Posted by Nigel on 11/2/2016, 7:52 pm

I have been living with Paruresis since I was 8yrs old, now I’m in my early 40’s. As a result I feel I have missed out on many opportunities; also to the point of loosing all contact with friends, and having low confidence levels. Last year I motivated myself to take some hypnotherapy in the hope of gaining the confidence to overcome this phobia. Although the hypnotherapy wasn’t 100% successful it did help me take the first step forward. I’m now having CBT sessions once a week which has also helped lower my anxiety levels. One of the ideas my therapist had was to have my partner help me by me practising urinating at home whilst she was close by. This has helped but my partner being female it’s still not quite the same, and so I still haven’t got to the point of being able to use public urinals. The other issue being since only requiring the bathroom a few times a day, progress has and is slow going. I decided to do some looking online for more information and possibilities to keep moving forward, which is where I came across this site and the Paruresis Trust. Seeing that the workshops are held some distance away, I put this message up to see if there were others near to the new forest who like me want to move forward but are finding progress scary, difficult and slow going, and would consider working as a group beneficial to overcoming this phobia.

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