Redefining Identity

[DailyDi]

When I first came online I was starting to experience incontinence and was looking for help and advice. I found Adult Babies to be better informed and less whiny than incontinent folks in those days and found a home in the diaper loving world.

But I'm not a baby!

Along with wetting I had emotional needs that age-play met, but being a baby or a sissy didn't quite fit me. I wore diapers to stay dry and because it fit my personality better than underwear. but it wasn't quite perfect.

The internet evolved...

These days you can get anything online - and this access has, over the years, redefined my age-play identity. No longer am I limited to diapers or pads - instead ebay, etsy and crafty folks around the world have given us access to anything we can imagine!

I found I liked sippy cups better than baby bottles

I like pacifiers, but I also like bigger-kid toys and games.

And the clincher: Training pants. Training pants are what I am most comfortable in - both in terms of protection and emotional satisfaction.

I'm a kid! I walk, talk, play and learn... but I still have accidents and need protection and love and a bit of regressive behavior from time to time.

I wear diapers to bed, like any bed-wetter should, but during the day I wear big boy pants with hidden layers or thirsty protection. I don't baby talk, but I do still love my plushie.

I secretly like being able to tinkle my trainers so as not to interrupt my playtime with my cars and trucks!

So my questions are:

1) How has the internet helped you define who you are?

2) Would you be where you are now had the net never come to be?

Without the internet I think - if I was even alive today - I'd be wearing Depends, constantly uncomfortable and afraid of leaks, and not nearly as happy a person. I wouldn't have understanding friends that helped me through depression, incontinence and overcoming years of abuse.

I wouldn't know YOU - you reading this right now - and I'm glad I do know all of you!

[nhdl]

I would definately be wearing depends and think I was the only one on the world that actually likes wearing diapers. Thank ggod for the internet and thank DD for creating this site. I would still be in the closet with out the internet and tihs site.

[Codymoogle]

1) How has the internet helped you define who you are?

It gave me the courage to reach out to other people, something I can't do easily in person. With the help of those I had met when I first "got connected", I started to soul search...my connections grew as I found different sites...and slowly, I learned about myself through the help of websites and those I communicate(d) with. That exploration has been never ending, and with the help of my friends and family online, I've started to grow into the "real world" as well.

2) Would you be where you are now had the net never come to be?

To be totally honest, I wouldn't have survived. Inner turmoil and pain would have overshadowed my will to live to the point of inner destruction, and repeated until self annihilation was completed (in fewer words, a successful suicide). That's scary to think about.

~ moogle

[beallucanb]

When I first got the net I was a lot older than most on it.

I had feelings I couldn't understand even at my older age, having the net made me see who and what I was.

I wish the net came around when I was a teen, my life would have been totally different than it turned out to be.

Now if I could only find that special someone my life would be tons better.

[turtlepins]

The internet certainly helped me see that I was not alone, and that there was a safe place in which to discuss what I was going through and feeling. And over the years I've been here on DD I've changed, and those changes have helped me redefine who I am now, as opposed to who I was then. This part of the internet is quite satisfying.

[Burp_Cup]

It wasn't until the year 2000 that my wife and I bought our first PC. A few months after surfing around and getting used to the net, I found some of the sites relating to our lifestyle. I will have to say that was one of the best days of my life!! Not only were there others doing what I mostly fantasized about, but there were thousands of others! Wow!!

Up until the internet I hadn't owned my own sippy cup, onesie, diaper bag, and the list goes on. I lived mostly in the shadows with this lifestyle and my private fantasies. Since I was 15 or 16 I would have to find private time away from family and friends to use underwear in the same way I use diapers now. Even though I relished those opportunities, they didn't happen often enough. I would still be living in a similar way, I think, had it not been for the internet. A life of quiet desperation is not a life I would want to live.

I think I pretty much answered both your questions DD. Thanks.

[KittenAB]

I was on the original internets a lot, we called them BBSes back then. I was a kid when I first started communicating through the nets, the only thing that has really changed is that they are all now connected in one place with dynamic search engines making it easier to find servers instead of dialling a different number for each one. So really, nothing would have been different for me, it's just easier now. IRC is much better now as well, which is where I hang out the most. The only huge benefit to the new internet is the shopping, much faster to shop online than through catalogues.

[tcc]

So my questions are:

1) How has the internet helped you define who you are?

2) Would you be where you are now had the net never come to be?

Without the internet I think - if I was even alive today - I'd be wearing Depends, constantly uncomfortable and afraid of leaks, and not nearly as happy a person. I wouldn't have understanding friends that helped me through depression, incontinence and overcoming years of abuse.

I wouldn't know YOU - you reading this right now - and I'm glad I do know all of you!

[sarah_ab]

So my questions are:

1) How has the internet helped you define who you are?

2) Would you be where you are now had the net never come to be?

My mother, was a very over powering, controlling person who fits the actually diagnostic criteria for munchausen by proxy. She was a therapist (probably still is, but i have had no contact for the past 4 years). Being a therapist, she knew exactly what to say to dr's to make them think I had all these mental illness's.

She was also quite good at consistantly and on a daily basis reminding me of all my faults.... i talked to much, i was to fat (exact words), I didn't have enough friends..... we always had a computer in out house.... and when i was about 11 we got aol.....

Spending long afternoons home alone, unsupervised, i was often on the internet. Being allowed to go to websites, and chat rooms, and just let me personality out, my own sense of humor (which my family found thoroughly unacceptable)... The internet allowed me to gain self confidence, and also to know that high school was NOT the big deal tv shows made it out to be.

I am very certain without the internet I would not be as abnormally well adjusted as I am.

I was blessed with being able to discover many different sexual fetish's at an age when i was becoming 'sexually aware'... you know puberty..... so for me, i never felt alone, or like a freak or anything, because I already figured out, if I can think it up, chances are there is already a website out there about it!!!!!

having this 'assurance' meant I never had to feel awakward, or alone, or guilty, or any of that..... So when i did discover the whole ab thing, i was just able to shrug my shoulders and say "ohhh something else that looks fun"....

THe internet also showed me that I was not who my mother said I was... and allowed me to hide my true self from her, because i knew she would never understnad (i don't mean diapers, just literally my personality, my likes, my dislikes, my atheism, my everything that makes me who i am...)

I don't think i would be any where near who i am now, had it not been for the internet, as the internet came along at that crucial point in many people's lives... the teenage years, when rebellions begin, when we start trying to figure out who we are and where we fit in the world..... and the internet let me figure out that I didn't fit in my mothers world, but there were thousands of worlds out there and one of them I would fit right in with!

also, if it weren't for the internet ... I would not have found diapermates... and if it weren't for diapermates, i would not have found my boyfriend/daddy... We will be together 5 years in June.

[aleyxsis]

For me it has sort of helped me complete my acceptance of who i am !.I grew up with no internet and had to scour magazines for any type of info on this subject .I hated what i did but loved it at the same time (binge and purge) .But now i totally accept who i am and have been able to see im not alone in this lifestyle !.This was the first site i ever joined and have met and talked to some great people !! .Also thanks DD for this great site and all of the people i have met !

[ca557]

1. the internet helped me figure out who i was and some direction in which i should take my life. Mainly because books not avaiable for everything i feel and well the internet meks it easier to find help and advice needed.

2. wher would i be without it i have to say i would be very lost and confused right now.

[Backindiapers]

First let me state that this in no way trying to kiss ass to DD....lol. But I often read posts started or added from DD and I am amazed at the passiveness, intelligence, and wisdom that comes from this man. Dude seriously you are the best person I could think of to run this site. Now on to your questions:

1) How has the internet helped you define who you are?

Well I would only use the word define as according to my AB'ness. I think those tendencies were always there but never truly manifested until I found adult babies and DPF on the web about 1997 or so. From there it was a slow progression of realizing who I was and what I wanted to be. I, like many, had many binge purge episodes over time. Now I am finally comfortable with who I am as a person and have an amazing wife who understands me. But yes the internet definitely helped mold me into an outward AB when it comes to clothes, paci's, and the like.

2) Would you be where you are now had the net never come to be?

Like many others I don't think I would have learned acceptance. From seeing so many others go through the same trials and tribulations as I had taught me about myself in ways I would never have thought of. So above and beyond the AB lifestyle I am very thankful the internet is around. The reasons are numerous and I don't feel very connected without the internet.

[pins]

The internet has saved me thousand of dollars in mental doctor fees ,thank you DD ,D P F ,and all the other diaper sites on the net.