I grab right now if I needed my emergency supplies?
• Do I have time to do a bag change now if I needed to, with my work obligations today?
• How close do I need to get to the toilet water to avoid splashback?
• Am I accidentally going to spill the entire contents of my ostomy bag on the floor/my shoes?
• Am I accidentally going to spill the contents of my ostomy bag on the toilet in a way that I will need to clean off before leaving the stall?
• Am I paying enough attention to the open mouth of the ostomy bag while I'm reaching for the toilet paper so that it doesn't have a drip somewhere undesirable?
• When I'm trying to rip off toilet paper to clean the lip of the ostomy bag off before putting it away, will it actually tear as I try to manage it one-handed or will it just roll in such a way that I have to angle my shoulder to help it tear?
• How am I keeping my balance in a squatting position while trying to manage the ostomy bag in one hand and gathering toilet paper in the other?
• Is the person in the stall next to me weirded out that they can see I'm not using the stall in a "traditional" way?
• What if they say something?
• Did I get anything on my hands that I need to worry about as I tuck the ostomy back under my clothes?
• Will I still be able to squat in front of the toilet when I get older?  Will my knees be able to take it?
• Is the flush not going to take everything with it AGAIN today?
• Plus all of the normal work stuff

Yes, it is ONLY one more thing, but the invisible burden of concerns that I carry is already significant.  One more thing in the wave of those concerns feels impossible.  For some people, the bathroom is a sanctuary; for me, it's often a punishment.  Forget bringing my phone with me.

It is NOT my fault.  Leaving "dust" behind in the bathroom is just another quirky facet of my life.  In short, the whole basis of this posted message is under the assumption that we all are facing the same circumstances and accountable to the same rules.  Strike fuck you.

So I did something that I cannot decide if it's petty, a strong display of self-advocacy, or a mixture of both.  I put a post-it reply.  

If you cannot read it, my addition reads "Some of us have a permanent colostomy and have to make due with bathrooms that are not designed for our needs.  Please drop the passive aggressive BS."  The sign was posted on more than one stall--sometimes I do have to use others, if my favorite is taken--but I only put the post-its in my main stall.  

When I went to the bathroom the next day, the post-its were gone, but the self-important sign was still there.  I tore it down, even more pissed.  Later that day, I checked the stall next to it--someone else had torn down that one.  Two weeks later, no sign has reappeared.  

I'm certain there will still be a number of folks that would say "I still don't see what the big deal is."  If that's the case for you, it doesn't have to make sense--it's a big deal for me.  Maybe my response was a little petty, but it's also a place where I advocated for myself, where I wanted to remind people that we don't all have the same circumstances and cannot be measured by the same ruler.  The ruler of "common courtesy" is not only specific to people's own preferences but assumes a certain consistency in others that simply may not be there.  I don't poop out of my butt anymore; I'm acutely aware of this without someone making assumptions in the bathroom.  I'm held to something I cannot achieve as easily as the assumption seems to think.  Even if it still doesn't seem like something to get upset about, this was a place to advocate for myself, to speak up when I was feeling hurt.  It's tough--I'm working on dealing with feelings in the moment rather than swallowing them.