What a Portable Toilet Taught Me About Self Worth.

I was debating whether to dig a bit deeper into my childhood to explain what shaped my beliefs for this. But for now that shall remain a mystery.

What I will say is that for my self-worth and beliefs to have reached the point where I felt deserving of the abuse, the impact had been significant. And when those beliefs pop up, it's not pretty.

Today is a story about those beliefs changing. And it involves a portable toilet.

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Let me take you back to the summer of ’25. Okay, it was last year. But I was a mess.

Jesus, I don’t know how I got through that time.

The DPDR was at an all time high. Constant. At times I wasn’t getting more than about two hours of sleep a night. I’d lost a concerning amount of weight. I wasn’t suicidal, but there were times every part of me wanted to die just for it to stop.

To put it plainly, it was fucking horrendous.

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Me and my sister have our birthdays in June. In fact, she was born just the day before my birthday and I remember saying it’s the best early birthday present ever. I know. I’m an adorable little bugger.

We usually do family parties, so with it being her 21st they wanted to have one. I asked if they could have it at a local hall, because I sure as hell wasn’t in a state to handle a party at home. 

At this point I could barely even talk to my family at home, and having to take a trip to the bathroom was like crawling up Mount Everest.

So when I asked them to do the party somewhere else, thankfully they listened and had the party at…

(drum roll please)

Home. YAY!

The state I was already in, without an extra 30+ people in the house going on for 6+ hours with loud music, there was only one thing I could do. Buckle the f*ck in. This was about endurance.

I had a little plan. Go on the Xbox with my friend, then watch Wicked. That would kill a good chunk of time and I could figure out the rest later.

Then I thought, oh no. What if I need the toilet? People will be using it. What if I need it and can’t? I don’t need that stress on top of everything else.

But there’s no way I can see people. And I don’t want to have to hold it for hours.

Cue light bulb moment.

Remember that camper van you bought to travel solo around Europe, run away from life’s troubles, but then got too poorly to use? Yes… yes I do.

It has a portaloo.

For a moment it was like eureka. Problem solved, I can use it in my room!

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This is where the beliefs came in thick and fast. And oh, was it ugly.

Those old, nasty, familiar beliefs. "God, you're pathetic." "You can't even use a toilet just because there's a party going on. So pathetic." "Worthless piece of shit." Ouch.

It was actually really unpleasant. The feelings that came with it were brutal.

I phoned my mum to try and get some reassurance. But in my flap of self hatred, and her having no idea of my internal state or how carefully she'd need to choose her words, after me saying "it's not ridiculous or pathetic is it? It's not weird, is it?" no fault of my mum, she's amazing, I didn't get the reassurance I hoped for.

BUT.

It was actually the best thing. Because after her casually saying "well..." followed by silence, I thought,

No. NO.

You know what? If a portable loo is what I need in my room to get me through a really tough time, then that's what I'm going to have. And if anyone has judgement for it, then so be it. That's a them problem.

I felt really liberated in that moment. It was the first time I spoke to myself and looked after myself the way I would a friend. I started thinking, if a friend was in this situation, I wouldn't think they were pathetic. I'd think they were doing whatever they needed to do to get through something really difficult. And I'd be proud of them for it.

Something shifted in that moment, and it changed everything.

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The Party

It's the day of the party. My mum was on duty to tell people Laura isn't up to seeing anyone. She asked if I wanted a sign on the door to say don't come in, but I thought that wouldn't be necessary.

(Or so I thought.)

I'm there with my plan, my portaloo, and my new sense of freedom and pride. But very anxious, because I know it's going to be a long one. I had three big mugs ready with herbal tea and a big bottle of water so I was hydrated. I'd already drunk two. I'm a thirsty gal when I'm nervous.

People are starting to arrive. And then I get the sense. It is time.

Okay. I am ready for my first portaloo-in-bedroom experience.

I try to open it.

Nope. It's not opening. It's been a while since I used it. I'm there desperately trying to open it up for ten minutes, then have to find a YouTube video while crossing my legs. For the love of Jesus, someone help me open this lid.

Thankfully, it opened.

At this point everyone had pretty much arrived and had headed into the living room, which is directly underneath my bedroom. I heard some voices and thought, well, it is nice to hear life and energy.

And then I quickly pulled my trousers down and unleashed the mightiest sound.

The portaloo was on the floor, and everyone was stood directly underneath. Some may say what followed sounded like a hybrid of a rhino urinating and the flow of Niagara Falls. I was unaware at first, just so happy to have finally let go.

And then it clicked.

I halted the flow. My eyes widened. Oh my God. I am pissing on everyone's heads.

With the flow still halted, I called my sister. Horrified, we were trying to work out if it was obvious enough, so I’d release a little test burst and she’d tell me if she could hear it. She missed it every single time, so I’d stop, then try again, until we eventually reached the point of, ah well, one must accept and embrace.

So I just let it all go. With pure pride.

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I was laughing so much that it was a very welcome distraction from everything. After a few Xbox games I started to feel like okay, I'm getting pretty tired. Time for Wicked.

Started enjoying it a bit despite the distress, but I got more and more fatigued and essentially became a ball in a dark room in the middle of my bed.

There was a knock on my door.

My heart jumped. I said, sorry, I'm too poorly to see anyone. They proceeded to come in to talk. I continued to say I'm sorry, I'm too poorly to talk, I'm not well.

And they continued to come in and talk, and then I saw them clock the loo.

A little shame crept up. And I thought, NOPE. Nope nope. I don’t even have the energy for shame, and even if I did there is absolutely nothing shameful about this.

It changed something inside me. It was the first time I didn’t give in, the first time I used my voice to say no, not now. That felt so powerful.

I did giggle to myself thinking imagine if they'd walked in while I was on the loo. That would've almost been better.

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The Point

Coming back to why this story matters.

Maybe for me it needed something like that to really flip it on its head. Something I would usually always push through. But this time I couldn't, and it gave me the chance to learn that other ways of responding were possible, and that those beliefs weren't actually true.

From that moment, I stopped taking shit from people. I corrected people who thought I was being lazy or was wasting my life. It came out clunky at first, I was new to it and still going through a really tough time. But something interesting happened.

The comments mostly stopped.

I was respecting myself more and not accepting disrespect from people.

And I stopped speaking to myself that way too.

The weight of people's views and opinions doesn't define my actions.

It can still hurt at times if I'm in a bad place, but I've gotten better at being with the hurt without taking on its meaning.

All thanks to a portaloo.

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There are more stories I’ll tell about beliefs, and thankfully not all of them involve quite this level of madness. 

I do hope this shows that even when beliefs come with really uncomfortable emotions, that does not make them true, and with the right support you can work with them to reduce their impact.

Remember you are absolutely deserving of love, of taking up space, and of using your voice. Sometimes it just takes a bit of practice to believe that.

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I can’t believe I’m sharing these.. the top one was on FaceTime mid halt.

I did manage a few day trips!

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Bonus chaos.

A few days before the party, I'd been clearing out books. Some of them were… well, sex books.

Look. I think most people will agree. Sex is great. Huge fan. If the great gods of the Kama Sutra have wisdom to offer, I'm listening.

But there comes a point where you think… yeah. I've got the gist. Time to pass them on.

So I gave them to my mum.

Now, my mum loves books. (Not usually these ones.) So she often puts a pile out for people to take from.

For this party she put a stack by the front door and told every single person to have a thorough browse and take whatever they wanted.

Some of the family are very conservative, so my mum would never intentionally put sex books, complete with detailed step by step instructions illustrating some rather adventurous positions in the pile. 

Needless to say, my mum was horrified when she found one of the books in the pile the next morning. The others of that nature had mysteriously vanished.

Looking back, it's quite amusing how much unfolded while I was basically just a burrito in bed, innocently trying to make it through the day while my mum was unknowingly distributing kamasutra books to the family. Class.