Agoraphobia

From the Fear of Having Frequent Urges to Urinate to the Fear of Others’ Gaze and Social Phobia

• Fear of having frequent urges to urinate, fear of gaze, taijin kyofu sho, and others
• By Junji Ishida (pseudonym), 33 years old male, office worker

Background of My Urinary Retention Problem

My family included four of us: my parents, my older sister, who is three years older than me, and me. I was the youngest in my family and grew up as a very spoiled boy. I was such a crybaby. Even I myself did not like this trait in myself. I could not socialize with other children and was invisible in the classroom.

I became anxious because one of my friends teased me about my physical appearance when a few of my classmates and I were chatting during recess when I was in Grade 7. I could not take my mind off my fear that I would get teased again. At that time I also started getting fearful of going to the bathroom at my school. I thought I was going crazy. I did not have anyone to ask for advice. I tried to solve this problem by myself but the more I wanted to get better the stronger the symptoms became. I became even more anxious when I started worrying that other people might notice that I was going crazy. It did not take long after that experience before I became completely unable to go to the washroom at the school.

Urinary Retention Problem and Social Phobia (Anthropophobia)

At first, I suffered the fear of gaze only in public washrooms, but it became stronger and stronger and began to affect all areas of my life. The fear of gaze then developed into anthropophobia (taijin kyofu sho). I felt inferior to my friends and I began to distance myself from them. I felt lonely and isolated during all my school years (junior high and senior high schools and university). When I became a working adult I still had a competitive spirit despite my agony, and I was disappointed in myself for example when I skipped work because I was worried about doing poorly at work. As I was reading self-help and psychology books, I used to tell myself, for example, “I can do it” and “Be strong.”

Three years after I had started to work, I got married. When my wife became pregnant, we got a dog. However, the dog became aggressive and started to misbehave because it was jealous of our baby. We were living in a new apartment, but the dog damaged the pillars and walls of the apartment. When I returned home from work one day and opened the door, I saw the dog roaming around in the house while our baby was crying hard in the playpen in the living room and my wife was just sitting at the dining table, moping. I said to myself: “What is happening to my family? I have been working so hard to raise a family and protect them.” At that time, I felt intense anxiety and fear. I then stepped inside the house, put the dog in a cage, picked up and held the baby in my arms. In tears, I said to my wife: “I can’t live like this any longer.” I told her that I would get rid of the dog.

Encountering Morita Therapy

I continued to read self-help books and books on psychology and psychiatry. I then encountered books on Morita therapy through which I started to think that the real cause of my suffering had something to do with the disposition of my nervous temperament. I searched for Morita therapy on the internet and visited the library at the Mental Health Okamoto Foundation. I met Mr. M. who was a staff member there for the first time, and since then I have kept in touch with him.

Mr. M. invited me to a meeting of a self-help group for overcoming neurosis, called Seikatsu No Hakkenkai. He also offered information about a retreat group called “Camp Okayama.” I went to check the comments posted on their members-only website forum and felt the enthusiasm of other participants when I was reading their comments. Initially, I was a bit hesitant to join this group, but their enthusiasm encouraged me to join them. Soon, I became a fully devoted active member.

The study group was stimulating and impressed me a lot. Young people who were in their 20’s took turns to be the chairperson and worked hard and passionately. I was moved by this. I felt the presence of Dr. Morita behind Mr. M and them. I felt a chill down my spine during the retreat. The theme of the retreat was: “The raw gemstone of neurosis should not be cut off or removed in order to shape it, but rather, it should be polished well.” This theme kept echoing in my heart throughout the retreat.

I was also extremely impressed by Mr. M in particular because he spoke with humor about Dr. Morita’s big heart and his theory of the universe. In Dr. Morita’s universe, all emotions, including both joy and fear for example, were valid and therefore needed to be embraced. I learned that each case of neurosis could be compared to a shining star in one’s heart; if a particular star of neurosis were suppressed too much, it would shine less and less, but if it were allowed to float freely, it would find a free place in one’s mind where it can shine more brightly.

Because I was studying the theory underlying Morita therapy mostly by myself, I misunderstood the concepts of arugamama (as-is), toraware (preoccupations), and hakarai (manipulative attempts). I thought that having preoccupations would invite manipulative attempts, which would, in turn, prevent us from being natural. I mistakenly thought that having preoccupations and making attempts to manipulate the undesirable symptoms were all bad things to do. I later learned that acknowledging and embracing these facts as valid and human was the core perspective of Morita therapy.

Happiness Found in Efforts for Achieving Goals

I used to feel that my life was too hard. I kept wondering about what exactly it was that made living so difficult for me. Other people looked so happy. “Why do I alone, out of all people, have to be suffering all the time?” I hated my life. I was unhappy and believed that I would not be happy in the future either. I thought I would have to live my life while suffering in this chaotic world until the day I would finally die. I had not asked my parents to bring me into life to begin with. I resented both my parents and Buddha for having put me into this world.

I was a coward and I was also very competitive. I then realized that I was just one of many neurotic patients seeking help from Morita therapy. Even though being born to this world might have been a coincidence, death is inevitable for all of us. I started to recognize the importance of how I would choose to live from now on, and how I would choose to die. Because I suffer from so-called Morita shinkeishitsu (Morita neurosis), I have been struggling to live throughout my life. But I do not want to die like this. I want to be a highly respected and good person. In fact, I realized that it was exactly this desire for life that had brought me all the struggles. I began to grasp this point firmly while at “Camp Okayama.”

Until then, I had been an extremely delicate and vulnerable person; I used to get hurt easily by even small and unimportant things. I hated my personality. I wanted to change and overcome my weakness. Finally, I felt rewarded by my efforts to overcome fears through the study of Morita therapy. I am still learning Morita theory, but I have reached the point of being able to embrace my neurosis without rejecting it. I now feel proud of my shinkeishitsu personality.

Even when I was feeling battered by the struggles in my daily life and wished to suppress and control my sufferings, I did not run away from it. I stood there but did not give in because I had a strong desire to live. I began to understand that my heart embraced the desire for life (sei no yokubo) and fear of death and that my desires were the driving forces that kept me moving forward.

After all, the kind of life I have been looking for all these years is not an idealized rosy or golden life but just an ordinary life. I want to live my life as who I am by making the best of my nervous personality. I will probably continue to have my disposition to notice small things and dwell on them but I will move on in my life. Perhaps this is my version of happiness. My experience of Camp Okayama has thus prepared me to accept my life as it is.

I am not quite ready yet to thank my parents and God for giving me life at this point. I suppose such a day will eventually come when I have fully grasped the meaning of another teaching by Dr. Morita: “doryoku soku shiawase” (making an effort brings happiness immediately) or “shiawase soku doryoku” (happiness can be found right away by making an effort). I had not been able to understand what Morita therapy was all about when I was studying it by myself earlier. I hope to continue studying Morita therapy with my friends with a humble attitude and without putting too much pressure on myself and without trying to find an easy way to avoid hard work.