Mark Sherman recounts his struggle with finding relief in public places.
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The formal psychological term for it is paruresis, but the popular expression that seems so fitting is “bashful bladder.” I don’t know how it is for women, but I do know that for me and, I suspect, lots of other guys, urinating in a public bathroom is not necessarily a slam-dunk. The reason it’s obvious this is a psychological problem rather than a physical one is that you have no trouble at all peeing in the privacy of your own home (preferably into your toilet). It’s when you’re in a men’s room trying to do it into a urinal, possibly with another guy on either side of you, that, even though you really had to go, now you can’t.
Just writing about this is making me squirm in my seat, but, for the sake of my fellow paruretics, I must go on. And I am happy to tell you that I have developed strategies for dealing with the problem. I’ve had to, especially as I’ve gotten older. Because as every aging guy knows, what came so easy in our youth — when we could write our name in the snow with our pee stream (unless it was a very long name, like Nicholas Stumblefeltenbine) — is not so easy any more, even in private.
So come along with me on what could be called a consciousness of stream.
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I don’t remember any problems as a boy – though, in the old days, using a urinal was out of the question, since they didn’t have those child level ones that many modern restrooms have today. But once I was big enough, I had no problems. That is, until I had to go at the old Yankee Stadium (I haven’t been in the new one). Unlike most urinals, which are one-man-ers (sometimes with partitions between each one, which I always appreciate), the ones at Yankee Stadium were essentially long troughs. Since much beer-drinking goes on at games, between innings guys would line up shoulder to shoulder with instruments in hand, letting loose into this communal urinal.
Too young to drink, I didn’t have the overconsumption of beer to spur me on; so with this complete lack of privacy, I found myself simply unable to go.
Aside from everything else, it was embarrassing. I was sure that every other guy was watching me, and so I pretended I had gone, doing the age-old after-shake that boys learn at an early age. (I remember the excitement my wife and I felt when we watched one of our grandsons, at just under three, pee standing up for the first time and then do the shaking that becomes part of the ritual we guys do our whole lives.)
But there was no fooling Mother Nature, and when I went back to my seat, I still had to go. So I waited until the middle of the inning, and returned to the men’s room. Being virtually alone at the trough, I was able to do it, knowing that I could be missing a great moment. It’s a terrible feeling when you are standing there, tool in hand, doing what you have to do, while you hear wild cheering from the 50,000 people in the stands, all of whom you imagine as having been able to pee at will between innings. (It turns out, in fact, that a lot of guys love trough urinals – if Chicago Cubs fans are any indication).
Unfortunately, my Yankee Stadium experience carried over to my adult life, when I began to have difficulties even at conventional urinals.
An obvious strategy, and one I often employ to this day, is to use a stall. Of course, this has its own problems, such as guys who have done the same, but without lifting the seat. And besides, being able to pee in public makes you feel like a real man, and going into the stall, where it becomes obvious why you are in there, is essentially telling the world that you are wimp.
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But a very frightening experience I had when I was 24 ultimately helped me develop a urinal strategy that served me well for years.
I was living in Cambridge, Mass., and one night at around 2 a.m. I was driving home from seeing my girlfriend, in a car that was stalling a lot. (My dad had given me this 1961 model in 1963, and now it was 1967; neither of us knew that you were periodically supposed to have the oil changed.) To my dismay, the car stalled at an intersection several blocks from my apartment. As I tried to start it, I could see walking toward me a couple of very scary-looking guys, “townies,” who did not necessarily have a great relationship with Harvard students, of which I was one. I became desperate as I tried to get the motor to turn over. But it wouldn’t do anything.
As these two terrifying guys approached the car, I rolled my window up almost all the way, and one came over to me and said, “Hey, ya need some help?”
Those were his words, but his and his friend’s body language were saying, We want to get into that car and beat you up.
“No,” I said, my voice rising several octaves, “but thanks anyway.”
“Come on,” he said. “Just let us in to help.”
“No,” I said, now furiously trying to start my car as well as my shaking body would allow me to.
Finally, in one of the great miracles of my life, the car started, but as I started to pull away, they both banged their fists furiously on my driver’s side window. I started beeping my horn as I drove away, and probably didn’t stop until I parked in front of my apartment. I shook for days.
So how does this relate to my dealing with my paruresis, you might ask. Well, I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “He was so scared he peed in his pants.” While I wasn’t quite scared enough for that to happen that night, I probably came close. So for years, by visualizing that incident whenever I stood at a urinal it was much easier for me to let go. So a strategy I suggest to other paruretics is that when you are having trouble, think about something that has really scared you in the past. Give it a try.
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This worked for me for about eight years, until a bizarre episode in a men’s room at a bar. Those were days when I was drinking too much, especially beer. I was at one of the most beloved of my college town’s local establishments, it was quite late at night, and I really had to pee. There was line for the men’s room and as soon as I got in to the room I joined the other guys who were at a trough. Yes, this bathroom had a trough, and under normal circumstances I would have held out until I could use a stall. Even though my fear technique had worked well at conventional urinals, I hadn’t tried it at a trough, the type of urinal which had initially led to my problems. But the one stall was continuously occupied, and I was desperate. So as soon as I got to the trough, I couldn’t help but let loose.
It was like a geyser. I was ecstatic, not only from the sheer relief, but because now I was doing my thing at the least private type of urinal. I had overcome my trough-phobia! Many seconds went by, and I was enjoying every one of them, until I heard a voice just behind me say, “God, you’re like a regular water fountain!”
I managed to finish, but I was humiliated, and I was pretty much back to square one. Not only would I not try a trough again, but I started having trouble at conventional urinals too, and as the years went by, I found it harder and harder to call up that frightening imagery from my past. I tried other images, such as someone about to stab me in the back, but age and its wonderful effects on urination began to have the upper hand.
I am happy to say, though, that I have developed another strategy that does seem to work pretty well. It’s the method of distraction. I pick some big number, like, say 861 — which I sound out in my head as “eight hundred sixty-one – and I silently count back by sevens: Eight hundred sixty-one, eight hundred fifty-four, eight hundred forty-seven, eight hundred forty…” I don’t use five or 10 because that would be too easy. Seven is just hard enough to keep me thinking, and distracting myself this way typically allows my urinary system to do its thing.
Okay, maybe eventually subtracting by seven will be too easy, and I’ll have to switch to 17. But by the time I reach the age of 80 the tables will probably have turned, and it will be exciting just to be continent.
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Photo by Victoria Beckham / flickr
Here is one for ya. Where I work, we do “drops” for state and federal law enforcement. I am required to go into the bathroom and literally watch the guys pee in a cup. All I can say is that you’re not alone in that I have encountered several guys with a shy bladder. Unfortunately for them, if they don’t give me a drop it means a call to their parole officer.
LOL, I remember the first time I went to the men’s room at Wrigley Field. I thought, “you have to be kidding?” But oh well, in my case if ya gotta go, ya gotta go. But then I grew up in an era where it was no big thing. Men’s showers were completely in the open. It simply was no big deal.