Posted by Geoff on 22/8/2012, 10:33 pm

I was asked by Andrew some time ago to post up some coping mechanisms that I found useful to help me get to a point where I can at least function in public – although still only in cubicles - and in other people’s homes (which I wasn’t able to for 15 years). Gaping: this sounds odd, but I found that a silent primal scream, initially out of frustration, actually helped to relax my abdomen and my bladder sphincter. I throw my head back, open my mouth and breathe out from my chest as if screaming. Fantasising: sometimes if I was in a pub drinking and I couldn’t go I would make an excuse and go out for cash/Rizla papers, whatever (making my excuses) and urinate in the car park or take a walk and find a hedge or an alley. Eventually I just started to say to myself “if you don’t go soon you can always walk out of here and find a quiet spot somewhere”, and this helped reassure me. It got to the stage where, if I needed to, I would start to fantasise about this possibility to ridiculous extremes (making myself laugh at the absurdity of it), like “if you don’t go soon you’re going to walk out of here and piss in the back garden of the house next door” or wherever… It’s not something I have ever done, but the distraction of these thoughts allowed me to relax sufficiently to go. No-one cares: Gradually, I began to consider that no-one really cares what I am doing in this cubicle (either in public venues or in friend’s homes). In public, I noticed that lots of people use cubicles to urinate in and they aren’t thought any the less of by their mates. I could be sick or just needing to be in there because I wanted to use toilet paper to blow my nose – and if necessary I would cough and splutter so that people outside would think I had a legitimate reason to be in this cubicle for more than the “average” amount of time. I still can’t use public urinals unless I’m reasonably sure that no-one is going to come in. If they do, I still sometimes dry up, but sometimes I am able to just carry on. Mostly I still just head straight for the cubicle. I am hoping that when I attend one of the workshops I will learn some coping strategies for use in urinals.

1320