Posted by Chelsea on 25/3/2009, 1:36 am

Hello everyone! My name is Chelsea and I’m 19 (20 tomorrow) I live in America, and have had PA for about 10 years. It started off just as an annoyance, and really didn’t get in the way of anything at first, but in the last couple years it has turned into a monster consuming my life. Like many of you because of PA I don’t socialize as much as I could and I back out of a lot of plans just so I will not have to fear about bathrooms. When I do go out I worry about it so much that sometimes it brings my whole day down. I don’t even feel like it’s worth it. With my birthday being tomorrow, and looking back on how I have been living my life lately, I have decided that enough is enough. I can’t keep living my life with this irrational fear. I feel like such a slacker, since at age 20 I have never even had a job in fear that I will be stuck working with a full bladder and a foreign bathroom. These last couple of days I have been reading through these forums thoroughly. You seem like such a comforting group of people and have been bringing me much strength into my fight to overcome this. Today was the second time I tried to use a public bathroom with people inside. I picked ones I was use to and have no trouble going in when they are empty. I drank a lot of water, and when I finally felt like there was no way I could stand it any longer I went in. No matter how many tries though, I couldn’t go. It was very annoying. It wasn’t that I felt panicky. Most of the time I am quite panicky, but I was getting over it pretty quickly seeing I was just sitting there listening to music and messing with my ipod. I just couldn’t go when I know I needed to. Once everyone left though I was fine! I’m sure you guys understand. So I was wondering if anyone knew some good tricks for this. Since I don’t feel panicky I’m not sure what to do. I feel like my mind is over it but my body isn’t! Maybe I’ve just got so use to panicking that I can’t notice it anymore. I am also planning on calling my colleges counseling office and scheduling an appointment for counseling. I really don’t know what to expect from it and am really scared about how it will work out, but it’s worth a try. Anyway, sorry for such a long hello. I guess it just feels really good to have people that really understand how all of this is! Also, I do know about the American PA site. I just thought it would also be great to say hello here. I hope you don’t mind.

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