It takes me a long time to do a wee, and I mean a very long time. I can feel that my bladder’s full and needs to empty but the act of doing so can sometimes take up to hour!

My wee trickles out between big pauses. This is being investigated and I have a wonderful Neuro Uro (a doctor who specialises in the bladder issues people with neurological conditions have) taking care of me and my wee.

So I’m not unduly concerned with the medical side of this but I am worried about the emotional impact it’s having. I’m experiencing two big emotions around this – frustration and shame.

Frustration is the easiest one to deal with. It’s incredibly annoying of course to have to sit and wait for my piss to make an appearance and I feel this particularly acutely at night when I just want to get back to bed.

The second emotion is much more tricky and relates almost entirely to other people. Nobody’s actually said anything, but as the process of urinating has taken longer and longer, I’ve noticed my self-consciousness about it increasing. I feel a need to explain to people I’m with why it’s taken so long, regardless of whether anyone’s noticed or not.

While it’s understandable that I feel this way, it’s neither necessary nor acceptable. The process takes the time it takes, and I wouldn’t judge anyone else by the speed of their wee, so why am I making these judgements about myself?

Writing this has helped me acknowledge these feelings of frustration and shame and I’m going to tackle them both in the same way – by paying attention to how I’m feeling, and treating myself with kindness and compassion. I’m going to practice telling myself ‘That’s just how long it takes at the moment’ and I’m going to practice telling other people nothing.

Obviously when it come to practising saying nothing to others, writing a post about it might not be a brilliant start! Also while I can deliberately choose to not say anything, what my tics say is out of my hands. At the moment they seem to be speculating on what my urine might be doing to slow itself down:

“My piss is knitting cotton socks for antelopes.”
“Piss, stop chirpsing the appendix.”
“Wee, wee, are you using Tinder again?”

Who knows what’s happening inside my body? What I do know is that I’m very glad it’s my Neuro-Uro who’s working on the problem, not my tics.