Everyone that’s ever been in high school knows this feeling. You’re sitting in math class when that Arizona iced tea you drank earlier hits your bladder like flash flood. You raise your hand to ask to use the bathroom. “Yes!” your teacher calls on you. “May I use the bathroom?” you ask. If you’re lucky, they’ll say yes. But more likely they’ll say something like “Why didn’t you go during passing period?” or “Is it REALLY an emergency?” Besides being totally inconvenient and insulting that as a grown person you need to ask another human’s permission to use the bathroom, you may not realize that high schools’ tight restrictions on bathroom usage are ableist as well.

For those who don't know, many high schools and middle schools have tight restrictions on bathroom policies. Whether that be only having one or two passes so only one or two students may go at a time, requiring students to raise their hand in order to use the bathroom, or restricting students from using the bathroom at all during class time, and this is a huge problem for people with disabilities.

There many chronic illnesses that may require students to use the bathroom more than usual or at a moment’s notice. Some of the most notable being Crohn’s and IBS, but other illnesses such as my own, POTS, can have bowel-related symptoms and cause increased urination. And I’m willing to disclose my personal symptoms to you, the reader, in order to raise awareness, so hopefully, other students with chronic illnesses won’t have to in the future. No one wants to talk about “bathroom” stuff, but it's very important to fix this so we can protect the dignity and privacy of student’s with chronic illness in the future. So here we go.

I was diagnosed with POTS at age 12. In a nutshell, it's a sucky chronic illness that causes me nausea, intestinal issues, stomach issues, headaches, heart palpitations, extreme fatigue, and dizziness, basically, it just makes me feel sick all the time. (Other articles about it linked here and here .) Anyone with POTS knows the first two things they tell you when you get diagnosed is that you need to eat a lot of salt and drink a lot of water. Depending on the doctor, I’ve been told to drink as much as 100 ounces in a day. This is because POTS patients get dehydrated more quickly than the general public and that dehydration can greatly intensify and worsen symptoms. So as you can probably guess, all that drinking leads to many bathroom trips. In a middle school and high school system where bathroom trips were a privilege, this is particularly difficult. First of all, though I could get nurses’ notes to hand to my teachers that allowed me to use the bathroom whenever I needed, it’s an incredible invasion of privacy and quite embarrassing to disclose your urination habits to every single one of your teachers. Their job is to strengthen your brain, not police your bladder. But let’s say I suck it up giving all my bodily details to my history teacher and am allowed to use the bathroom whenever I want during his class, my privacy is still at stake. Why? Because you better believe when you just get up and leave to use the bathroom, other kids notice. “Why does Shannon get to use the bathroom whenever she wants?” “How come you let Shannon go to the bathroom and not me?” It drives the teacher into the corner, and the most confidential thing they can say to explain is “she has a nurses’ pass” which will still lead to enormous amounts of questions from your peers and guess what? Now your entire class knows about your bathroom issues. Congratulations. To avoid all this nonsense and embarrassment drawing attention to myself using the bathroom, many times I would just not drink as much I needed during the day, which of course led to an increase in symptoms. No child should have to choose between losing their privacy and their physical health.

This struggle also applies to bowel and stomach related chronic illnesses which may result in long periods in the bathroom caused by constipation, diarrhea, and vomiting, which makes bathroom usage particularly hard on them, especially when teachers insist on “being quick” "hurrying back" and time limits when taking trips to the bathroom.

“BUT SHANNON!” you say, “MOST KIDS DON’T HAVE ILLNESSES LIKE THAT!” Well maybe not. But you know what? 50% of the population does menstruate. No student about to bleed through their pants should have to wait until passing period or disclose to their teacher their “menstruation situation” (™) in order to get to the bathroom in time.

And even if no one had illnesses and no one had periods, these bathroom policies would still be ridiculous. You don’t need permission from your teacher to sneeze or cough or get up and sharpen your pencil, why would you need permission to use the bathroom? The concept is absolutely absurd. Students should have the right to tend to their most basic biological need whenever they have to.

“BUT SHANNON!! WAIT!” you say again, “WHAT ABOUT KIDS WASTING TIME IN THE BATHROOM?” Students using the bathroom just to fix their makeup or waste time or text does happen and it will always happen. But why would you punish an entire student population because of the actions of a few bad eggs? Think about out society in general, some people drink and drive and some people make meth from Sudafed, but that doesn’t mean you breathalyze the entire population every time they enter a car or do an FBI raid on everyone’s house who buys cold medicine just in case there’s a meth lab there. Likewise, some kids abuse bathroom privileges, but that doesn't mean you should restrict the entire student population from using the bathroom when they need to.

And to all chronically ill students dealing with this bathroom nonsense, I'm so, so sorry, and I know what you're going through. But just you wait, soon you'll be in college, a magical place when you can use the bathroom wherever you want.

To everyone else, talk to your teachers, your principals, make yourselves heard. Let them know that these restrictive bathroom policies are invasive, embarrassing, and downright ableist. If enough of us make a fuss about it, they have to hear.