Family Restrooms and Bathroom Phobias

A distressed reader recently sent the following email:

After searching your website, I was disappointed to find nothing on the topic of (I hate to even say it!) public Family Restrooms. These have been springing up in local department stores and malls recently. One only has to pass near the restroom area to find the signs emblazoned on the wall.

What on earth is a Family Restroom and what in the world can be going on in there?

To be honest, I haven’t seen a whole ton of these in my recent excursions. However, I’m fairly certain that the Family Restroom is a place where families with small children can go to take care of business like diaper changing, and perhaps even breastfeeding. There isn’t anything sinister about these places, and given the state of changing tables in regular bathrooms (crappy), I’d say they are a welcome addition to the public bathroom landscape.

Also, is there any real medical terminology to describe bathroom phobia (other than parauresis). I ask because every time I see the Family Bathroom sign, it causes me to have heart palpitations, minor sweating and a hurried gait.

Paruresis (for more information check out the link to the International Paruresis Association in the sidebar) relates more with an inability to go to the bathroom, rather than a direct fear of the bathroom itself. It doesn’t appear, based on me Googling for 5 minutes, that a bathroom phobia has any specific name. You simply have a bathroom phobia.

On another unrelated (I think) note, when I was quite young, the railway station in Kansas City featured toilets with spring-loaded seats that retracted upward toward the water tank. There was a horseshoe shaped depression in the face of the tank which was the very mate of the seat. When one had to use the toilet, it required pulling down the heavy tensioned seat. When one stood up, the seat rose quickly to fit in said depression, causing an eerie black light to appear haloed around and behind it.

When one is very, very young, but just beyond requiring assistance with bathroom duties, such an apparatus is both fascinating and terrifying. Fear of being snapped up or of being “burnt” by the strange blue light was all too real. Furthermore, one had to deposit a dime in a slot on the stall door in order to witness this technological wonder of the day. I’m sure I have some mental scarring in relation to using those toilets which may be related to my new fear of Family Restrooms.

Can you help?

Yikes! Well from the sound of things I’d have to agree, these train bathrooms may well have contributed to your current bathroom phobia. I’ve never heard of or seen such a thing, and am especially glad I never came across one when I was a child.

I wish I could help you conquer your fears, but I’m afraid that is beyond the scope of my abilities. It may be time to seek out the help of a mental health professional. Good luck!