U.K. PARURESIS TRUST: Re: women's workshop?

thank you Adam / Margaret / Andrew for your supporting words...it is sometimes hard to separate myself from this issue. I know I won't be able to discuss this with guys around....I'm just so humiliated by it all right now.

However I went to see a psychologist yesterday...well it turned out she was not actually a psychologist but the assessor of the team - a woman, I had insisted on a woman. It has taken me 12 months for my GP to get me to be seen. Apparently if you live in South London and have anything less than paranoid schizophrenia they just don't have the resources to be bothered with you.

I have had bouts of anxiety/depression since I was 8 (the same time as the onset of my paruresis) & have had some support from psychologists (not living in London I need to stress) for these more general issues...but I have not been able to talk to them about my paruresis before now.... I had to try and explain to my GP what this condition was..she was flummoxed and was quite at a loss really but nice about it and pressed ahead with my referral.

But today at this community mental health assessment team I knew I really was talking another language. I was speaking to this assessor and an observant trainee nurse (having someone else there totally freaked me out too) and this lady just kept trying to play my condition down "oh but everyone can have trouble peeing" - I had a copy of the Soifer and Himle book with me and I passed it to her and she just looked perplexed. She admitted she had never come across anything like this before and when I was explaining about the un-necessary surgery I had had she was answered "well it is very good that they checked out there wasn't something physically wrong with you" - very good?!!! They stuck a camera up my urethra, "stretched" my bladder unnecessarily and gave me a good old infection in the process which meant when I did pee afterwards I was peeing blood clots and had to be injected with diamorphine to cope with the pain. I feel like crying. In fact I am crying. I cannot begin to explain to anyone who has not suffered this how much it has affected my whole entire life. And today I felt belittled. I was told (after a 90 minute assessment, apparently they normally only last 45) that I might be offered a course of CBT (I have to wait a few weeks for an answer) - but if I did it would only be because I am a single mother and she seemed to be concerned that my overall depression/anxiety could put my children at risk. She seemed not bothered whatsoever about my paruresis.
It was a HUGE thing for me....to tell a complete and utter stranger about this so personal secret. I went begging for help and it was not forthcoming.

I am so entirely grateful I have the board here to make me feel like I am not mad or stupid or ridiculous. I have been checking in here for 2 years now and it has made me laugh and it has made me cry and it has given me hope...in some tiny ways I am improved...I can usually use a public bathroom if it is busy and if it isn't I simply flush the loo - reciting my "people just don't care" mantra. But that is it. I can't go with people waiting for me. I can't go with people I know near. But my true goal is for me to never have to think about this again.

I am willing to wait a long time for a women's workshop. Even if there are only a handful that would be great for me. And maybe after that first step I can begin to be a bit more open and less embarrassed about this.