When the Charmin Restrooms in Times Square opened, I was so excited that you would’ve thought I scored front-row tickets for the latest Tony Award® winner on Broadway.
You see for most of my life I’ve had separation anxiety — from toilets, plus a fear of crowds. Diagnosed with an overactive bladder, I was on two different medications for a while: one for maintenance, and another fast-acting pill that I’d dissolve under my tongue before traveling or going to a live event. Even as I took these meds I suspected that their efficacy had a huge boost from the placebo effect: My willingness to believe meds helped greatly reduced my anxiety around having to pee, which was the actual cause of my overactive bladder. Smoking weed probably would’ve worked just as well.
One astute urologist noted, in response to the fact that I am able to sleep uninterrupted,“If your bladder is capable of retaining fluid through the night then it seems to be a neurological issue rather than a physical one. Signaling from your brain isn’t functioning properly for some reason.”
That some reason can be traced to a single event back in the mid-seventies when I was six years old. Mom had never been to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now that we kids were old enough, this was the year she and Dad were taking the three of us: my older sister Christina, my twin brother Rocco, and me. Not usually an early-riser, Mom was on a mission. So up we were at the crack of dawn rushing down breakfast before bundling up and taking the subway from Queens into Manhattan.
The only other parade I had attended at such a young age was the Hampton Bays’ Memorial Day Parade. Hampton Bays is a small summer town on the South Shore of Long Island, or “the country” as we city kids called it. The parade featured little more than the local high school marching band and a couple of fire trucks making noise. You could still walk freely on the sidewalk during the parade, with a few clusters of spectators sitting on lawn chairs or leaning on lamp posts. Following up the Hampton Bays Parade with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was like climbing Mount Everest after a dry run on a sandpile.
Temps were hovering around the freezing mark when we arrived in front of Macy’s Herald Square hours early to get a good spot: a mere five rows back from where the action would be. Then we sat on the bleachers and waited. And shivered. Sat and waited and shivered as the crowd grew around us, forming a human barricade between us and the way home. I learned two important things about cold air that day: a) it feels a lot colder when you’re waiting, and b) it makes you have to pee, except for my older sister Christina, who must’ve been born with a most exotic combination of camel-bladder and polar-bear blood. Or by age ten she had already developed a high-tolerance for discomfort in order to please Mom.
Following up my complaint about the cold with a share that I needed to pee did not go over well with Mom, who accused me of faking my need to pee just to get out of the cold. If Rocco didn’t have to pee too, Mom would’ve probably let me pee on myself with a chipper“There. that should keep you warm for a while.” Back when Mom was a kid, her bedroom was cold and uninsulated. Her general approach to mothering was that if she hadn’t gotten some luxury — like warmth, for example — then why should we?
Dad offered to break away with Roc and me to find a place to pee, but Mom and her separation anxiety was not having it. Finally Dad made the call that we should just go home and watch the parade on tv, even before the first float had come into view. During the entire subway ride back to Queens, Mom gave Roc and me the cold shoulder. Our mother, pushing thirty, behaved like a spoiled child who didn’t get to see a parade that ends with a man dressed in Santa Claus waved to her on a float. By late afternoon she still hadn’t spoken a word to either of us. Our victory in our own little Urination Rights Battle cost us a crucial ally. We needed to get right with Mom pronto, or by dinner time at the latest.
I led Roc to my room and grabbed a couple of shiny little porcelain baby animal figurines that my best friend had given me for my birthday: a lamb and a fawn. I handed the fawn to Roc so that he could have something to give Mom, too. We headed to the kitchen where Mom was at the stove, her bulbous polyester-clad butt at our eye-level, sticking out from below her apron tie. Roc and I stepped beside her, but not too close. “We’re sorry, Mommy.” I said, as we presented our gifts to her. “I’m cooking.” she replied, as if we weren’t all too aware of the critical fact that she fed us, and the immense power she had over us due to that fact. Then she motioned with the wooden spatula that she’d been stirring pasta with “Put them on the table.”
It wasn’t quite the response I had been hoping for, but at least it seemed as though she planned to feed us still. Roc and I did as we were told before retreating to the living room. I kept peeking around the doorway to see if Mom had moved our gifts to a safer spot, as they looked so exposed and precariously positioned at the edge of the kitchen table. I don’t remember what ever happened to those figurines, but Mom spoke to us eventually.
The following Monday I was back in first grade with Ms. Cardinale. Back to being an engaged student who thrived in a classroom environment. Except over break I had learned a confusing lesson all too well. When I felt the urge to pee, instead of raising my hand as I had in the past, I was too afraid that Ms. Cardinale would be upset with me for interrupting her lesson. She was way across the classroom by the door. In my state of panic, a few yards seemed like miles. I tried to hold it, tried to hold, tried to hold it but ended up peeing right through my favorite bell-bottom pants with patchwork and onto the plastic chair. Peed so much that it flowed out of the chair and onto the floor. My panic around asking to pee was quickly replaced by a panic that someone would notice. Seated directly across from me was the class snitch, Dawn Volpe, who had no qualms about interrupting the lesson to dutifully report “There’s a puddle under Mia’s seat.”
Ms. Cardinale’s response was astonishingly nonchalant. She processed the situation like a rational adult, then took appropriate action to get me cleaned up and back to learning. Before I knew it the custodian was rolling a mop bucket across the room, his keys rattling at his hip. He didn’t seem mad at me either. His vibe was very business-as-usual. The school secretary phoned Mom, who showed up lickety-split with Granny and a fresh pair of pants. It was an odd two-worlds-colliding moment. To further confuse things, I sensed that Mom and Granny were actually glad to come to the rescue. They changed me behind the screen at the back of the class, as Ms. Cardinale directed Dawn and the rest of the class to keep their eyes up front and focused on the lesson. If Mom ever made the connection between the parade incident and my newly acquired pee problem, she never let on. However, the fact that she wasn’t upset with me about it leads me to believe that she may have registered just a smidge of accountability.
After I had settled back into a dry chair, Ms. Cardinale reminded the class that when we needed to go to the bathroom we should raise our hand. Her patient understanding spared me more trauma. If she’d been harsh with me or sent me home, that would’ve added a good two months of therapy later in life, I’m sure.
Sister Anne at the head of my all-girls religious instruction class at our local church was less tolerant of interruptions, showing quite a bit of annoyance at the contagious nature of girls having to go pee during lessons. It did seem as though the moment one girl returned from the bathroom another had to go. A constant flow, so to speak. How was Sister Anne ever going to teach us that the most prominent female in the bible had bodily function issues of her own? After all, it took an assistant to the Big Guy upstairs for Mary to realize that she was preggers. If a winged angel showed up at my door to tell me I was knocked up without me ever doing the deed first, I would pee on myself for sure.
As I sat in my usual spot in the pew, near the aisle for a quick exit, the urge to pee came up. Again I tried in vain to hold it in, finally peeing in the pew. Thankfully the pew wood was heavily-lacquered with a slight angle to it, allowing my pee to form a puddle at the end of the pew instead of spreading to the little blonde girl on my left. In the absence of class snitch Dawn Volpe, it wasn’t until we stood to leave that my pee puddle was discovered. Reluctant to fess up, I let Sister Anne pat the little blonde girl on her bottom before tracing it to me. Then I TOTALLY LOST IT, bawling all the way to the bathroom and into the stall. As you may know, we Catholics have a sixth sense for others’ guilt. If we’re not whipping it up ourselves, we’re sniffing it out like truffle-hunting pigs. That’s how I knew that Sister Anne felt a little guilty even though the bathroom stall door was between us. Perhaps she realized that her annoyance around us girls excusing ourselves to use the bathroom was a bit harsh. Finally she said “It’s alright. You can stop crying now, Christina.” which worked like a charm, because my name is not Christina, and I found great relief in being mistaken for my sister in that moment. Apparently Sister Anne was unaware that Christina has camel-bladder.
Peeing in the pew was the last such incident that I recall. My pee issue after that evolved into obsessing over where the nearest bathroom is, or struggling to remember the keycode to a bathroom in Starbucks that the barrister just told me ten seconds ago. If I were out in public and felt the slightest urge to pee, my brain would switch to Panic mode. I’m much better now, even around public fountains.
My little brother Rocco was affected as well, but that’s not my story to tell. The poor chap had the added burden of being the youngest male in a culture of toxic masculinity.
Although my pee issue was the most obvious and immediate problem stemming from that Thankless Giving Day, I also developed anxiety around presenting. This issue pre-dates Mom’s underwhelmed response to my figurine presentation. Goes all the way back to the crib. As you may recall from “Rose the Jew”, three generations of mothers in my family practiced crib-abandonment and the cry-it-out method taken to the extreme.
(For those of you who’ve read about this treatment and its effects on me in my blog post Healing from tTrauma, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph.) When crying for mother from the crib didn’t yield the response that nature intended, I managed to climb out of the crib before crawling to the living room where Mom was watching tv and smoking cigarettes. Presenting myself as an infant who had just successfully overcome obstacles through a tremendous effort to get what every infant needs: the comfort and security of mother’s presence, resulted in Mom promptly returning me to the crib without so much as a teddy bear to hug or a mobile to entertain me. After a few such crib-escapes, Mom used a carriage strap to confine me in the crib, where she would leave me strapped in until it was time for me to be changed or fed — by bottle, of course.
The twisted silver lining is that Mom registering no guilt whatsoever around such neglect and emotional cruelty (She was simply following tribal custom and some long-dead male pediatrician’s recommendation for infant care.) allowed her to feel completely comfortable telling me all about it when I grew up.
Her casual admission provided a huge clue for me to the primary source of a whole host of mental health issues that would plague me for decades: anxiety around resource procurement, separation anxiety, claustrophobia, anxiety around presenting (especially to those in a position to judge and reward me), etc. The more that was at stake around presenting, the more anxious I would become and less able to perform well.
After the first two years at my art university we students were required to present our work to the board for admission to “upper division” or the final two years toward a BFA. During the presentation I had a panic attack: a racing heartbeat, the sweats, dry mouth, and a sense that I was in a strange sort of vacuum separating me from everyone else. Afterward a fellow student, whose easy confidence had me green with envy throughout our studies together, approached me to say that she had felt sorry for me in my state of distress “I just wanted to hug you up there.” I was mortified that my anxiety was so obvious, yet simultaneously touched by her empathy. Within a week I received a rejection letter from the university. Thankfully, one of the board members was also a professor of mine who admired my work and knew I was a hard-working student. He arranged for a second review in which I presented to board members individually. The one-on-one approach worked; I was accepted.
Even when nothing was at stake I had issues around presenting. Once I offered a homeless woman in Manhattan the remainder of my afternoon treat “Would you like half of a chocolate croissant?” “What?!” she asked. When I repeated my offer she shook an open can of Sprite at me, spritzing me with the sugary soda as she yelled “Are you F#cking Nuts?!!” Perhaps I insulted her by not offering her a whole croissant. Point is some belligerent, mentally-ill homeless woman hurt my feelings by having a negative response to my half-eaten French pastry offer. And I still remember it decades later. That IS a little f#cking nuts.
EPILOGUE
What I have found works for me in presenting to sane people is approaching nervousness as static, and taking my ego out of it. I remind myself that I am best serving whatever message I’m trying to get across when I eliminate the static and engage the audience from a place of calm clarity. Sharing stories of trauma has been healing and insightful. For example, after writing this piece I made a connection to my aversion to figurines, that I mention in the first short story I posted, Glamorous Couple on a Glorious Day.
Part of my journey to adult-while-I-still-have-my-faculties-intact included a position as an afterschool site director at an elementary school. The program’s karate instructor, aka Sensei, was a tad macho for my taste, likely say something like “man-up” to a four-year-old girl. Sensei had his own studio across town, and a chip on his shoulder around having to hold session in the school gym instead of on his turf. I quickly learned my first lesson in academia: self-interest can factor into even the most grass-roots PTA-run afterschool programs. One of the moms had the hots for Sensei. She wasn’t just any mom but the program director who held rank over me. Her son was a little Bruce Lee wannabe who had taken karate classes at Sensei’s studio before we launched the program. So even though I was technically Sensei’s boss… You get the picture.
One day after afterschool, a dad approached me, visibly agitated. At his side was seven-year-old Henry, still in his karate uniform, looking a bit nervous. I knew Henry from the extended hour. Good kid. The dad told me that Sensei had refused to allow Henry to go pee during class. Machismo Sensei had a no-bathroom policy. After I assured the dad that I would speak with Sensei about this policy (which I would do the next day), I leaned down to Henry and said, “Nobody has the right to keep you from going to the bathroom when you really have to go. You tell Sensei that I gave you permission to leave class to pee. Just promise me you’ll go straight back to class as soon as you’re done.” My gift of guidance was accepted with a nod from a boy who happened to resemble my brother Rocco at that age.
The last time I was in Manhattan I hit the famous Charmin Restrooms in Times Square. As you enter the lobby there’s music playing and droves of tourists waiting on long, winding lines for the stalls. At the front of the lines are Charmin employees, who keep things moving along while interacting with and entertaining the patrons. It is Broadway after all.
When I reached the front of the line I was greeted by Devonte, the twentysomething Charmin employee who could be the next Chris Rock. Devonte would be as surprised as anyone to learn that he was a proxy for my mother in that moment, as it was literally his job to help get me to a proper place to pee. I don’t remember what we said to eachother; doesn’t even matter. During the minute or so it took for a stall to open up, Devonte and I joked and laughed together. His positive energy in a potentially triggering circumstance for me was a dab of salve on an old but still tender wound, as was stepping into a transportive bathroom stall with a forest theme, as if Mother Nature herself decorated it to remind me that it’s totally natural to pee. It comes with the package of being human, along with feeling empathy for others and helping them in their time of need.
Be kind out there. You never know what your fellow human has been through. MB
This story is dedicated to Kelly, to whom I’ve presented the most vulnerable parts of my psyche like little porcelain figurines. Her consistent handling of my shares with care has helped me get to a place in which I am able to present delicate stories like this through a spirit that has grown to be quite resilient.
