Hi Ben
Glad you have found us. Hopefully together we can move you forward. I am assuming the CBT you have tried has been with an NHS therapist or equivalent. In the main they understand about anxiety conditions and the use of CBT, but lack detailed knowledge and experience of how to apply it to paruresis.. All things that we do have.
Also it is very hard to do the graduated desensitisation on you own.
So two things to do:
1. Get yourself onto our Beginners workshop; the next one is in Manchester on 3 March. However I realise this may be too far for you to travel?
2. Get the GP, or a urologist, to prescribe ISC for you. That is Intermittent Self-Catheterisation. Honestly, as you can read on this forum, it is easy, pain-free, and give you the ability to empty your bladder anywhere. The idea is that you use it a temporary crutch that allows you to say travel to a workshop, get a full time job, etc. The problem is that some GP's don't like to prescribe them; we can talk about how to deal with that.
It would be good to talk this through with you, and for you to have a chance to talk about it to someone who has paruresis and experience of helping hundreds of men over the last twenty years. For obvious reasons I do not put a phone number on the website, but you can contact me using support and the domain name in the Contacts page.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Cheers
Andrew
2 months 4 weeks ago