6 year old with sudden phobia is making life unbearable.

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I'm new to this, 1st time I've been brave enough to post, but things are getting impossible at home. My DS2 aged 6 has a sudden and really inexplicable phobia of shower curtains. Its so bad he can't even look at the display ones in shops without screaming the place down.
At home it has developed in to a fear of the whole bathroom(only ours, he uses the loo everywhere else) He won't even go in the door anymore. Bath time is a nightmare and it all came to a head over the weekend when he pooed his pants rather than use the loo.

He has no special needs, toilet trained at usual age for a boy (bit lazy) and up to this point has been a normal happy boy, but lately he has become sullen, moody and disruptive, the worst part of it is that I had a very judgy phone call from a TA at his school suggesting that we were somehow to blame when he had a mega strop over a difficult reading book!

DH and I have been over everything we can think of, including the fan, the flush, the cat (did he jump out and scare you while you were on the loo?) but all DS does is shake his head and say he doesn't know, we have no idea why he is so scared or how we can make it better.
I want my happy little boy back and I have no one I can ask for help any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Did he have a bad dream?

Did he go to the loo in the night and think the shower curtain was someone or had someone behind it?

Can you take the curtain down or is he completely against your bathroom now, curtain or not?

I second the suggestion to take the curtain down and get a screen or similar as a short term measure. Homebase has cheap ones. Or possibly get him to pick up a new curtain out with a design on -- there are cute ones with rubber ducks on for instance.

Kids are odd sometimes. My nieces complained that my bathroom was weird and strange because it didn't have a window (I joked that we couldn't afford a window in London but I put a picture up before their next visit). I remember having a nightmare about the carpet at my grandparents' house when I was little...I though the pattern was alive.

youngminds.org - very helpful

I developed a phobia of matches at the same age and I still hate them now. It cost me a lot to write the word just now.

I've never had treatment....I learned to cope...my parents treated it as a quirk rather than a problem.

I was told to look away and calm down...if I met with them when my parents were not about, I would simply avoid the area.

I don't know if the way we dealt with it was right...I still suffer with it now...but I'm ok with it.

Oh and I couldn't tell you WHY I'm afraid of them. I just am. They repulse me. You could see the GP...he may refer DS for therapy to help his phobia.