Plumbing the depths

Urge incontinence is a disorder where one suddenly feels the need or urge to urinate, for no apparent reason, followed by involuntary urination.

“The most common cause of urge incontinence,” it says here, “is involuntary and inappropriate detrusor muscle contractions.” Check.

It turns out that there is a converse disorder known as paruresis — or Bashful Bladder Syndrome — an equally distressing condition in which you’ve gotta go... but can’t.

No one — neither psychologists nor the millions of sufferers — can draw a line between cause and effect. Bernie, newly turned 60, can remember a time when peeing in public [lavatories] was easy. That ended when, at about age eight, he was in a group in his native Canada when a girl challenged a boy, Bernie’s mate, to prove, anatomically, that he was a boy. The lad wouldn’t, but Bernie did.

It may have been a life-defining moment, because the boy who “didn’t” told his mum, who mentioned it to Bernie’s mum. Far worse, the boy’s sister told the other kids in the street. Pretty soon it was all over Bernie’s school, and a trip to the toilet for him brought on laughter and abuse.

Soon, he became a paruretic...

How terribly fascinating that a chance episode of childish foolishness should become a “life-defining moment” that causes decades of discomfort and anguish. Such psychic causes seem to be the mechanism behind many cases of paruresis.

Why bring all this up?

Well, I needed a post between the last Goat Friday and tomorrow’s, to segregate last week’s newborn goat and mother from this week’s feral specimens. An animal husbandry post, as it were.

Apologies are due, by the way, for the lack of posting and other activity on this blog. Quite simply, it’s the old problem of lack of time and/or energy to put into this stuff.

So... apologies.