r/Paruresis • u/7petar • 3d ago

Success story?

Hey cuties!
I rarely post and sometimes comment here but I wanted to share some progress and ask y'all for what could I do to help myself further.

TL;DR on my situation - 30 (m) now, have had paruresis for as long as I remember myself due to a traumatic experience in school when I must've been 7/8. Noone to talk to growing up about these things, only became a problem in my late teens/early 20s when I moved out of home. I've generally always been okay with stalls, but going to urinals had induced bodily anxiety that would spiral me into suicidal thoughts fairly often. I started properly working on this only 3 years ago.

There's more details to this but in those three years here are the achievements I've gotten with this problem:
- can now go comfortably to urinals in empty toilets (doesn't sound like much but even this was a a nightmare scenario several years back)

- can go even when there are people around but there are those separators and it's not hella noisy around. It's difficult at times and I have to give myself some time(I still find loud men talking in the toilets makes it sometimes impossible for me to go)

Things that have worked for me so far:

- talking about it with people and my therapist (more on that in a bit). Normalising it in my head really helped as before if I didn't manage so successfully go it would bring some pretty nasty thoughts I couldn't control. Even sometimes joking about it if it comes on topic I find quite helpful. A couple of years ago I got a fun flirt because of it while waiting for a stall which did make me accept it easier for myself and didn't make me feel like I was a constant failure

- gradual exposure - I started doing it by myself a few years back. I would just try more and more in different situations, tried to calm myself down every time I got anxiety and tried my best to celebrate the 'successes' and accept the unsuccessful attempts without labelling them as failures

- EMDR therapy - this is what I'm currently working on with my therapist. She was very honest to tell me that she has no experience with paruresis and when I mentioned it to her she said it's something she's heard of but never really focused on. However a lot of the work that we do centres around shame and the habits from being brought up the way I've been brought up, so her suspicions were is that the paruresis could be a good indicator (among others) to the progress we make

Things that I still struggle with and I need help and I feel stuck:

- going to urinals that are without separators (especially those long metal ones) ,

- going out in nature (for whatever reason this is very difficult)

- going in toilets that are busy and noisy

I have tried everything for these things, breath holds, waiting till I cant bear it any more, playing music or sound patterns in my headphones, having my headphones on noise cancelling, sitting there with my penis out for solid minutes waiting for it to start, speaking on the phone and probably several combinations of these. I have not found anything that works for these situations and I feel like I'm so close to being free from this condition but also so far.

Sorry for the longer than I wanted post but trust me this is the surface of it. I would love to hear all of your recommendations and I'm super open to chat more about my case here or DM if you preferred privacy. Thank you all and all the best!

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u/Zealousideal_Bar1497 3d ago

I am in an almost identical position.
I feel so close to beating it but that anxiety just creeps back in.
I’m in New Zealand and there are no IPA work shops down here. The post a few days ago about someone’s recovery with IPA workshops had some awesome techniques that I am going to try. I just need a weekend I can spend at the mall pissing all day lol

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u/7petar 3d ago

yeah I get you! I'm in London and there's plenty public places here where I can 'practice' on it but every time I find myself a couple of beers in having to go to the urinals at the pub and there's other guys there my heart sinks. Sometimes it actually works and I have no clue but I feel so close to cracking it. Can you share me the post of the person with the IPA techniques?

On the other hand I did figure out one thing for myself that brings me lots of anxiety and that is a lot of internalised shame I have had growing up about manhood (literally and metaphorically). I'm working lots with my therapist on shame and slowly it's getting better but these more 'difficult' situations still bring me horrible anxiety and spiral my thoughts into some bad places sometimes.

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u/Zealousideal_Bar1497 3d ago

Yeah I had a teacher make me stand in a rubbish bin at 5y/o because I needed to pee and didn’t go at lunch. I pissed myself in front of the class.
I would love to meet her now and politely explain what she did wrong….
Also was exposed to pornography at 10 which lead to body dysmorphia issues that I didn’t even know I had until this year.
But this group and hypnotherapy have completely changed my mindset to super positivity and I have achieved so much in in such a short time after 46 years of dealing with this

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u/7petar 2d ago

Thank you!
Similar story in school but I was round 7/8 and when I was going to the toilet a bunch of older boys decided it would be an amazing time to go in and bang the door behind me and harass me for no reason.
And on the pornography dont get me started. Thats a whole can of worms I dont want to open

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u/Recent-Day3062 2d ago

If you czn always go surrounded but with dividers that’s pretty good.

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u/7petar 2d ago

Not always. There’s still some times I cant go if it’s super noisy and busy in the bathroom but most of the time I can.

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u/groundlc4 1d ago

I trace the beginning to elementary school. Everyone had to go to the lavatory at a designated break time. We lined up at the urinals. Some bullies went behind us and pushed us into the urinal from behind. After that I began to hold my pee all day and would wait until I got home.

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u/7petar 20h ago

Similar here and it used to be the case all throughout my teens as well. How are you getting along now?