Little Sherri

I've experienced this as well. I also rinse my plastic panties in the shower primarily, and run them through the wash here and there. I think it might be vinyl's reaction to urine, and/or contact with plastic diapers. PUL does not react like this, as far as I can see. But with traditional plastic panties, the crotch does seem to "crunchify" faster than the sides or the butt, for example, despite all parts of the panty being exposed to the same detergents and drying protocol.

Rearz sells adult cloth diapers. I have used diaper liners with mixed results. If you walk around, they always bunch up and end up like a wad of damp tissue in the middle of your diaper. As for the smell of disposables, a good diaper pail, good garbage can, and good garbage bags are key. The closet my diaper pail is in has a bit of a scent to it, but in my garage, where the bags from my pail go, you can't smell anything unless you open up the garbage can. As for your environmental concerns, they are laudable, but I would point this out: the argument on whether cloth diapers or disposables are better for the environment is far from settled. Maybe at home where you wash them with mild soap and dry them in the sun, cloth wins out, but institutionally, where they used to carpet-bomb them with chemicals and then dry them crispy to avoid spreading illness, a LOT of water, energy and chemicals went into keeping grandma's diapers snow white. Practically all hospitals and nursing homes switched to disposables a couple of decades ago. And whenever I fret about a hefty bag I'm leaving at the curb, I think about the three giant dumpsters full of diapers that I spied behind a large long-term care residence a few months ago while I was turning around in their parking lot. "We" - the ABDL types - are a vanishingly small percentage of diapered humanity. It would be like if you decided to forego toilet paper, to save the trees... the difference it would make is a rounding error. Comfort yourself with diapers and then save the environment by buying a more fuel-efficient car, or using transit, or converting to a heat pump, or an induction cook top, etc.

I have 3 sizes of almost everything: 1) pre-nappy, pre-pandemic, in-good-shape me 2) post-nappy-onset, peri-pandemic, upsized for discretion, and, 3) post-pandemic, not-been-to-the-gym-in-God-knows-how-long, still-wearing-diapers upsized again. I have had both in my inventory. I'm ~220 lbs, 38-40" waist, and while the L will fit me, the XL seems less strained. The waist size on the L is fine, however my legs are like tree trunks so the bottom tab barely makes the landing zone, whereas on the XL, the top tabs are at the smallest setting, but the bottom tabs are in the middle.

Hi, folks - I just wanted to duck in and note that I am not dead, and I'm still diapered, in case anyone was worried. I'm sure there are lots of people waiting with baited breath. I have family staying with me, which has raised the security protocols a fair bit. I'm in a BeDry night right now, under a onesie and oversized shorts, but I have generally been wearing medium-duty diapers during the day, which has me burning through more of them, both because they can contain less, and because I don't like to operate on the ragged edge of failure while hanging out with people. However, it has been nice to live life as a diapered person, solving these problems and trucking along. Being occasionally in situations where I have had the thought that "I should change this diaper soon" has had me trying to hold it for a few minutes until I can find a break in the conversation or the activity, to take care of business. Doing that has shown me that my range has definitely markedly declined, and that once I'm at a tipping point, it's dangerous to be me, if I'm not wearing adequate protection. And, as noted before, if the event starts happening, that's it, there's no going back. I have always been a bit suspicious of confirmation bias whenever I've seen any change in my performance in that area, so I have given this a lot of thought, and I don't think it's wishful thinking to say that, at this point, wearing a diaper is generally a good idea for someone with my retention characteristics. I am far from incontinent, but, I am approaching "unreliable". And if someone is unreliable in "this" department, then that someone should be diapered.

The XL's would for sure. I was size 36 and 200 lbs and I could wear them, albeit they were snug. They also stretch out so you may be in a bit of a fight getting them on, but later they will come on and off easier.

Welcome! That is a fascinating origin story... being consigned to diapers, and then finding out that you were meant to be in them. That's a spot of luck, too - you read so many sad stories about people who are forced by circumstances to wear protection, and who subscribe to the messaging that was hammered into them when they were kids, that diapers are humiliating, they're for babies, you should be ashamed if you need to wear them. Whereas most of us here are ready to embrace diaper dependency, if it hasn't already found us - we look forward to no longer having to make excuses about it! Dive in and meet some folks and read some stuff - this is a great community.

Child #1 was at work from early in the morning, and child # 2 is at a dance day camp, so since we had the house to ourselves, I took the opportunity to have a cup of coffee and read my newspaper in my favourite outfit, a diaper (BeDry) and a t-shirt (beer-themed). It's been jungle-humid these past few days, and the less you have on, the better, in my opinion. I still haven't solved my problem with respect to being exhausted at the end of the day, and tired of looking at a screen - hopefully things ease up a bit at work and I can claw back some time to read and post here. It's not even fully a time issue, really - it's more about having difficulty putting my mind to the task of writing anything worth reading; I just feel like my brain is mush by the end of the day, because I've spent the whole day composing emails or wading neck-deep into spreadsheets, when I'm not in meetings, which these days seem to be reproducing like bacteria - every meeting inevitably divides and produces two new meetings. I've taken to putting meetings in so that I get a chance to eat lunch. As I said before, at least I get to do it while wearing a diaper. I honestly don't know how I'd do this otherwise; forget the psychological, security blanket aspects - I'm talking about sheer scheduling. Having arrived at a point where I need to pee every 20-30 minutes in order to be comfortable, were I to now decide to get up and run to the bathroom for that, I would find myself with notably less time on my hands to get anything done. One new development: I somehow ended up with some kind of diaper rash on my side, of all places. I spent a hot, humid day in a MegaMax, a diaper I have had a long acquaintance with, and that I consider a friend. They're the only medium-sized diaper the world offers that still fits me, and in medium, they provide a very attractive combination of relatively discrete proportions (for a super diaper), and, impressive capacity. I was doing a downtown bar crawl and I wanted something that would work in public, and also give me some range, and my hand fell to the MegaMax. The diaper did a great job - 5 bars later, I still wasn't afraid to sit down - but after I got a ride home from my buddy's wife, I went to take a shower to freshen up, and when the hot water hit my side, I realized I had a rash where the diaper had been sitting - but only on the one side, not down under, nor on the other side, or anywhere else. Weird. Granted, I don't put diaper cream on my sides, but neither do they generally get very wet, until late in a diaper's shift, if at all - only cloth diapers really provide a full-day, damp sides experience. And I've never gotten a rash there from cloth diapers.

Rearz has done this for Halloween and Christmas - however they only sell them in sample packs of 2 and they charge a lot for them. I wanted to get the Christmas diapers and wear them for Christmas day, but it was hard to justify spending $20 (with shipping) for two diapers that only my wife would see, anyway, and I doubt she'd have been impressed.

This is really interesting - it's a small sample size so far, but it seems like a lot (73%) of the participating DL's out there would be interested in non-childish-looking printed diapers, meanwhile 95% or more of what's on the market in terms of printed diapers look like baby or kid diapers.

This is interesting. My situation is obviously very different from yours, I'm quite a bit older, I'm married, my wife knows "my secret", and a few other people I'm close to know about aspects of it - they know I wear diapers, they just don't know that I like them, they are operating on an assumption that it's just about my needing them. The sibling dynamic is interesting, though. I spent a fair bit of time with my sister this summer, more than I ever have before, including staying over at her place, and, my brother is coming to stay at my place shortly, for a couple of weeks. The latter is much more common than the former - he lives on the other side of the country so we stay at each other's place for at least a few days every year. But, both my brother (younger) and my sister (older) were there when I wore diapers as a kid, and, they were there during an incident when I was 13, after I'd outgrown diapers, when my stepfather found my homemade diaper stash, and he waved one of them around and yelled at me in front of the whole family. So, even though I am very close with my brother, and we talk about most things completely openly - family, finances, health, etc - I have shared NO aspects of "this" with him, or with my sister (I'm less close to my sister, although that seems to be changing as we essentially coparent our aging stepfather). When I'm around them, I engage all security protocols, because I have no idea how much they know or remember about my wearing diapers as a kid, so I worry that if they noticed anything, they would immediately jump to conclusions about it. Whereas, with my friends, as much as I didn't want them to know, when they came to know, it was shrouded in a medical veil that polite people don't poke at with much determination. That might not be the case with my siblings. Or maybe it would be - I have no idea if they think that "the incident" referred to above was related to my wetting the bed again, or if they know the truth, which is that my stepdad found homemade diapers I was making and wearing because I missed them, once I outgrew bedwetting and stopped having access to them. It would be a relief to be able to someday not worry as much about if the knew about my diapers.

Diapers are definitely a big part of how I cope with all my days, but if it's a bad one, I'll want to put on comfy ABDL diaper as soon as it's practical to do so, if I don't have one on already. I can feel the stress start melting away at that point - my diaper becomes something I no longer have to worry about, it's there for me, a silent (or slightly crinkly) embrace. It might not be the doctor-recommended solution, but I also find solace in a really good IPA, stout, or a glass of red wine or a sip of Scotch - not necessarily to the point of drinking my problems away (although I have done that, of course); it's more about indulging in something deeply satisfying, and taking a moment for myself. Chocolate also helps. Hugging my dog and/or my kids is also soul-restoring. And, writing helps, either directly about whatever is bothering me, or, being transported away from my concerns and spending time on Planet Fiction with characters I am animating.

I quite like the BeDry - they have come to be a staple for me as well, a daytime weight diaper that I can wear in any situation, and even sleep in, as you noted. I have also tried out its other variants, the BeDry EliteCare, and the BeDry Night. The Night swells up heroically and definitely holds more, although I don't know if it's positional leak deterrence is any better than its lower-priced sibling. But I can wear one for 18+ hours if I don't have anywhere to be where looking like I have a comatose wombat in my pants would be problematic. The EliteCare version seems like the least attractive of the lot - it was supposed to occupy a Goldilocks midpoint between the astronaut-grade NIghts and the civilian-strength BeDry, but it's priced close to the Night and, in practical use, if not in marketing fever-dreams, it performs like the Bedry. The Night and the EliteCare feature the "Barry" hook-loop fasteners. I found the EliteCare somewhat prone to the Rearz upper rear thigh press-out leak trick, as well. In all, I think the BeDry is the best deal, particularly when they are on sale, although lately Rearz has been advertising amazing discount "events" - SUMMER SALE!!!!! - and then only applying them to, I don't know, their Alpaca-print baby doll dresses or whatever.

I'm curious as to if there's much demand out there among DL's and the "I'm forced to wear diapers by circumstances so I might as well enjoy them" cohort for non-AB printed diapers. Off the top of my head, I can only think of a few models that might meet this description, and a couple of them are defunct now: Rearz Rebels (skull & crossbones themed, not currently listed), Incontrol Premium Nights (black cover), Rearz used to have a purple diaper, & NorthShore offers the MegaMax in blue, pink, and tie-dye, plus they list some Forsite-branded products on their site that have multi-coloured leaves, grey strips or purple polka-dots on them. Pretty much all of the other printed offerings on the market, of which there are dozens and dozens, fall into the the "AB" (adult baby), or at least "AK" (adult kid) themed category - they run from slightly, to very overtly cutesy, juvenile, or sissified, or they try to look like baby diapers from a particular era. Not that I'm complaining - if Pampers or Huggies made a size 12, I'd buy them, and my diaper inventory runs about half white, half AB, but I have had the thought that it would be nice to be able to wear a printed diaper that didn't feature pink bunnies or teddy bears and baby bottles, for, say, doctors appointments, or if I were to ever be on the dating scene again (my wife would laugh at that idea).

I'm trying to make a commitment to write a bit every day, even if it's only for a few minutes. It takes my mind off of work for a bit.

I wish you all the best, @dondd. I've been down your road once, although I was extremely lucky the way it turned out. There was a period of time when I thought I could I die, but then I won the lottery, essentially. But during that time, the mind goes to dark places, and often, you also feel almost worse for the people around you than you do for yourself - we can tend to feel guilty about what we might put them through. However the odds are in your favour, as you pointed out, and I would also say this: part of me living my life the way I want to live it, as much as possible, comes from feeling that I got a second chance. That's a powerful feeling, as you know. Make the best of it.