Posted by James S on 31/10/2008, 11:15 am, in reply to "Re: Planes and Trains"

Marcus, Just wanted to echo what others have said – the workshops are great. The support you feel when there, speaking to others who know exactly how you feel, is empowering. Everyone, I think, feels nervous about attending for the first time – facing this condition is hard – but I haven’t met anyone who wasn’t glad they’d attended by the end of one. I too found plane toilets very difficult. They didn’t feel anonymous and I felt exposed, nervous and once failed miserably on a 14 hour flight to pee successfully. It was a horrible experience and one which meant I was reluctant to fly long distances for years. I went down the route of drinking small amounts of water, using the airport facilities prior to flights and would end up feeling rough and dehydrated. Following workshops with the ukpt, I was able to use toilets in planes successfully. It is true that no one is focused on who is in the toilet. Recently I was on a long haul flight and was seated near a single toilet in the middle of the plane. I didn’t feel very comfortable using this at first so all I did was stretch my legs, went for a wander down the plane to the back where there were 4 toilets and used one of those. Perfectly reasonable behaviour but one of the pernicious things about this condition is that because you can feel people are noting your every move, simple solutions like this may not occur. I later felt more relaxed and used the single cubicle near my seat. I can’t recommend the workshops highly enough and would never have been able to make such progress without their help. James S

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