Anxiety about needing to pee all the time

[Guest_01]

I had an episode nearly 10 years ago where I was stuck on a train and had drunk heaps of water that day and really had to pee, and I only just got off and got to a toilet in time... the feeling of omg i'm going to wet myself was so traumatising that when my friend made a joke about going back to the toilet and peeing again just in case (like one minute later) i did actually go back... since that day i've become super aware of how much liquid i drink and avoid getting into situations where i can't access a toilet. i know it's not actually a physical issue, because when i'm at home or somewhere where i know i could get to a toilet if i needed to, i have great bladder control and can go for hours without thinking of it. but the problem has got heaps worse, to the point where i often go to pee a few times before i have to go for a car ride or something, even if the time that ill be stuck without being able to get to a toilet is as little as 10 minutes and ive had nothing to drink all day. ive got to the point of being anxious that peeing myself will happen as a result of my anxiety, and its just ironic that the anxiety is about peeing in the first place.

im going to finally say something to my doctor cause i know i can't handle this anymore on my own, it used to be just an annoyance but now im close to having panic attacks and feeling constantly exhausted from thinking about it. i never used to be an anxious person have started to be a more anxious person in general and other things make me anxious too like flying.

is anyone else suffering from this too??? is it too late? i know i should have got help long ago. plz say that its something that i can treat, i can't imagine another 10 years or longer like this

[blossom321]

Oh My Gosh!!!! this is me to a tee, i am constantly going to the bathroom before i leave the house especially for a car ride over 30mins, but I'm totally fine when I'm at home! i can hold it for hours and i avoid going to places as much as i can that doesn't have a bathroom nearby. I havent seen a psychologist about this yet as i just havent mustered up the courage to go.

[Petal22]

Hi Maryflower,

Sorry you have been feeling this way....

it’s never too late ....... please see your gp and let them know how you have been feeling.......

You can do a mental health plan with your gp this will give you 10 free sessions with a phycologist who can give you many strategies to help you with your anxiety....

our health professionals are here to help us..... just step forward and ask for help 😊

[Here2Talk]

Hi Maryflower,

That train experience sounds like it was super stressful and really left a mark on you.

I agree with the getting a mental health plan. This kind of thing is likely to be very treatable with cognitive behavioural therapy.

I remember a similar thing when I was in grade 3 at school travelling on the bus for school camp, the last hour there they didn’t stop for pee breaks and I remember the anxiety of worrying of wetting myself on the bus, and the pain of it... now I think of it, I had an experience a year earlier in grade 2 where a teacher wouldn’t let me go to the toilet in class when I really needed to go and so (I was very timid then and so didn’t complain) eventually I did wet myself sitting on the floor in the classroom....

Anyway that’s in the past.

In your case, a thing called graded exposure/systematic desensitisation might be the go. Where you purposely expose yourself to the thing which is causing you anxiety (holding your bladder) in very small steps, gradually increasing them until you are back to how you were before the train experience