Gradual Exposure Therapy Day 14

I wake up this morning still worried about last night’s failure.

Will I pee or won’t I?

I feel apprehensive and I shouldn’t since I’ve been peeing around Mike for the past 13 days of my Gradual Exposure Therapy (GET).

But what will happen today?

Will I back track more?

I grab my coffee and tell Mike (my Pee Buddy) that I need to pee. We head into the bathroom and he stands behind me.

He’s fidgeting around, playing with the sink, the light switch (lights are going on and off), he’s grabbing the magazine out of the magazine rack… I’m just standing there looking at the timer on my iPhone. I’m watching it count and watching the numbers go higher and higher.

30 Seconds…

1 Minute…

I let out a breath and look up. “Come On” I tell myself “I CAN PEE!“

And then, about 1 1/2 minutes in, I start to PEE!

YESSSSS! I’M BACK!

I pee and pee… until something happened that I didn’t expect.

Mike is putting the 5 month old magazine back in the rack and it slips and falls directly into the toilet.

Splash!!!

Now I’m peeing on it!

“What are you doing?” I say. I stop peeing and bend over to dig it out of the water.

“SORRY!” he says as I throw the soggy mess into the trash.

I go back to my stance and try to pee.

Now I can’t. I’m locked up!

Damn It!

I get mad at myself for letting such a silly thing distract me.

I stand there and nothing happens.

4 Minutes go by.

I can’t go even though I know I could.

WTF!

It’s SOOOOO frustrating! I feel like I’m going to pee my pants but yet I can’t empty my bladder.

NOT COOL!

All because a magazine fell in the toilet? That was enough to derail me and stop the flow?

I’m so over myself. I thought I was back and doing good, and now as I stand here, I can feel myself getting madder and madder at myself.

I really need to pee, but it’s not happening.

It almost brings me to tears. It’s such a stupid thing to have. Paruresis, I hate it!

At 6 minutes, I give up!

“I’ll try again later” I say. I leave the bathroom defeated.

Is this how my life is always going to be?

2 Hours later (and one cup of coffee) I try again.

This time it’s a SUCCESS! I pee! I finish, flush and leave happy because this is the first time in 3 attempts. It feels so good.

Finally!

The rest of the day I pee with no more issues or problems. It’s crazy how such a small thing affect whether I can pee or not.

I stand in the kitchen and ponder my condition as Mike goes into the adjacent bathroom to pee. He leaves the door open and 2 seconds later he’s peeing loudly with force. In 20 seconds, he’s done. If only I could pee like that. He’s so lucky! Life would be so much more fulfilling. Sigh!

I pee again right before bed. Mike makes a comment “It’s been quite a while since you’ve peed, unless you peed without me“.

I say nothing

He’s right! I peed earlier today when our friend Kay came over. She was here about 1 1/2 hours and I actually went to the bathroom twice without Mike.

I used her visit as an excuse to pee alone, safely and comfortably.

It did feel good to pee by myself. I miss that!

Is this cheating?

Probably so!

I see how easy it would be to slip back into my normal ways. My old ways… Where I lock the bathroom door and pee in silence. It’s such a difficult road that I’m taking. I struggle with it every day. My entire mind and body hates it. But then again, it hates peeing too! Go figure!

Will I ever get over my fears?

How long will it take?

Months?

Years?

Forever?

Does anyone have the answer?