Week 1 Reflection — Unstalled

What went well

I improved my breath-hold ability faster than I expected. It started out crazy low at 15 seconds for my first try. That felt pathetic, but I was already up to 40 seconds on the third try that same time. I started out laying down and have progressed to practicing while sitting in a chair.
Having a plan really helped. In the past I’ve just tried to push myself in the direction of facing all of this, but it was easy to forget I was trying and lose progress quickly. Then when I remembered, it would feel further away and I’d get frustrated that I stopped practicing.
Being publicly accountable helped massively. Knowing I committed myself to posting an update every single week really shifted something internally. In the past, I’ve shared this problem and my struggles with it with as few people as possible. Mainly because it’s all so damn embarrassing. But choosing to be more open about it, especially with other people struggling with the same issues and seeing so many of them respond to my post, it really lit something inside of me. I can’t back down because if I do it will be just one more point of evidence in my own life that this thing is stronger than I am. I don’t want to fail because I don’t want to be an example of failure for the others struggling with this same monster, too. I want to be an example that it is possible to overcome this beast. I know how hopeful it makes me to see others who’ve overcome it. I want to be that kind of example too.

I procrastinated on Thursday and skipped the breathwork and journal entry for that day. I put it off because it didn’t seem like much, but then forgot about it till I was in bed about to go to sleep. I could have gotten up and done it then, but I didn’t. That means today I have to make up for that and do everything I already had scheduled for Friday. I made my life harder than it needed to be.
Breathwork is hard. It’s legitimately uncomfortable. The times I’ve tried to practice this before I hadn’t had much luck. Now I’m realizing this is because I wasn’t breathing out most of my oxygen before holding my breath. The method works because it is raising the carbon dioxide level in your body. If you introduce more oxygen into your body before holding your breath, you can hold your breath longer, but you don’t get the benefit. The thing is, my body starts to spasm at about 15-20 seconds in. And I’m not sure how I should be handling that. I try to calm myself at first, but some part of my animal body is screaming for air. Right now I’m gritting my teeth and clamping down to stop it. Doing that, I can hold for 40-45 seconds at my best right now. That doesn’t feel long, and I’m not even sure if my inner bladder sphincter is relaxing because I’m so focused on trying to lock down the spasms to keep myself from breathing. I should probably look up more info on this to find the best way to improve.

Fluid loading has had a weird effect. It kind of taught me that I confuse urgency with anxiety sometimes. I drank about 60oz of fluid within an hour and held it as long as I could. I noticed my body’s desire to pee rose up to a 6/10 pretty fast, then even crossed over to 7 and then an 8/10. But then something else happened. It was like my body knew there was a lot of fluid there that needed to be released, but it accepted that we weren’t going to the bathroom urgently, so it kind of sat with it. My urgency actually went down at that point. And not in a way that created discomfort. Instead it felt like I could maintain that state for quite a while. I ended up peeing about a half hour later, then several more times in the next 2 hours.
- I’ve had a good amount of times where the feeling that I needed to pee felt so urgent and anxiety creating when I was in public. Then when I actually went to the bathroom, there wasn’t all that much actually in my bladder. I wonder how much of the time I’m confusing real urgency for anxiety about peeing.

I really want to start working my edge. I created an exposure ladder for myself and this helped me to see exactly where my current edge lies. And I know what it looks like. Someone I trust, standing right outside the bathroom door with the door closed. That feels stressful, but doable.
I feel like I’ve avoided situations which bring up stress around peeing so often, that the idea of facing something like this and overcoming it feels weirdly impossible, even though I know it’s not. I need a victory. I need to take one step forward and prove to myself that I can overcome this monster. I have tools and I can make it through this.

Day 1

Breath-hold practice
Journal about what thoughts come up when I imagine myself standing at a urinal to take a piss.

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5