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Shy Bladder: Why Am I Judging Every Attempt?
If you have shy bladder syndrome, or paruresis, have you ever noticed how easy it is to turn every trip to the bathroom into some kind of test?
Maybe you were able to pee, but you used a stall.
Instead of thinking:
I peed. Great.
It becomes:
Yeah, but I had to use a stall.
Maybe you used a urinal, but nobody else was there.
Yeah, but I should have been able to do it with someone standing next to me.
Or maybe you weren’t able to pee at all.
Damn it. I thought I was getting better.
I did this for years.
There always seemed to be another level I thought I should be at.
The Shy Bladder Scorecard
When you live with paruresis, it can be incredibly easy to start grading your bathroom experiences.
Stall instead of urinal?
Not good enough.
Urinal with an empty restroom?
Doesn’t really count.
Able to pee with someone else in the restroom, but it took longer than you wanted?
Should have been faster.
Had a no-go after several successful experiences?
I must be going backwards.
We can take an experience that was actually a success and almost immediately find a reason why it wasn’t successful enough.
There’s always another condition we can add.
But I used a stall.
But nobody was standing next to me.
But I really had to go.
But it took too long.
But my stream wasn’t very strong.
There’s always another “but.”
What Does One Attempt Really Tell Us?
One of the problems with constantly grading ourselves is that a single bathroom experience can start to feel like evidence of something much bigger.
If I pee easily, maybe I’m getting better.
If I can’t pee the next time, maybe I’m getting worse.
If I use a stall, maybe I’m avoiding.
If I use a urinal, maybe I’m making progress.
Suddenly every trip to the restroom becomes a measurement of how we’re doing with shy bladder.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on one pee.
Our experience can change from moment to moment.
Something that feels easy one day might feel difficult the next.
That doesn’t necessarily need to mean anything about where we’re headed.
Sometimes it’s simply what happened in that particular moment.
The Nonjudgmental No-Go
I’ve started using the phrase “nonjudgmental no-go” instead of some of the other terms commonly used when someone with paruresis isn’t able to urinate.
For me, the word nonjudgmental is the important part.
Instead of:
Damn it. I couldn’t go again.
What’s wrong with me?
I should have been able to do this.
What if it was simply:
Okay. I didn’t pee this time.
That’s it.
No judgment.
No story about what it means.
No prediction about what will happen the next time.
But lately I’ve been thinking we can take that idea even further.
What If the Entire Experience Could Be Nonjudgmental?
Why limit being nonjudgmental to the times we don’t pee?
What if we stopped grading the entire bathroom experience?
I peed in a stall.
Okay.
I peed at a urinal.
Okay.
The restroom was empty.
Okay.
Someone was standing next to me.
Okay.
I couldn’t pee this time.
Okay.
That doesn’t mean we can’t challenge ourselves, experiment with doing things differently, or celebrate experiences that once seemed impossible.
It just means we don’t have to turn every bathroom visit into a verdict on how we’re doing.
Maybe We Don’t Need to Keep Score
For more than 50 years, shy bladder occupied an enormous amount of my attention.
Bathrooms could become something to plan for, think about, analyze and evaluate.
And even when I was able to pee, there could always be another standard I thought I needed to meet.
For me, greater freedom hasn’t been about becoming perfect at peeing.
It’s also been about changing my relationship with the entire experience.
Maybe I don’t need to analyze every attempt.
Maybe I don’t need to decide whether it was good or bad.
Maybe I don’t need to compare today’s bathroom experience with yesterday’s.
And maybe I don’t need to keep score.
Watch the Video
In this video, I talk about how easily we can turn every bathroom experience into a test when we have shy bladder, why I use the phrase “nonjudgmental no-go,” and what might change if we stopped grading every attempt.
Want to Learn More?
You can find more of my videos and resources about living with shy bladder syndrome (paruresis) here on my website.
If you’d like to talk with me about your own experience with shy bladder, you’re also welcome to schedule a complimentary conversation.