U.K. PARURESIS TRUST: Re: Power of discussion board

Glad to hear it, Eddie. I have found exactly the same as you. You will be surprised how quickly things can develop from now on, and I think you are taking the right approach.

Just by following advice on this site and in Steven Soifer's book (I have not yet been to any workshops - still got that to look forward to I guess!) I've been regularly desensing and have been blown away by the progress I've made. Only a couple of months ago I was basically in the same position you are. I don't go out specifically to desense, but I take a little and often approach voiding completely once I hit 7 or 8/10. That means I get maybe 2 or 3 chances a day away from home, and I look on it as a kind of game or challenge instead of facing up to some fear, ie. I actually see it as something to look forward to! The only problem I've had is knowing how much water I need to get that urgency, it seems to vary all the time for me.

I found that I could use cubicles reliably unless the adjacent one was occupied and there was little background noise, so the next step was moving onto a door paritally/fully open situations in busy toilets. Moving onto urinals - I found a quiet facility in my local park where I could literally stand for ten minutes and not see or hear a soul, so after about three attempts I managed to go there once. Then again, and again. Then I found a good clean, spacious and fairly quiet facility on an upper floor of a shopping centre where there are plenty of urinals all with dividers and made a point of drinking plenty of water then using that once every day. After a couple of weeks of success, confidence boosted no end, I decided to try a much busier toilet in another shopping centre, first time was quite difficult, second time a bit easier, third time I locked up completely. Important thing when that happens is to recognise it's perfectly normal, go away and come back again another time. I've been using busy motorway services quite a bit over the last week and am finding that easy so far which is something I couldn't have imagined only a short time ago.

I find the misfires only happen if I approach the toilet having any kind of negative thought about not being able to pee, but my experience is that success really does reinforce itself and as a result you'll have those thoughts less and less often. I also find that doing it so regularly means that it feels like the normal thing to go straight to the urinals rather than the cubicle now. I am nowhere near "cured" (there's still a proximity issue going on and everything I've described is only possible on a strong urge) but persistence is definately starting to pay off in my case, so I'm happier than ever right now.

In a nutshell, keep at it. Does that help?