Can’t Pee? 7 Tips to Overcome Urination Fear
After a few drinks on the terrace you urgently need to pee.
You walk towards the public toilet and see that 2 of the 3 urinals are occupied.
You reluctantly open your fly or pants, but… you can’t empty your bladder. There is no way you can empty your bladder. Urinary anxiety!
Do you also suffer from this psychological problem? Fortunately, I have the solution to get rid of your fear of peeing.
Hint: a very special method to get rid of your fear of peeing in public is the ‘Eminem method’.
You will find out in this article how this method can help you overcome your fear of urination more quickly (and much more!).
Purpose of this article: first you will be introduced to urinary anxiety or paruresis. You will find out what exactly happens with urinary anxiety and how this can have a negative impact on both your health and your daily life. You will also learn 7 simple tips to definitively get urinary anxiety under control.
What is urinary anxiety?
If you suffer from urinary anxiety or paruresis, you are unable to urinate in the presence of others or in public places.
In English this condition is called ‘shy bladder syndrome’ and this is actually a perfect name for this problem.
You are too shy to empty your bladder in front of others or in public places. There is nothing physically wrong with you, the problem is purely psychological.
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In the DSM-5, paruresis is cataloged under social phobias .
It is estimated that 15% of men and 7% of women have difficulty urinating in certain circumstances.
What happens with urinary anxiety?
Finally it’s holiday. With good courage you leave by car for the South. After driving for a long time, it is time to stop for a while and take a sanitary break.
In the gas station you look for the toilets, because the need is great. You’re lucky: you have the toilet all to yourself. Suddenly you hear footsteps and two other travelers come and stand at the urinals.
Fear strikes your heart and what you feared happens: you block up and you can no longer urinate a drop…
For the sake of form you wash your hands and hope that it will work next time because you still have a long journey ahead of you.
If you suffer from urinary anxiety, you find it difficult to urinate in the presence of others or in public places. This can cause you to block completely and – although the urge to urinate is still present – you are unable to urinate at all.
Although paruresis can cause various anxiety symptoms such as palpitations, sweating or dizziness, it will rarely lead to an anxiety attack or panic attack , according to a scientific report by Kenley LJ Kuoch David W Austin and Simon R Knowles .
It is important to overcome your fear of urination for several reasons. After all, this fear can have a major impact on your daily life and on your health.
Later in this article I will discuss the consequences of urinary anxiety in detail, but first let us consider what the causes of this psychological condition are.
Causes of urinary anxiety
A direct cause for paruresis usually does not exist and depends from person to person. Do these causes sound familiar to you?
Bad experiences from the past
Suppose that as a child you were required to urinate at certain times – for example before going shopping with the family – and you were unable to do so, this may have been a trigger for developing urinary anxiety.
Simply having to urinate ‘on command’ can lead to stress about urinating.
For example, if you were laughed at by your friends while urinating as a teenager, this may have contributed to paruresis.
Shame
Urination is often considered something very intimate. However, this is not necessary at all.
Everyone pees and most likely everyone does it in the same way – except for the differences between men and women, of course.
Urine can have a pungent odor and while urinating, bystanders sometimes hear a splashing sound. This can also make you feel ashamed to urinate.
Vicious circle
The danger with urinary anxiety is that you can quickly end up in a vicious circle.
If you are unable to urinate in the presence of others, the following questions may immediately arise:
Would he have noticed that I couldn’t pee?
Maybe he thinks I have a problem?
He’s probably wondering what I’m doing in the urinal for so long?
Focusing on this only increases anxiety and stress and increases the chance that you will completely lose your confidence to urinate in front of others the next time you visit the toilet.
Urination is a natural response of the body to remove waste products. Not being able to urinate can have both medical and social consequences.
Curious about what these consequences are? Then read on carefully.
Consequences of urinary anxiety
The consequences of urinary anxiety are often worse than you think:
Medical consequences
While purifying the blood, the kidneys produce urine. Urine consists of water and waste products.
If these waste products remain in the body for too long, they can be harmful to certain organs.
Urine is temporarily stored in the bladder and once it is full you feel the urge to urinate. Urination is important to remove these waste products from the body.
If you don’t urinate or don’t urinate often enough, this can have very negative medical consequences.
- Bladder infections and urinary tract infections
- Enlarged and flaccid bladder
- Damaged kidneys
Social consequences
If you suffer from urinary anxiety, you will avoid urinating outdoors as much as possible.
This often also means that you no longer dare to go to parties and if you do go there, you don’t dare to drink anything.
In the long term, this can prevent you from going out at all and end up in social isolation.
Your relationship can also suffer from paruresis. Not everyone understands their partner’s fear of urination or is completely unaware that their partner suffers from this. After all, fear of urination is often a taboo.
Going out together is fun, but if you keep making excuses because you’re afraid of having to pee outside, your partner won’t always understand this.
In some cases, people with paruresis may even experience problems at work. Holding your pee for a whole day because you can’t pee in the toilets of the company where you work can mean that after a while you no longer find the courage to go to work.
Do you notice that your fear of urination has a negative impact on your social or professional life? Are you afraid that your paruresis will eventually damage your health?
Then you probably realize how important it is to overcome your fear of peeing. To help you with this, I would like to give you some tips.
7 tips for not being able to urinate
Tip 1: find a peeing partner
It may sound a bit strange, but a peeing partner can certainly help you overcome your fear of peeing.
The International Paruresis Association also sees many advantages in having a urinary partner. This is actually a form of exposure therapy .
The advantage of a urinary partner is that he or she understands your problem because he or she experiences the same thing. This not only creates a bond, but also largely removes the shame.
Tip 2: make as much noise as possible to get used to it
If you suffer from paruresis, shame plays a major role. You can be ashamed because your urine smells bad, but you can also be ashamed of the sound you make while urinating.
Remember that almost everyone splashes a lot when urinating. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, so let it flow.
Also do this when your peeing partner is nearby. This way you can get used to the idea of someone hearing you pee.
Tip 3: Practice in different locations
Try to practice with your peeing partner in as many different locations as possible.
After a while you will get used to peeing in a certain pub or sports club, but this does not mean that you are completely rid of your fear of peeing.
The idea is that your fear of urination no longer hinders you and that you can urinate at any location or in the presence of anyone.
Tip 4: Eminem method
Doctor Aziz Gazipura , clinical psychologist at Stanford and Palo Universities, has developed a very special method to overcome urinary anxiety. He calls this the Eminem method , after the American rapper of the same name.
To develop this method, he based it on the indifference that rappers radiate, wherever they go and whatever they do.
Doctor Aziz himself suffered from urinary anxiety and this method helped him overcome his paruresis for good.
The first time he used this method he tried to urinate in an airport building while listening to an Eminem song.
This song inspired his unique mantra: ‘I pee wherever I want, whenever I want and for whoever I want’ .
This one sentence gave him so much confidence that he overcame his fear of peeing. The next time you have to pee in front of others, try finding a mantra (or using this phrase).
So that you gain enough confidence not to give up and actually pee. You will notice that you get yourself under control and can handle the situation perfectly.
Tip 5: medical treatment
If you are unable to overcome your fear of urination on your own, medical treatment can provide a solution.
The doctor
Discuss your problem with your doctor. This will be able to reassure you that you are not the only one with this problem and that this does not necessarily mean that there is something physically wrong with you.
Your doctor may also prescribe medication such as anti-anxiety medications to control your general anxiety. However, various studies show that unfortunately these often do not have the desired effect.
The neurologist
If you are a hypochondriac and not yet completely convinced that your fear of urination does not have a physical cause, consult a urologist .
This will examine you extensively and confirm that the inability to urinate has no physical cause.
If you have extreme fear of urination, he can teach you how to insert a bladder catheter to empty your bladder.
The psychotherapist
A psychotherapist can also help you get rid of your fear of urination. Both cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy can be effective in treating paruresis.
Tip 6: Don’t try to go too fast
Whichever method you use, your fear of urination will not disappear immediately.
Keep in mind that this can take quite some time and that there will be times when you notice a relapse. Don’t give up right away, though!