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'Shy bladder syndrome must be one of the most secretive afflictions going'
Ian, 40, a musician from north-west England, has paruresis or shy bladder syndrom
I was always a bit worried about toilets - full of bullying and people smoking. When I started going out to pubs and clubs any trouble would usually kick off in the bogs. I used to look for a cubicle but then the bouncers would kick the door down thinking you were doing something else.
It got easier when I was in a band. It was much easier to piss as we had our own toilet back stage. Anyway, I was taking loads of stuff that tended to stop you wanting to pee, if you know what I mean!
I suppose the final straw was about three and a half years ago when I was on a ferry and couldn't go, even in a cubicle. I went to see my GP and he referred me to a psychologist. There was a long waiting list so I went private.
I had EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. It's based on the idea that the disturbing thoughts or feelings following a trauma can be reduced by having you move your eyes rapidly while reflecting on the event.
EMDR had me in tears
After just a handful of questions from the therapist, I was in floods of tears. I realised just how much it had all affected me.
I had three or four sessions of EMDR and it helped a little. I also tried hypnosis and while that put me in a good mood I don't think it made much difference.
In the end, I plucked up the courage to go to a UKPT workshop — I'd been monitoring their website for months — and that made the difference.
Beforehand I was terrified. I wondered if they were a bunch of nutters. As I checked into the hotel I was trying to work out who else couldn't pee. But the week-end worked.
Afterwards I felt absolutely liberated. If someone had told me that after the workshop I'd have been able to pee with someone standing next to me I wouldn't have believed them.
| This article reflects the experience of the individual. It is not health information from the MHF under the terms of the NHS England Information Standard. It was last updated in 2006. Up-to-date information on this topic can be found here: Paruresis FAQs. |
Page created on February 21st, 2006
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The Men’s Health Forum need your support It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking. In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to. It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for. We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing. Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.
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