My Shy Bladder

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Podcasts

Business, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Careers, Relationships, Sexuality

4.6 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Christopher Zara didn’t finish high school, and can sometimes feel like an outsider working in a field where it’s more common to have a college degree. Sometimes he’s able to push through his social anxiety, to put on a tough face. But other times his body won’t give him a chance to feel at ease – it seizes up, and in Christopher’s case that means not being able to pee even when he really, really has to. “Imagine you’re unable to perform a basic function like move your hand or your leg,” Christopher said, “You're standing, in my case, in front of a urinal or wherever the bathroom is, and it just doesn't happen.” In this episode, Christopher talks to producer Zoe Azulay about “paruresis,” more colloquially known as shy bladder syndrome, how it’s been disruptive to his life, how he thinks it's connected to class anxiety, and how it’s gotten better. Christopher Zara’s memoir is called Uneducated: A Memoir of Flunking Out, Falling Apart, and Finding My Worth Podcast production by Zoe Azulay Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Pets bring so much joy from those happy greetings at the door to the warm
0:05.2	cuddles on the sofa so give a little love back with dental life from Purina a
0:10.6	range of delicious chews made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets teeth and gums.
0:18.5	Essential for their overall well-being and a happy healthy life they give you plenty of smiles so look after
0:25.8	theirs with dental life pick up dental life in the pet food aisle
0:29.8	hey it's Anna and to get us started this week on our new episode, I want to bring in
0:36.5	Zoe Ajulae, that's Sex and Money producer. Hi Zoe. Hi, Anna. This whole episode started how a lot of our episodes start you as a producer
0:47.0	on death sex and money get a lot of emails with new books, new guest ideas, etc.
0:54.4	What caught your eye for this episode?
0:57.8	Do you ever get a pitch in your inbox and it's just your first reaction is I don't know it's
1:06.4	cringe or it's oh this isn't serious it's sort of it makes you feel sort of embarrassed and you you click out of it it's sort of an
1:15.1	immediate like no yes I know that feeling I know that feeling very I know that feeling
1:18.9	very well and usually it's an episode that we ought to make but I have to get over my embarrassment.
1:23.3	Right, so you like click out of it and then like you find yourself thinking about it later and
1:29.2	then you realize, okay wait the thing that's like repelling me about it is probably exactly the
1:34.3	reason that you should go towards it. What was it about this particular pitch that
1:38.8	made you click out? Okay so we got a pitch from a writer named Christopher Zara and he had just written a memoir called Uneducated and that was why we got the pitch at this time.
1:53.0	Now his memoir is straightforward about his life,
1:57.3	a very interesting topic, which is the fact
1:59.3	that he did not finish high school.
2:01.2	He didn't go to college, and he was sort of floundering around in his
2:04.2	20s and then in his 30s he realized that he had this dream to become a writer and
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -292 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.