Words of encouragement or advice- new city and sharing bathrooms

Hi everyone,
I am looking for any advice or words of encouragement. I am heading to a new city for a job and I am very nervous, anxious, and scared to share a bathroom again. I have had UC since I was 16 and 6 years later I still struggle with bathroom frequency. College was hard with roommates and sharing bathrooms, but I made it work by choosing dorms with public bathrooms so I always had a place to run to if needed and I had a whole campus with good public bathrooms mapped out in my mind. After moving home post-college, I found my anxiety about the bathroom and my UC lessened DRAMATICALLY, but I can't live at home forever!

After a ton of searching in Boston, it looks like finding a private bathroom in an apartment is out of my price range so I will have to share again..but no safety net.

How have others coped with sharing bathrooms? Are there any products out there to have in my private bedroom for emergencies in the morning? Any advice or encouragement would be SO DEEPLY appreciated.

Thank you all

This is pretty graphic advice but hey, we're here to help each other right: when I first moved to NYC I shared a bathroom with 2 other guys and sometimes in the mornings they'd be mid-shower or going themselves and I had nowhere to go when I really had to go.

My solution was keeping these items in my closet: a flattened cardboard box, a bunch of plastic bags and a roll of toilet paper. If I knew I had to go and the toilet was locked I'd lay the cardboard box on my floor, pop a squat over it and go in a plastic bag (which was inside of another plastic bag), wipe, throw inside of some more plastic bags (to hide the smell) and then throw this into some trash bin outside of our apartment. The cardboard box was just for extra peace of mind in case I missed but that wasn't a problem.

Have you already selected an apartment? Hopefully you can find one with 2 bathrooms. And as you get closer to your new roommates you can tell them about your condition and hopefully they are sympathetic and can do things to help you out like not sit on the toilet endlessly playing iPhone games, or can clear the bathroom if you need it and they're just putting up on makeup, etc.

Post Edited (Alex917) : 8/29/2014 12:50:52 PM (GMT-6)

Oh, as long as you have your own room just get a bathroom trash can, plenty of good quality small trash bags and some air freshener. You can always fall back on that and it will also help with anxiety having that option.