Adsense Banner Top

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Beating Shy Bladder : Progress Report 1

In my post My Plan to Beat Shy Bladder I discussed my plan, it started with peeing in a stall with the door ajar while others are in the room.

How did it go?

Attempt 1 : Had an urinary urgency of about a 7, uncomfortable but not yet painful. Met a co-worker going into the bathroom, said hi, walked to the middle of the 3 stalls. He took a urinal. I peed with no hesitancy. Success!

Attempt 2 : Had a urinary urgency of about a 6, just uncomfortable. Two co-workers were already in the bathroom. Took the center stall again. Managed to initiate flow and finish before they left. Success!

Attempt 3 : Urgency of about an 8. Went into the bathroom, disappointed to find it was empty. Took the center stall. Waited for someone to come in. Waited 5 minutes. Gave up. Was wishing the whole time that someone would come in so I could allow myself to go. In the past I've stood in bathrooms unable to go because I was worried that someone might come in so I consider this good practice. Marginal success.

Attempt 3 (repeat) : Urgency of about 8 still. Someone was in the center stall so I took the one beside it (nearest the urinals). Slight hesitancy but nothing serious. No anxiety about it. Urinated noisily per plan. My Shy Bladder brain did briefly think that the guy in the stall was probably wondering why I decided to pee in the toilet instead of the 3 free urinals but did not get anxious about it. Success!

Post-Mortem

I may have set the bar too low on myself but I feel great about my success today. I was able to execute the plan (peeing in the center stall with the door ajar) quite easily. The bathroom was never crowded but I've had problems in similar conditions before. This has been a great day for my ego, a small win but a win nonetheless.

Time to raise the bar. New plan :

Left-most stall (adjacent to the urinals) with the door ajar.

It's another micro-step and the big-leap for me will be to come out of the stall completely but I hope that by making small adjustments I'll get my brain re-trained without having a setback.

Futher reading :


Read about how this plan worked out.

No comments: