Posted by Andrew on 29/10/2008, 10:55 pm, in reply to "New here - going to beat this thing! bit of a blog here I reckon :P"

Go for it Mike. Attitude is the most important thing in beating this condition. You have to decide you are going to beat it, and you have to believe you can beat it. Those two rules are paramount. And you have shown that you have the necessary attitude. Get into a f**k them misndet when you go in that at toilet i.e. you dont give a f**k what they think. Hav a script in your head that for if a commetn is made (which is very very unlikely) i.e "you took a long time" Answer "So what, who'se counting?" or "It takes as long as it takes". You mention staying in as long as it takes. Just beware of one thing: if your anxiety starts to rise out of control, get out and take the time to calm down, before trying again: you dont want to reinforce the link between anxiety and the situation. Read the stuff on our website (not this forum): there is a page of useful guidance called "Components of a CBT approach". Happy hunting Andrew

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