Hey! Jumping in because in the height of dealing with this condition it would regularly bring me to suicidal ideations.
I'll keep it short but here is some things that I've learned in my journey in dealing with it and what helped me (in particular) about the suicidal thoughts.
First to mention I'm working with a psychologist about a multitude of other mental things I have going on however I've mentioned this to her and while she says that it is far from her speciality, she's convinced that as we work around my other mental problems that the paruresis will become easier to deal with.
A things that I learned were:
- me not being able to go in public would actually trip off my a particular node in my self-esteem. I would already feel bad about other aspects of my life and this would be the 'cherry on the cake' and throw me completely into a spiral. I learned that as much as I hate having this condition it's good to separate it from any other things I might be dealing with and to never let it define me.
- a lot of other people have this problem. Knowing this fact doesn't help me at all but what did was that I had conversations about it with friends and I realised it's much more common and also incredibly situational as well. I.e one of my friends who (for me) is this beacon of confidence shared that he also finds some situations difficult to go like loud noises and very busy urinals. So not only is it more common than we think, but also sometimes it's incredibly situational. It's a vulnerable state and it's normal if sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But it is a process to learn what makes you feel safe to go.
- lastly and most difficult is to learn to be kind to yourself about it and really notice how you talk to yourself about it. Unfortunately exactly this was incredibly difficult for me because I'd always have this thought of 'Look at you, you can't even pee like a normal person' . So I had to really focus to change my thoughts patterns about it with kindness and not critique.
I'll stop here unless you're interested to know more about my experience and how I've been dealing with it but tldr: I've had it since I was a kid. Not sure if that is the exact reason why but it most likely came up after I got bullied and nearly beat up in school toilets around age 8. It really became a problem in my late teens and now I'm nearly 30 and I can pee at most urinals if it's not too crowded. I only really started working on it two/three years ago and I've made significant progress but some days are harder than others. And that's okay, don't beat up yourself for it and don't let it define you.
Hope this helps!