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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to continue using the disabled facilities at my local pool?

128 replies

HedgehogsDontBite · 02/01/2015 20:32

Our new local pool has a separate changing room for people with disabilities. I was using them when I was there with toddler DS today. A member of staff politely told me that I should be using the family changing room next door. Now I feel bad for using it.

The reason I use it is because the family changing room is very busy and noisy and opens onto the big pool area which is also really busy and noisy and I can't cope with it. The other is small and nearly always empty and opens directly into the smaller not so busy training pool.

The disabled facilities appear to be geared up just for people with physical disabilities. Is it wrong to use them because I have ASD?

OP posts:
letsplaynice · 02/01/2015 21:47

YANBU in the slightest. Mrs...... sounds like in your case they have one very specially equipped changing room and the others are general disabled changing the pool I go to has this and you have to ask to use the specially equipped one to stop people playing with hoist etc maybe you should suggest this at the pool you use.

Original poster
HedgehogsDontBite · 02/01/2015 21:49

How do you cope in the pool if you can't cope in the changing rooms? Not meaning to be flippant but I can't see the difference

Various things. There are several pools in the main room, the big pool with lanes, one the slides go into, a bubble one, a jacuzzi one, a toddler one with slides and water spouts, one with a climbing wall out of it and one with a wave machine. Then there's the training one which is tucked away round the corner in a separate area. I use that one which is not so popular.

Also I feel safer once I'm in the water. I know it sounds daft but I feel like I'm hidden away under neath it and I tend to tuck myself into a corner.

I feel particularly vulnerable in the big changing rooms because I'm getting changed and taking my clothes off in a room full of strangers. The getting changed bit is the barrier I struggle to get to past.

OP posts:
fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 02/01/2015 21:49

Youare it's so complex isn't it.

My DD' dyspraxia extends to her speech so she cannot speak but I do wonder if her abilities are far beyond her motor skills.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 02/01/2015 21:52

I have sympathy for you if changing rooms are full of totally NT people btw mrsmcoll. Sometimes people are just selfish, like teenage boy who walked into family changing room alone ahead of DH and visibly disabled DD.

But people like the OP do need the facilities too.

RoastingYourChestnutsHurtsAlot · 02/01/2015 21:53

Thanks to those who took time out to explain it to me. I'll freely admit to being ignorant to ASD, so thank you

lambsie · 02/01/2015 21:55

ASD can be a physical disability. Ds who is 8 has gross motor skills of about 2 year old level and fine motor skills of 12 -18 months.

Original poster
HedgehogsDontBite · 02/01/2015 22:04

As you've all been really kind I'm going to confess to a big part of the reason I can't cope with the main changing room which I haven't dared to mention previously. Here goes: it's full of naked people. Totally starkers Swedes letting it all hang out. All over the place. Everywhere you look. I have ASD which means I have a tendency to stare. I try not to but there's body parts all over the place. I'm like 'OMG! Don't stare! Don't stare! Don't stare! OMG! I'm staring! Look away, look away! Oh shit where do I look. OMG! There's another one!' I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack with the stress of it. Blush

OP posts:
MisForMumNotMaid · 02/01/2015 22:26

MrsMcColl i just spent a little while trying to find some facts on number of disabled changing facilities required. This is the best I can find sport England swimming pool design guide Page 45 gives the number of changing rooms advised/ required by type and size of pool. It may be worth checking if your pool is lacking and if you've got the fight in you, using this to start an email campaign to the leisure centre, council accessibility team, local disability groups, local councillor etc.

ScrambledeggLDCcakeBOAK · 02/01/2015 22:53

This thread is really making me angry

Just because the disabled changing room is being used by somone who is disabled by the way! Does not mean the other people can't go swimming!

Has no one ever heard of waiting their turn.

I am disabled and very often the facilities for various things not only swimming are being used by another disabled person (sometimes not disabled but that's a different thing) as there are so few of these facilities so I patiently wait my turn like the rest of the world has to when the thing they want to use is being used!

Yes it's shit that there are much much less facilities for the disabled but there are facilities which compared to a long time ago when there were none is IMO at least going in the right direction.

Samcro · 02/01/2015 22:55

only read the op
you have ASD so yanbu

if you didn't you would be

Samcro · 02/01/2015 22:59

oh and my child is in a wheelchair, but we would just wait for it to be free.
I only get mad when the norms use these places because it is easier.

RockinHippy · 03/01/2015 00:39

You have an invisible disability - therefore YADNBU as you are entitled to use the disabled facilities

Tinkerball · 03/01/2015 00:53

MrsM so are you saying physical disabilities should take priority over non-physical disabities?

Purplevicki · 03/01/2015 01:29

Can I just add that the changing facilities are not 'just' for people with disabilities? They are facilities that are accessible for people with disabilities. Any type of disability. Physical. Mental. Sensory. Developmental. Whatever.

That is all.

80sbabe · 03/01/2015 02:32

I am a parent of a child with physical disabilities who is a permanent wheelchair user and I don't think yabu as you do have a disability.

We had a situation at our local pool during swimming lessons - only one disabled changing room and a couple of family changing rooms which unfortunately had doors too narrow for a wheelchair to access.

Every week for a while we would turn up for DS's swimming lesson to find the disabled changing room full of clothes belonging to another family who were already in the pool meaning we had no room to change DS in and so we had to get him ready for swimming as discreetly as we could under a towel in the open public area by the lockers.

Eventually we managed to meet the family "reserving" the disabled changing room before us and it transpired that they had a child with hearing problems who couldn't cope with the noisy public open areas.

They didn't realise we needed to follow them every week to get our DS ready while they were in the pool for lessons so had been leaving their belongings in the cubicle believing only they needed it.

After a chat we agreed that they would change their DC and then use the lockers so we could get DS ready and then we would also use the lockers so that they could get dried and dressed while Ds had his lesson.
Problem solved with a nice chat about everyone's needs and a bit of co-operation all round - everyone was happy.

Providing you only use the disabled room to get changed and then leave it free for someone else if required I can't see the issue.

depecheNO · 03/01/2015 03:38

Definitely not unreasonable, especially as it's a communal disabled changing room so no one even has to wait. I'm currently being assessed for ASD, and until reading this thread it hadn't really occurred to me that most people struggle less than I do in that environment.

It's so long since I last went swimming that my memories of sensory overload have all merged into a general feeling of dislike for swimming, but just thinking about the noise, weird smells, naked people, having to be naked in front of people... ugh. It is particular to the changing room experience rather than the swimming experience, and I feel that it's a real shame that issues which have sod all to do with the act of swimming are keeping people who enjoy swimming out of our public pools.

Simply knowing that this level of discomfort is a possibility for people with invisible disabilities, I would not begrudge you your personal space even if I wasn't able to relate. (I suppose the problem is that so many people aren't aware in the first place, and that they are staffing and planning these community spaces.)

Something really needs to be done to standardise the availability of facilities. Judging by some of the above comments, a good mix of communal and self-contained changing rooms is sorely needed and should be pushed for by those of us who feel able to talk about it.

differentnameforthis · 03/01/2015 04:55

How can you cope with a noisy busy pool while in it, yet not when you are changing?

FishWithABicycle · 03/01/2015 05:46

Yadnbu, especially as the set-up means you aren't preventing any other disabled users from accessing the facilities. Even if it was a cubicle and a wheelchair user was having to wait, the fault would be with the pool for not providing enough disabled people's facilities compared to the demand.

Could you send a polite email to the management asking them to remind their staff that some disabilities are not visible and it won't always be obvious why someone is only able to access the pool if they can use the disabled facilities. It's not wrong for them to check the system isn't being abused (they need to be able to challenge someone who has no disability of any kind who might be doing the same thing for selfish reasons) but they need to do so sensitively in the understanding that the person they are talking to might be entirely correct to use the facilities.

Darkandstormynight · 03/01/2015 06:06

I am claustrophobic and at times use the disabled restrooms. I feel while not a physical disability it is a mental condition and therefore applies. Though if I saw someone with a physical disability I'd let them go first or suck it up and do the small stall.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 03/01/2015 06:43

Different name. .she already explained why in depth, and so did many others.

MythicalKings · 03/01/2015 06:49

I agree with everyone else. As long as you remove your stuff and there is room for someone else to use it- no problem.

AlpacaYourThings · 03/01/2015 07:10

differentnameforthis RTFT

x2boys · 03/01/2015 08:50

I would use them my four year old has autism and learning difficulties he is also still in nappies but I do worry about him not looking disabled and whet people think.

PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 03/01/2015 09:31

I always use disabled toilets for Ds.

The hand dryer is enought to send him into a full meltdown.

I don't take Ds swimming often as it's hard work.

foreverdepressed · 03/01/2015 09:54

This type of discussion really comes down to the fact that many people (despite protesting otherwise and being very "PC" on the surface) do not really accept many people actually ARE disabled by hidden disabilities like ASD, learning disabilities, MH problems, etc.

If they can't see someone obviously severely disabled, flopping all over the place in a wheel chair accompanied by two carers, then they just don't believe it.

In this discussion we have even seen people with physical disabilities playing top trumps over those with hidden disability. Ugh.