Struggling with paruresis, or a shy bladder, can be a tough topic to broach with your loved ones. It's a sensitive, personal issue that calls for a certain empathy and understanding.
This guide will equip you with my advice to approach this conversation. Remember, every struggle is an opportunity for growth and personal change, and sharing your experiences can be a crucial first step towards gaining control of your shy bladder.
Why would you want to talk about your shy bladder syndrome?
1. Free yourself from the mental load
Friend: "Hey, let's go piss in the bushes"
You: "Nah, I'm fine. I don't feel like peeing right now"
This kind of situation rings a bell?
I bet it does.
The problem with paruresis is the constant faking, making up excuses, constantly watching around, adjusting our behavior to the situation, in short...LYING!
This creates a mental load that we carry with us everywhere and every day. Thus, the idea behind talking about it to your close ones is to release yourself from this weight you're carrying. Believe me, it feels good!
2. Avoid your close ones to imagine the wrong things
We may think we have become masters of faking it, avoiding tricky situations without the other one noticing that something is wrong with us.
But despite our best efforts, we leave hints here and there. People notice small things. In general, it's no big deal.
The problems may appear with your very close ones like your partner, for example. This person knows you well and cares about you. Because he/she cares, she'll start to wonder why some situations are always blocking you and start to imagine bad scenarios in her head, for example:
Well, you get the idea. People will start to imagine things about your behavior and may start to think you don't love them. It's not true, but in a relationship, the things that aren't said are more destructive than the things that are said. In short, over a long period of time, your shy bladder syndrome may degrade your relationship, even leading to their end.
You'll need courage!!
Let's not kid ourselves. Talking about paruresis is going to require a LOT of courage.
One thing you can do to build some is to imagine the situation in reverse.
For example, let's say you want to talk about it with your wife. If she was the one sharing something deep with you, how would you react?
With hate and anger, or with compassion and love?
Probably with love. Now, it's our human nature to care for someone who is sharing something deeply emotional with us.
So, it's highly probable that when sharing about your shy bladder syndrome and why you behaved the way you did, the other person will be touched and will feel compassion for you.
Steps on How to Start the Paruresis Talk
So you have gathered courage and found the right moment. Now let's get to the nitty-gritty on how to actually start the discussion.
1. Make sure there won’t be any interruptions / distractions
Considering the load and stress you will have regarding this discussion, it's pretty obvious you will want to make sure you won't be interrupted.
2. Say you want to share something, but don't provide details yet
Ever heard the (un)famous phrase "Babe, we need to talk"?
One thing this sentence does is grab our attention fully.
That's what you need to do. Maybe not this dramatic, but you need to grab the attention of the person you are about to talk to. However, you decide to do it, DO NOT share any details yet. Grab the other person's attention and go to step 3 when you feel you are both ready.
3. Share your bodily sensations / emotions
Here, you'll want to share verbally what you are feeling emotionally and physically in your body at the moment. For example, "I have huge knots in my stomach", "I feel heatwaves in my neck and head", "My heart is pounding hard"...
This might sound surprising if you have never done it, but it has 2 purposes:
- It helps you relax in this stressful moment.
- Sharing deep emotion is hard. Therefore, the other person will understand that the thing you are about to talk about is significant to you. You'll get her full undivided attention.
4. Continue sharing until the pressure eases
Just keep sharing your body sensations until you've relaxed a bit and when you feel ready...
5. Tell your story mostly with the “I” pronoun,
Tell your story the way you want. However, try to focus solely on you by using the pronoun "I". Do not blame other people, especially the person you are talking to with sentences like "You didn't support me when..." or "When I did X you didn't do Y".
Go for more compassionate phrases like "That's the reason I was behaving this way in such and such situation", "I'm sorry I didn't get the courage to tell you earlier".
6. If you feel new emotional surges, share them,
If as you speak new emotional spikes rise, apply step 3 again, share them. This will help you calm down and collect your thoughts.
7. Enjoy the conversation with the other person.
Once you have emptied your bag, a conversation will naturally ensue. Follow your instincts from this point forward and take pride in yourself, as the discussion you have just made requires a significant amount of courage.
You did it?
You managed to discuss your paruresis after reading this article or watching the video, tell me how it went in the comments or by email.
If you have previously attempted this talk, kindly share your insights on the positive and negative aspects that transpired before and after the discussion. This may help other people just like you.
"Hi, in this video I will give you a step-by-step process on how you can talk to your close one about your Shy Bladder Syndrome.
So first of all, why would you share about your Shy Bladder Syndrome in the first place? I see two reasons for that. The first one is that living with paruresis is generally a secret. We don't share it with other people. And like any secret, it's like a load we have in our mind, we have inside of us. And you know, it can translate into making up behavior. For example, we know we try to find excuses, find, adjust our behavior so the other person will not guess that there is something wrong with us, you know. We will find excuses, we will, you know, wait more in certain situations, etc, etc. And so we try to do everything so the other people around us don't notice there's something wrong with us. And overall, it's like a mental load we always have with us and it's a burden.
The second point is, despite your best effort, other people might notice some weird behavior. Especially if you live with someone in an intimate relationship, over time, there will be like patterns the other person might notice. And the thing is that in her mind or his mind, there can be like scenarios, weird scenarios. Like for example, okay, why he never wants to go or she never wants to go with me to concerts? Or why does he never want to go with me to my parents? Or why does he never want to travel with me long haul? At first, it might, there will be no problem. But this kind of small things over time, it's like a poison in the relationship because it's non-said, it's like imaginary things, scenarios in the other person's head. And it can deteriorate the relationship over time. So that's a good reason for you to talk about your shy bladder. So everything is cleared up. So if the other person knows, then there will be no made up scenario in his or her mind.
One thing you will need to do that is courage. It will take a lot of courage for you to open up to someone and talk about your shy bladder syndrome. But to help you get some courage, just imagine the situation in the reverse. Let's say, let's imagine that you are the person who is going to listen to the news and the person you want to talk to is going to tell you about bad news. Maybe the loss of a parent or disease or maybe even shy brother syndrome. Imagine that. And just picture how you would react if someone was opening up to you about something that is a burden for him or her. You would react with compassion and love, not with hatred and anger. So that's what we human beings are born to do. Generally, if someone opens his heart to us, is talking with openness, we try to be compassionate and understanding to the other person. And we want to help. So that's what's going to happen to you. There is a 99% chance that the other person will react in a good way and that it will improve things overall after that. So that should give you the courage necessary to start.
So now I'm going to give you some steps you can follow in order to make you and the other person connected and on the same level of understanding. So the first thing you want to do, it's obvious, but it has to be said, is like you want to be sure you are in an environment where there will be no interruption. Like you are not expecting someone to come into the room and basically you have some free time ahead of you to share openly about the issue. Then the second step you want to do is you want to announce you want to share something. It's a bit like the sentence, you know, "babe, we need to talk". And the other person understands straight away that there is something important that's going to be said and you've got all the attention. So don't do it in that dramatic way, but you can say, you know, "I want to share something with you that is important", but don't give any detail yet. Then the third step is that you want to share what you feel in your body. Before giving any detail, just share what you feel. Talking about paruresis is going to be a lot of stress. So you might feel tension in your chest, tension in your stomach. Maybe you will have heat in your face. Maybe you will be red or whatever. Just state what you feel. I have this stress in my chest, this tension in my head, my neck, etc., etc. And this will have two purposes. The first one is that talking about what you feel will help you cool down and relax a bit. The second effect it will have is that the other person will be much more open to you and know that it's very important. It's a very important thing you are about to say. And also when someone shares something deep with us, especially bad emotions or difficult emotions, we are very open to this person and very compassionate. So then fourth step. You just keep sharing until you feel better. And then the fifth step is you talk about your shy bladder the way you want to share it. Obviously, that's your own story. But always use the "I" pronoun. Never blame anyone. Never blame like "you did not support me in this situation" or "you did not do that". You know, stay in the I pronoun. Stay in. "I'm sorry for my behavior in this situation, this situation". "I was doing this because I was feeling shame" or whatever. Just talk about yourself and what you were feeling and why you were behaving this way or whatever. But never blame the other person or the world in general.
Then step six is if as you are telling your story or the spikes of emotion are coming up, like maybe you will reach a point which is more difficult to talk about, then you will feel another urge of tension, maybe in your body or stress. Just like you did before. Just share it, you know. "Sorry, you know, I have this tension in my chest". You know, just say what you feel. And as before, like when the tension has gone down a bit, continue your story. Then the last step, obviously, is that at some point when you have emptied your bag, it will turn into a conversation with the other person. And here you will know what to do. Just listen to what the other person says, what was her point of view. But always just share what you feel and never blame the other person. You know, you want really to talk about you and what you feel and not being in a blaming mode for what's happening to you.
I hope this video has given you the courage and the information you needed to dare to talk to other people about your shy bladder syndrome. If so, or if you had already talked about it to someone, please share your experience in the comments and leave a like to this video. Thank you. Bye bye."