An anxiety book helped my shy bladder more than I expected

I had severe shy bladder for fifteen years. These days I can go almost anywhere, and I still like pushing myself. Lately that meant reading an anxiety book that wasn’t written for people like us at all. It takes real commitment, so I wouldn’t pick it up half-heartedly.

The book runs on four steps: let the anxiety diffuse, allow it, ask for more of it, then carry on with what you were doing. The word that stopped me was “allow”. In all those years I’d never really allowed anything. I hadn’t even noticed how hard my bladder muscles clamped in tense moments, or how I fought that squeeze without knowing.

Asking for more of a feeling I hated seemed backwards, so I needed a picture. Mine came from my retriever puppy. When visitors arrive she goes wild and tears laps round the sofa, then wears herself out and turns into the sweetest dog alive.

Now I stand at the toilet and imagine my pelvic floor dropping as me opening the back door for her. Of course she’s going to race around. Of course my muscles tighten when people are near. I tell myself I want that, I even ask for more, because the more she runs, the sooner she settles.

One more thing helped. Anxiety and excitement feel almost the same in my body, and when I looked up synonyms for excited I found “nervous”. So when I pee in public now, I treat that tight feeling as nervous energy leaving through the muscle.

It still tenses up. I just don’t panic about it anymore. Yesterday my cousin was in the next room and I went anyway. When I came back the puppy was flat out across my slippers, paws still twitching.