Success Stories

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.

remember very well the first time I found myself unable to urinate in a public bathroom. My family were city-dwellers but we had country relatives so long car trips were a regular feature of my childhood. Pit-stops at McDonalds to have lunch and to relieve bladders were an invariable part of these journeys and it was during just such a stop that.

First off, I wanted to thank Steve for helping me to take the first steps in my recovery to overcome Paruresis. I also wanted to thank everyone at IPA and all of you who posted your stories and support on the forums. If it wasn’t for all of you I would have never built up the confidence to face my fear. I decided to write my story in hopes that it might urge others to seek treatment to overcome Paruresis. It’s a long detailed story of my life living with Paruresis from day one up to my one on one session with Steve at the IPA office in Baltimore.

I’m 34 years old and have had this condition for as long as I can remember. I had a particular situation when I was around 13 that really solidified it… I was at a little party, and a large group of girls (who I thought were super hot at the time, obviously) blatantly made fun of a friend of mine while he was loudly peeing in a quiet, nearby bathroom

The whole process started for me about 19 years ago. I was 32 years old and I decided that I wanted to get over this shy bladder problem. I had always wanted to get over it, but I had never really gone all out to try and conquer it, mainly because I didn’t know how to do it. I still had no idea how to do it, but I decided to give it a try.

While not yet completed, I am almost free of the entrapment that ruled my life just several years ago. I come back to tell my story because this message board is the is the sole reason behind the strides that I have made, and it is important that we continually share our success stories for one another to build on!!