With a normal functioning bladder all of or nearly all of the contents are evacuated when you pee leaving the bladder dry-za-bone and the muscles blissed out relaxed. They stay that way until the next time it's full, then once again they have a bit of a contraction to let you know you'll need to get your arse in gear shory. It's mind and body working in perfect harmony. Such a wonderful thing.
When you develop problems with 'urinary retention' this symbiotic relationship is broken down. The hitherto smooth flow of piss out of your bladder is interrupted or halted. Communication breaks down and plumbing work comes to a standstill.
What causes urinary retention?
- enlarged prostate, or benign prostatic hyperplasia.
- bladder outlet obstruction, such as urethral stricture or scar tissue in the bladder neck.
- pelvic organ prolapse, including cystocele and rectocele.
- urinary tract stones, also called calculi.
- constipation.
At every stage of my 'old man's bladder' pee problem as I struggled with my belligerent penis and waterworks I've been inclined to think "This has to be as bad as it gets!", but it never has been. My water workers have always had the capacity to go that extra mile - to tighten the screw just a little bit more. They have been nothing if not determined to give me every last drop of urinary excruciention.
Having to pee urgently and frequently is very unpleasant. It's painful, exhausting, embarrassing and demoralising. What on earth could possibly be worse? I could never have imagined.
Much worse - so much shaggingly awfully pissing worse - is not being able to pee at all - NOT A SINGLE DROP. That's a whole new level of suffering.
TORTURE - verb - to cause great physical or mental pain to someone intentionally
Sometimes in life you have an experience that's so powerful it changes your perspective on the world you thought you knew. In 2004 I had one of those experiences. I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland - where the Nazis murdered millions of people, mostly Jews during WW2. The person I left there as was not the same person who arrived. It was a profound and humbling experience.
The level of inhumanity to which the 'inmates' there were subjected was everywhere to be seen - in the barbed wire fences, the gas chambers, the human bone fragments still lying under foot around them. The horror.
For me it was truly brought home in one location - Block 11 - the punishment, torture and execution block. Here the Nazis 'dealt with' attempted escapees and suspected saboteurs. Of the many punishment methods meted out in that building one took me to a very dark place from which I've never fully returned. It involved the confinement of detainees in standing cells.
These standing 'cells' were four human body spaces wide and the depth of your chest. Entry to this confined space was through a small opening at floor level through which inmates crawled up to a standing position. Four prisoners were confined there side by side for the night. The only source of air was a 5x5 cm opening covered with a metal grille. They couldn't move. They couldn't lift their arms, sit down or even bend their legs. Then in the morning, if still alive, they had to go straight out to work. This punishment was applied for periods from several nights up to several weeks in a row.
I will never get my head or emotions around the cruelty of this. The pain and distress is unimaginable. It is pure physical and mental torture combined. A living hell. It still leaves me in despair when I think about it. The phrase 'There but for the grace of God go I' always comes to my lips even though I'm not religious.
The grace of God did not help me during my own pee torture.
I'm not a specialist but I think I'm right in saying that you can't physically torture yourself - that's called self harm. But when your body is subjecting you to such excruciating pain isn't that differentiation kind of irrelevant? - your body is just fucking torturing you. That's how it feels and that's how it is.
You desperately need to pee. Your penis is burning up like there's a lit sparkler inserted up it. You feel like you are just about to piss yourself - you can barely hold it in (that's what you think and feel you're doing anyway) so you go to the toilet, but when you unzip, point and release, absolutely nothing comes out and the feeling doesn't go away - not one little bit.
You stand there straining. Your brain is shouting "Release release you can release now!" - but the same brain knows you have already released. You've turned the key but the engine hasn't started. You've pressed the button to open the dam but the floodgate isn't moving.
Your body is screaming "Fucks sake piss NOOOOW you silly bastard!" but it's you - your own body that is stopping you. Your piss is being held back further up the line. You can't escape the pain because it's a part you. You can't do anything to get rid of it because the only means to do so is to pee and you fucking can't do that! It's unbearable but you must bear it. There is no escape from it. You are locked in to it. It's torture in everything but name. It's pure torture but your torturer is yourself.
This goes on and on. Your mind and body are in a state of severe distress as you stand there dick in hand. Eventually after standing there forever you accept there's no point in waiting any longer so you zip back up and leave the urinal/ restroom. Every step you take away from it doesn't make sense because your body is telling you that you need to be back there peeing.
What's so cruel though is that as you go back to the world outside your bladder muscles now move to hold your pee in! They contract the already contracted muscles. That leaves you in a state of complete agony and bodily confusion. You are trying desperately NOT TO PEE. It doesn't make any sense. You don't know whether you are coming or going.
This is the life I led for over 2 years until I found a solution, one that had been staring me in the face for years.
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