Hey guys,

I just wanted to post on here about a big achievement in my life with paruresis which I honestly cannot believe. I’ve just got back from a 2 week family holiday to the states which I have been anxious about due to numerous factors such as busy itinerary so having to use the bathroom at the same time as others and also what urinals would be like.

I ended up using urinals 99% of the time as most urinals had barriers in between so had the mindset of nobody can see if I’m urinating so I’ll just wait until I finish and it worked. Each day I would be using urinals and not even thinking about any previous stage fright problems I had previously with such ease that I was like this feels absolutely normal. My biggest achievement was using a urinal, next to someone, with a queue of 3 guys waiting for the cubicle stood behind me. I washed my hands and walked off with a big sense of achievement that I would usually be the one stuck in that line waiting wishing I could just use the urinal.

My question is has this happened to anyone else when stateside? and now I’m worried that I’m back in the UK where urinals are more open that I’ll start to suffer with paruresis again.

Lastly, I attended a beginners workshop years ago (maybe before the pandemic) and I’m not too sure whether to book a follow up course or start again with beginners. What is the main difference?

Cheers,
Jay

Hi Jay

Firstly well done for what happened in the States. I wonder if you could somehow bottle your experience there: what you felt and did as you went to the urinal, and how you felt and did when you were there; so that in future you can replay that in your mind and redo it when you’re at the urinal.

Was your workshop in October 2018 in Manchester with me and Ian? As you say a ong time ago.

With respect to the workshops I recommend strongly that you attend a follow-up workshop; you will be way ahead of anybody on the beginners workshop, but on a follow-up workshop we can tailor things specifically to suit you. There are two coming up: one in October and one in November.

Ask to what to do in England, I suggest you split your time into two. Firstly time you set aside for focused desensitisation in controlled environments starting in quiet urinals with dividers and gradually moving to busier ones and ones without dividers, just like you did on a workshop. For the rest of your time, the majority of your time, just do whatever feels comfortable, which is what people who don’t have paruresis do, whether it’s using a cubicle or a urinal it doesn’t matter. The important thing is not to have loads of misfires with the risk of you feeling you’re going backwards.

So how does that all sound?

Cheers

Andrew