Another of Karl's blogs posted on his behalf

For everyone’s additional information, I have just looked up the misfires in my diaries whereby I wrote short notes detailing why I had these misfires so I could learn from them by reading my diary at any time in the future.
I can tell you that nine of these misfires were due to a low level of urgency, two were due to insufficient fluid intake, one occurred due to too much pressure & one occurred for some unknown reason.
Below I have tallied for you the dates on when I misfired when I used public conveniences more than once in one day to show you that I had only one misfire in a single day of visits & that I had several successes on those days.

Date 1: 1 misfire out of 2 visits
Date 2: 1 misfire out of 6 visits
Date 3: 1 misfire out of 6 visits
Date 4: 1 misfire out of 6 visits
Date 5: 1 misfire out of 4 visits
Date 6: 1 misfire out of 3 visits
Date 7: 1 misfire out of 3 visits

Several misfires have happened to me when I’ve been out practicing & have been too keen to put another success in my diary & have left too little urine in my bladder to have a high enough level of urgency to go.

One misfire happened to me in the sports changing rooms once due to too much pressure.
There was one person across from me (but not using a urinal), about six people on the other side of the wall above the sinks behind me, reflective tiles & I think my level of urgency was not quite there.
Sound activity from so many talking & talking loudly was distracting too.
I could probably have avoided this misfire because feeling pressure & anxiety I could have just stood at the urinal & faked it or alternatively I could have avoided the urinals altogether & made a silent excuse to use a sink & thrown cold water over my face or to wash my hands instead. If I’d used the sinks then nobody would have known I’d gone in there to use the urinals but changed my mind so I wouldn’t have to worry & my anxiety levels would have dropped.

Another misfire happened in the pool/sauna changing rooms.
I’d been drinking plenty of water in the sauna. I ran out of water, I was hot so needed a cold shower to cool down & I also felt it was time to try & use the urinal. I didn’t know which order to do this in but I ended up getting the water first because a regular I knew was at the sinks & I could have a chat with him. I then went to the urinal & he then used the only other one.
These urinals are close & have no dividers but I didn’t have to worry about my privacy because me & this guy had been naked in the changing rooms at the same time on lots of occasions in the past.
To feel more at ease because I knew he’d unavoidably know I wasn’t urinating, I made a comment like “tut. I thought I was ready to “go” but I’m not.” The guy said “oh, I know what you mean!”. I had a shower & he went into the pool. I then went right back to the urinal & urinated straight away.
It was a very frustrating misfire for me seeing as I didn’t have to worry about my privacy but importantly I knew I didn’t have to worry about what this man was thinking & have never felt nervous about seeing him again. He’s just as friendly as before & probably thought nothing of it.

Two of my misfires occurred when I was in a city I barely go to so I was keen to try the conveniences out because it was somewhere different but I hadn’t had enough fluid intake to succeed.

The last time I misfired was on a long day out to another city.
I intended going in the city centre gents but saw the gents in the subway.
I walked around in circles trying to decide if my level of urgency was high enough.
I went for it & found out that the troughs had been replaced by urinals with dividers.
The layout of these gents is poor. When at the urinals there’s two cubicles immediately in line on your left & on your right there’s the sinks with a huge wall mirror above them that reflects people standing at the urinals when you go to wash your hands.
Two men stood two urinals up from me & I couldn’t start, then a man stood on the right & I couldn’t start, he left & another man stood there & I still couldn’t start. I felt so close to urinating & I was trying so hard to go but I had to give in. My level of fluid & therefore urgency was just about one level lower out of ten than I needed it to be to have a success.

I’m glad I kept notes in my diary as to why I misfired on the above occasions because I can see that most of them could have been avoided if I’d been more careful & were not down to paruresis.

The workshop had done lots to help me & I’d done lots to help myself.

Hi everybody!

Well I’ve just had another incredibly successful year!
For those of you who have read my blog’s in the past you will know that I keep a diary of every time I see a man about a dog!
I can now reveal to you my results from Jan 1st ‘23-Dec 31st ‘23.

459 recorded visits
378 at public urinals
41 in cubicles
3 in public places
37 at a mate’s house

ONE (yes, ONE!) misfire at public urinals!
NO misfires in cubicles, public places or mate’s house!
NO times faked it in cubicles, public places or mate’s house!
NO times latent in cubicles, public places or mate’s house!

I will mention that I was SO confident at the beginning of last year that I aimed to achieve no misfires in the whole year & I was deflated when I made a mistake on Feb 28th.
I judged the misfire & knew it was an error of judgement on my part & not down to paruresis so I wasn’t hard on myself for it.
It did bug me because it was so early on in my achievement aim but I have SO much to be delighted and proud of!

It’s eight years on Jan 29th ‘24 since I went to my first workshop and carried on practicing everything religiously.
I don’t need to practice anymore but do intentionally make sure I use the gents almost every time I go out, wherever I go to keep the success ingrained.

My eight year statistics are as follows.

3,381 visits to any toilet
3,368 successes
3,331 non-latent successes
3,359 successes after latency
2,053 at public urinals
750 in public cubicles
32 in public places
13 (YES, 13!) misfires

I will add that I haven’t just used public cubicles so many times as a safety behaviour but have also used them because there was no urinals in the building such as a train or cafe.I’ve also used public places when I’ve got caught short and no toilets are available such as on walks or late at night when the gents are locked so once again, it’s not down to safety behaviour.

No more diaries for me I think!
Successes are so many & misfires so few so I may as well just document the misfires & I shall put them on my phone calendar & look at them each January.

To everyone out there reading this, I wish you all the very best for a successful year in improving your paruresis & for those who haven’t been on a workshop before, get on one as soon as you can.
Practice doesn’t always make perfect but practice does help - so do it!

Karl