Success Stories

Treatment for Paruresis is based on a concept known as “gradual exposure therapy”. The ultimate goal is to become comfortable voiding in close proximity to others. To test this theory, for two days we binged on bottled water and practiced peeing in a variety of environments. Las Vegas is riddled with challenging scenarios, as there is no escaping the constant hustle and bustle of people. If you can ace peeing at a urinal in a packed casino restroom, there’s a good chance you can transcend paruresis.

As paruretics we learn to accommodate so our day to day lives are less affected, until things change. Maybe it is a new job, moving to a new city, or having to travel that initiates the obsession of – where will I pee? how will I pee? This summer, I grew tired of obsessing and decided to invest in myself and attend the Vegas workshop.

My struggle with shy bladder has pushed me to be a person of action. 10 years ago, I dreamed of doing something awesome to culminate the end of my Air Force career. It wasn’t the standard thing to do and would put me in a situation well outside my comfort zone. Which happens to be exactly what graduated exposure does. Four days after I retired from the Air Force, I set out on a backpacking trip from the US and Mexico border near Lordsburg New Mexico to the eastern part of Yellowstone National Forest in Wyoming along the Continental Divide Trail (CDT).

93% of humankind does not have paruresis and has been using public bathrooms for their entire lives, from grammar school through university and then in offices/workplaces during their professional careers. These 93% have been practicing daily without knowing they were practicing.

In the following I will present my personal impressions of a workshop visit and then describe how I coped with my paruresis after the workshop. Possibly it will serve as an “inspiration” for the one or the other person concerned to design a personal “training program”.

[Julia attended our Virtual Workshop on August 12, 2023, led by IPA President Dan Rocker. She shared these thoughts prior to the workshop, and kindly followed-up with her post-workshop reaction. If you are considering attending any IPA workshop, you’ll find her comments valuable.

Greetings fellow members. The following is an edited and expanded version of a text I had sent to two board members upon my return from a trip abroad. Given the length of the flight, weeks prior to my journey I was feeling apprehensive.

You have to understand, I am not afraid of flying in an airplane. As a kid, I loved the movement and motion of flying. But for the past fifty-five years, I haven’t flown very often at all. This all started because of an incident that happened at the end of the summer of 1968. 

There are a great many things about the support work that I do on behalf of the IPA that provide me with personal satisfaction, but there is something truly special about supporting another guy during his first public graduated exposure experience. It brings great joy because I know that it can set him on a path which could lead to recovery,

During the recovery from a surgery, it was required that I had to wear an adult diaper for a few weeks; and as an unexpected gift, I discovered it was quite helpful with my Paruresis.