Bathrooms have always been my safe place.

As someone with anxiety (both general and social), bathrooms are the one socially accepted place of self-isolation. After all, you usually can't obtain a quick respite from a party or conversation by blurting out "I'm going to go sit in the corner for five minutes—no one talk to me!"

No, instead you say, "I'm going to the bathroom," and then you nip off real quick to either a stall or a small room in which you're gloriously alone for the brief amount of time that you need in order to get it together. Because if someone tries to hold a full-on conversation with you while you're in the bathroom, they're the one who isn't behaving in a socially appropriate manner—not you.

For most of my life, I was fortunate to have a large, private bathroom at my disposal. At home, my brother's room and my room are connected by a bathroom that contains two sinks, ample counter space, and yet another, smaller room (with its own door) that holds the toilet and bath/shower combo.

Yet despite our shared access to the bathroom, the space was functionally mine alone, a fact my brother occasionally lamented but never truly attempted to change. My cosmetics and curling irons occupied every square inch of counter space; my headbands and face lotions poked out of the drawers. I'd effectively claimed the bathroom as my own, if only through marking my territory with all my possessions. My brother was relegated to the bathroom downstairs.

In this way, my bathroom became even more of a comforting location to me. After all, it's where I started and ended each day, staring at myself in the mirror as I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I faced the worst of appearance in that bathroom—the mirror reflecting back to me a sleep-deprived girl with dark under-eye circles, tangled hair, and crust in her eyes—and learned to accept this version of me through my twice-daily exposure therapy.

The bathroom was where I practiced self-care, from everything as basic as flossing to as elaborate as face masks. The bathroom was where I wiped the grime and the stress of a long day from my body, warm water soothing my sore muscles as I showered. The bathroom was where I played with my identity and my appearance, experimenting with makeup and dying my hair. It was a place of positivity, of reinvention, of endless possibilities.

The bathroom was also where I went to cry in private, behind the safety of three layers of doors and under the sound of the fan whirring loudly. The bathroom was where I sobbed for hours before finally drying my tears, picking myself up off the tiled floor, and deciding to carry on despite it all.

The bathroom was where I came apart and pieced myself back together before re-entering the outside world, determined not to be broken. The bathroom was my hideaway, my home, my symbol of safety and resilience. It was a place of self-harm and self-love, of contradiction and completeness.

And then I moved to college.

Suddenly, my private space became a public forum. One night I woke up at 2 am with the urge to pee and stumbled upon a co-ed party occurring in the girls' bathroom. One girl quickly rushed out the guys holding beer cans and then apologized to me after I'd emerged from the stall, but at that point, I just wanted to go back to sleep, despite the fact that I was now profoundly awake.

Rather than the mirror alone being privy to my horrific appearance, now so was everyone else on my floor (sorry if I scared anyone!). My quiet and peaceful showers were replaced by girls yelling about who had gotten more drunk last night. My safe place was stripped away.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be coming back anytime soon. Next year, I'll be living in an apartment with five other girls—with only one bathroom between us all (thanks, San Francisco housing market). On top of that, the bathroom is located on the second floor of the apartment while my room is on the first floor. This tiny, relatively-far-away bathroom is a far cry from the spacious room connected directly my bedroom at home.

I'm not sure how well I'll deal with this arrangement, this continued openness of a space that, for the past eighteen years of my life, has been my own private retreat. Now, there will be six girls fighting over the right to use this tiny space at any given moment—"Someone can just poop while someone else is showering!" one of my future roommates suggested jokingly (I hope).

Maybe I will become accustomed to being more open, the way I've (somewhat) adjusted to dorm bathrooms. Maybe I'll use the creepy crawl space in one of the closets as my spot for meditation.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll learn to be assertive. When I inevitably need a break from the cacophony that is six college girls inhabiting one tiny apartment, I'll be able to say, "I'm going to go sit in the corner for five minutes—no one talk to me!" After all, with the bathroom out of the equation, I might have no other choice.