U.K. PARURESIS TRUST: Re: Outing myself...

Hi Andrew,

I will be coming to the one in May. I have decided. I will. I don't know how yet but I need to.

I broke down on Monday...it lasted two days this time.

I believe the 4th of February was the day I started to unravel. It was the first time I had openly expressed to strangers (or anyone really for that matter) how much of my life this "curse" had consumed.

I think that was for the best though.

The last couple of weeks have been a roller coaster for me. I felt as though I had actually acknowledged my Paruresis as something that was a condition and not just a permanent defect. I spent the first week letting myself know all the things in my life I had voluntarily passed by and or sabotaged as a result of just been afraid to pee.

Sufficed to say the list was a long and pathetic one. This sudden realization of something that I had already known anyway crushed me. I don't know how you can realize something twice but I did.

I felt like I was struggling to take the last dying gasps of a man who had all ready been swallowed by the quick sand...I knew my plight but there was nothing I could do now.

I know this is and I am a dramatic person but I really can't explain how I was feeling. There are no words. There never will be.

Any way. On Sunday I was having serious thoughts about ending it all...what is the point you know. The life I live is the one forced onto people in jail...constant and unrelenting isolation.

It had really - Really got to me.

I didn't kill my self nor will. Trust me. (or maybe I did and I'm just haunting you all?

). Instead I woke up Monday morning and had a seizure...Yay!(Never had them before. I think it was stress).

Long story short....an ambulance takes me to A&E where I am prodded,pricked like a pin cushion and then told "you may not leave until we receive a urine sample".

I went on my second try. Admittedly I had to ask a very nice (yet not quite so understanding) nurse to take me to a bathroom that met my very strict requirements on the second attempt....and then to go away.

Afterwards as I looked into a large jug of my own urine walking back over to the ward I had two realizations:

1) Why was I looking into my own wee so intently surely this isn't normal? haha

2) I had done it! someone had asked me to pee and I had because it was important that I did so. Second try yes but I did it!

This got me thinking. If I had no house for a week...if I forced myself outside every time I need a pee I would not physically be able to hold it in indefinitely there WOULD be a point in time in which I would piss myself - There would. I would die if not.

With this crude yet effective bit of knowledge I realized that it might only be a case of "time * pressure = cure"

This oddly enough was my light at the end of the tunnel. I think that's very important.

If you can't remember a time u succeeded you may as well never had.

I went home that day feeling something similar to triumphant but definitely not quite there. Better than the previous day I suppose.

I woke up Tuesday and had my second wave.

I am not ashamed one bit to say that I was on the floor in the fetal position balling my eyes out. I don't know why but I was. I got out of the shower, put on my work clothes on and just had a complete and utter emotional melt down.

I am however ashamed at telling you the second part of my morning episode.

In fact ashamed isn't even the word to think back on it if I could crawl into my memory of that day and beat myself half to death I would without a seconds thought...and what's more would deserve it.

Upon finding me; a sobbing wreck on her landing floor. my mother (who was only trying to help) asks me "what's up?"

[She didn't/doesn't understand the hold it had on me, I had told her before in the past but no one can until they experience it them selves.]

Hearing this I blew up...I don't know why - I really don't. But I did....Big time.

I stood up and walking towards the bathroom forced my fist through the door and kept doing it. It looked like Swiss cheese. When I no longer had any purchase for my fists I just ripped the thing of the wall. I kicked plaster of the walls. and then moved on the the next door.

My hands were bleeding everywhere and she pointed this out (obviously she didn't want me to wreck the carpet it's understandable) so I spat on it (the floor) again no idea why.

I was in a F**king Frenzy. With the flesh half torn from my knuckles and the realization that I had little to no more energy left to throw my fists I walked into my room to grab what ever I could find...turns out it was a screw driver first.

I forced this shockingly (I really didn't think I had the strength for half of this?) like a knife straight through one of the wooden panels in my bedroom door. Exhausted, frustrated and oddly humiliated at the fact that I couldn't pry it out again I turned around picked up the house plant sitting on my desk and propelled it straight across the room narrowly missing the window; the pot shattering against the wall into a million tiny pieces....this was me.

I was in pieces too.

I slumped down onto the floor and began to sob again....I don't know how long i was there for but it seemed like hours.

I terrified my mother.I didn't put a single finger on her(only a coward would) but what I did was just as bad I completely terrified her when she was trying to help me. She does understand, something I am eternally grateful for but the matter of the fact is: my problems have started to become problems for the ones I love and for that I am utterly ashamed.

I'm sure you don't really want to read all this but it is the defining reason as to why I have started to take an interest in getting better and I thought that was important to share.

L

On a separate slightly lighter note, is there any information I can take to the doctors with me to explain what Paruresis is? I had an appointment today although the doctor admitted she had no idea what Paruresis is and upon looking on the NHS database of knowledge could only find a link to this site....I think this is a very good reflection of how under appreciated this is as a condition by the world in general....If you don't step outside into the outside world and scream and shout no one ever takes notice, sadly this is exactly the thing we can't do.