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Shy Bladder and Anxious Thoughts: What If You Don’t Have to Try?
One of the questions I often hear from people with shy bladder syndrome (paruresis) is some version of this:
“What can I do to stay present or drown out the anxious thoughts before I try to pee?”
I understand the question because I spent years trying to do exactly that.
When I walked into a restroom that didn’t feel safe to me, the thinking could start almost immediately.
What if I can’t go?
And once that thought showed up, I believed I needed to do something about it.
All the Things I Tried
I had plenty of strategies.
I would listen to music on my iPhone to try to distract myself.
I tried visualization. I would picture myself somewhere that felt safe, hoping I could create the right feeling and relax enough to go.
At times, I would even dig my fingernails into the palm of my hand, giving myself a physical sensation to focus on instead of what was happening in my head.
The specific strategy wasn’t really the point.
I was trying to change my internal experience so that I could pee.
And underneath all of those strategies was essentially the same belief:
I need to get rid of this anxious feeling before I can go.
What If the Anxious Thought Isn’t the Problem?
Over time, I began to see something differently.
A thought like “What if I can’t go?” is just a thought.
But I didn’t experience it that way.
I treated the thought almost like a warning. And then I went to work trying to make it disappear, replace it with a better thought, distract myself from it, or somehow get myself into the right state of mind.
Ironically, all that effort gave the thought even more importance.
It was as if I were telling myself:
This thought is a problem. I need to fix it before I can be okay.
You Don’t Have to Create a Safe Feeling
This was another big realization for me.
I spent years thinking I needed to feel safe in order to pee.
But feelings change naturally.
Sometimes we feel calm. Sometimes we feel anxious. Sometimes our minds are quiet. Sometimes they’re racing.
We don’t actually control that nearly as much as we think we do.
And we don’t necessarily need to.
I began to see that an uncomfortable feeling didn’t automatically mean I was unsafe.
An anxious thought didn’t mean something was wrong.
And I didn’t necessarily have to get myself into some perfect, relaxed state before life could continue.
That was a very different way of looking at what I’d been experiencing.
What If You Don’t Have to Try?
I’m not suggesting that you should never use music, visualization, breathing, graduated exposure, or anything else that you find helpful.
That’s not the point.
The question I’d invite you to consider is:
What are you believing you need the technique to do for you?
If you’re listening to music because you enjoy listening to music, great.
But if you’re listening because you’re thinking, I have to make these anxious thoughts go away before I’ll be able to pee, that’s worth noticing.
Because maybe the anxious thought isn’t something you need to defeat.
Maybe you don’t need to drown it out.
Maybe you don’t need to manufacture a feeling of safety.
Maybe you don’t need to get yourself into exactly the right state of mind.
What if you don’t have to try?
Watch the Video
In this video, I talk more about my own experience trying to control anxious thoughts and what I eventually began to see differently.
Want to Talk?
If you’ve been living with shy bladder syndrome and would like to explore a different way of understanding what you’re experiencing, I’d be happy to have a conversation.
Educational Notice: The information shared here is for educational and personal development purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, counseling, psychological care, or medical advice. If you have a medical or mental health condition, please seek the guidance of an appropriately licensed healthcare professional.