Reply: Suffering for 10 years+ help *UPDATE*

Luke, I am delighted that the CBT worked out for you so well. You say you are a different person now to what you were 11 months ago; that is great. Hopefully you are now going out with your mates; hopefully you feel up to a relationship; and you are fulfilling your musicianship?
You will have apps and downs if only along whit your mood. Do go with the flow and accept these argil bee short time effects.
Best
Andrew

Around 11 months ago I made a post on here talking about how at a loss I was. I thought I'd give an update on whats been going on and how I am now.

In June I put myself on the waiting list for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). By the start of August I was having my first session. I didn't know what to expect from it at all. The first session was understanding more about what the problem was and a brief back story on how long it had gone on. Each session lasted an hour and was in a location as close as possible to me. We would set targets at the end of each session for me to go out and try. These would involve going to a cafe or bar and using the cubicle there rather than going home. Each week I would try and a lot of the time I would fail but then we would talk about why I was unable to go and break it down bit by bit. By the end of November I was able to use the toilet consistently whilst out at bars. The next target was to try do it when it was busy. This is something I still struggle with time to time but have learnt that it's not going to be magically fixed and will take time to adjust.

Over the months to follow I began to see improvement and by February of this year I was confident with being able to go most of the time whilst out. I have also been able to use the urinal a bunch of times but only when there was no one in the toilet at the time. This is something I'm still trying to work on but I realise it could take a long time.

3 weeks ago I managed to overcome my biggest fear which was not being able to use the toilet on a long haul flight. In my original post I mentioned that I once held a pee for 8hrs on a flight back from America. Well this time I was able to go with comfort 3-4 times over the 11hr journey.

As of today I have just had my last therapy session. I have just read back my original post which I had not read since posting it... I cried. I feel like a completely different person to how I was back then and cannot recommend CBT more. It's still something that I'm going to have to live with at times but I feel so much better about myself now then I did.

I want to thank the admins on this website for the advice they gave me. Also a big thank you to the other people who shared their stories. It really made me feel like I wasn't the only one struggling.

If anyone has any questions about the therapy sessions or just in general, then feel free to message me or reply to this post.

Thank you,
Luke