Posted by Bill on 28/6/2015, 8:58 pm, in reply to "Re: My experience"

HI Carl, I cannot recommend a workshop highly enough. I think we can all relate to trying to find quiet places to go, trying to avoid other people etc and it's been the bane of my life as well. A couple of years ago I remember being in a car with friends travelling to London (I live in the North) when we stopped at a service station for a toilet break and instead of going into the building with everyone else, I stayed outside and went behind a tree instead! The workshop has taught me to try and manage my anxiety as well as tackle my condition and it's succeeded on both fronts to a reasonable extent - it's not "cured" my condition of course, but I'm doing better than I used to and in the past 6 months or so, since the follow-up, I've found I experience less anxiety in my general day-to-day life, which in itself has been a huge boost to my wellbeing. I only regret the fact I didn't go on one ten years ago and try tackling it sooner! As far as tips go, it depends if you have any particular thing which 'triggers' being unable to go - for me it's always been either a) proximity or b) quiet environments, so going (or not, as the case may be!), was audible to others around me (who are of course entirely disinterested in me, but it's not always easy to tell my brain that!). I found, as a result, that either having earphones in with music playing, or singing to myself (really!) made it easier to go, be it in a cubicle or urinal, although singing at the latter would probably not be recommended! Andrew would dissuade me from relying on music through earphones now, as it would technically be classed as a 'safety behaviour' (I think there's a section on the website about this), but as a fallback option to help with difficult situations, I found that very useful. Best wishes with everything

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