Progress Report #8 : 1 Step Back

After a fantastic week in which my Shy Bladder seemed to be fading away I had a fall-back week this week.

Loading up on water and hanging out in public bathrooms while desperate to go is, as I've said before, torture.

In previous posts I tracked each an every attempt to void but this week I just didn't have the focus for it.

A poor start

Monday started badly, I walked into the bathroom with an urgency of about 9/10. Someone was at the urinals already and I walked up confident that my breakthrough last week would carry me through this. I felt confident, then nothing happened until the other guy finished and walked away from the urinal. I was able to go as soon as his back was turned but it blew my confidence.

Things get worse

Then I had a series of situations where I entered the bathroom and someone was already at the urinal. This would have been a perfect opportunity but for the fact that the psychopath had decided to take the center urinal meaning there was nowhere to stand except right next to them. That was more than my Avoidance behavior was ready to undertake. As happened to me before, my Avoidance steered me into the stall where I decided to wait until the coast was clear and try again. Then, my luck, an endless stream of people kept coming into the bathroom and holding conversations. I just gave up and urinated there in the stall (sitting down) feeling like I'd slid back to square one.

Some success at last

But I didn't give up. I managed to get at least one occasion where I was waiting at the urinal in an empty bathroom for someone to come in and use the urinal and when they did I was able to urinate fine (admittedly they didn't come and stand right next to me).

Managed to go in two quiet (but not deserted) large public bathrooms away from my usual test bathroom and didn't feel the usual adrenaline/anxiety rush while approaching or before voiding in that kind of setting.

Summary

So overall, 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Consistency is key, just gotta keep pushing on.

Further reading :

Read my one-month review of progress so far.