Déjà vu

That night started off badly.

This is why-

Firstly, it was colder than we expected. I believe it was February of 2007. I know it had snowed heavily that January. The snow was so deep even those students born and raised in London claimed they’d never experienced weather like it. The forecast had reassured us the weather would be getting warmer. It was wrong.

To make the temperature situation worse, we were on our way to a school uniform night at the Enfield campus, so we were wearing short skirts and thin blouses. I, a northern girl, from a city infamous for women winter clubbing in nothing more than tiny dresses, was the only one of us who had worn a jacket. Please keep in mind I have very bad circulation issues, particularly in my fingers and toes, and though at the time I didn’t know why, I was aware I had them.

I want to add a note here saying it is my recommendation that you don’t go to school uniform nights, especially if you’re a student. They are disgusting, and what makes it even worse is the majority of the people they were encouraging to dress up like school children had only just left school themselves. We were barely older than the children wearing those school uniforms to school rather than a university event. It is my opinion the people running these events were perverts. I especially still looked like a very young child.

Secondly, Amy had decided not to go at the very last moment, I don’t remember why, leaving me to go alone with Laura, Mel, and Nicola. Nicola also decided not to go right as we were leaving.

This happened around the time me and Amy removed ourselves from the penthouse crew. As a result of this, and that the five of us always ended up together a uni events anyway at this point, I had become much closer to Laura and Mel, so Amy’s change of plans did not change my plans.

Most of that night is now lost to me. What I do still have is a hazy recollection of the journey there, and a clear memory of the end of the night.

In this post I am going to talk just about the journey there.

We had as usual been pre event drinking. I need to pee every five minutes normally, drinking alcohol make this worse. Due to the cold temperature though, I wasn’t the only person desperate for the toilet on our journey from the Trent Park campus to the Enfield campus, on the bus there, Laura started complaint that she needed to go too.

Once off the bus, there was a maybe ten minute walk to the campus, then we would have to wait a queue, while the bouncers searched those before us who were also waiting to get inside the student union.

Laura was certain she couldn’t make it to the campus. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the queue, but due to what happened to me that night in central London, I was adamant that we try to make it to the event to pee.

Halfway there, Laura declared she couldn’t hold it anymore. Refusing to go into an alleyway alone at night, she insisted I go with her.

As I was with someone else, I couldn’t make myself pee. This wasn’t like the night in Trent Park woods with Amy, where it was so dark we couldn’t see each other and could hear each other pissing into the grass and soil. Here, there was the dim glow of the streetlamps, and the ground was concrete.

Despite this, Laura had no problem going.

The building we were behind was a closed commercial building, so why it never occurred to us that there would be security cameras I don’t know.

Laura was done by the time she noticed the security camera that was pointing directly at us. I hadn’t been able to start. Regardless, we got out of there straight away. Laura waved up at the camera smiling as we did.

She though it was hilarious and told everyone.

Again, I felt shame and violation. What I also felt was a different type of fear to the type I had felt in the alley way in central London.

Regardless of our councils here in England not providing enough public toilets, and those they do closing at night, urinating in public is illegal. If I had urinated in public and gotten into trouble, or even had been the one who had demanded we did it but couldn’t, that wouldn’t have been great, but at least I would have actually broken the law. What I was afraid of was getting into trouble for something I hadn’t even done. This is a fear that has haunted me through both my teenage years and adulthood, as well as one that triggers my episodes.

Though I don’t remember doing it, I’m certain I dwelt on this possibility all night, as I know myself.

On top of this, the bouncers at the door treated me with suspicion. There reason for doing so seemed to be that I was wearing a jacket and nobody else was, even though it was freezing cold. As well as searching my handbag which was standard practice, they patted me down which wasn’t, despite me obviously having no pockets and wearing barely there clothing, further exacerbating my bladder discomfort. I had wanted to keep my jacket with me, but when they insisted, they either take another few minutes to check it, or I take a few seconds to check it into the cloak room, I checked it into the cloakroom, in order to get to the toilet faster.

The cloak room was just a row of coat hangers in buildings entrance, which was separate to the main function room, which they had put some tables in front of so they could charge everyone a couple of pounds in return for a raffle tick receipt to get your coat back.

Little did I know that my decision to leave my jacket in that cloak room would lead to me being physically assaulted by these very bouncers just a few hours later.