Hi!

I'm someone who can actually say that most of the time, I've gotten over this. There used to be various different toilets that terrified me. I totally agree that the high cistern and chain ones are a nightmare. Especially my grandma's really noisy one. Also the ones that used to have more than 1/3 water in the bowl; as I child I was afraid I'd fall in, or as I didn't know how they worked, was afraid they'd overflow. Also the ones at school had the cistern above head height, and pipes from the cistern pointing over the toilet bowl, so I was always afraid of an imminent spewing of sewage as I was using it. On one occasion the pipe was pointing at me as I walked in and I froze and stopped breathing.

The way I got over it might not be a practical solution for everybody though!

How it happened with me was:

1) I went to Houston airport. Absolutely terrifying!! I don't know how seriously obese they were expecting people to be, but the toilets were **huge**!!! What's more I had just finished perching on the edge when I heard a rumbling in the distance, which got nearer and nearer and the toilet started flushing! I was so terrified I literally threw the toilet paper at the toilet and cowered in the corner, sweating, shaking like a leaf with my knees knocking together. When I came out the people I was with said how pale I looked but thankfullly attributed it to the altitude! After that, nothing ever seemed so bad...

2) I spent an extended period in South America. Here quite often a toilet was a hole in the ground, sometimes one in a slimy-sided cubicle that you needed to pay for the privelege of using. Some I had to pour the water down to flush, and many times taking the back of the cistern off and reaching in to fix it was needed, which I was quite apprehensive of, initially, I got to know how they worked, which helped a lot. Also, in Bolivia, there was a town toilet-bush, insufficiently large, that those who couldn't afford a slimy cubicle would use. So all in all, by the time I got back I was so grateful for a clean, shiny toilet that I could flush loo paper down that it rarely occurred to me to be afraid.

So while you can't necessarily do that, my advice would be take the back of one if you can, stick your hands in, lift things up and see what's connected to what. It's a bit like shining a light under the bed so you know there's no monsters there. Once you know how they work your rational mind can explain to the irrational part why nothing bad can happen. And like others have said, expose yourself to the fear as much as you feel able to, and if possible, give yourself a good scaring. When you survive you will know the thing you're afraid of wasn't that bad.

Hope that helps!