Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[Little Sherri]

On 12/12/2020 at 7:13 PM, oznl said:

The 2004 Pontiac GTO of North America was actually a Holden built here.

These are quite coveted over here. Pontiac is as dead as Studebaker, but this was really, other than the Trans Am, the only actual mechanical manifestation of their stated purpose: to Build Excitement. The Grand Prix only built excitement within the hearts of rental agency fleet purchasers. 

[oznl]

At last, something resembling a rainy season has arrived in my part of the world, vindicating my earlier decisions to climb onto the roof and get painting, gutter maintenance and melanoma cultivation out of the way before the random daily deluges arrived that are now a thing.  Outside work for which drying time is a thing (notably painting and gutter repairs) is no longer a thing.

Speaking of “drying time”, this weather also brings further challenges with respect to the cloth nappies that I still try to use for at least two days and two nights per week.  Last week I found myself in the uncomfortable zone of attempting to use an indoor tumble dryer whilst outdoors was 29C (84F) and pouring rain.  Putting aside the monumental humidity, if the clothesline isn’t actually being rained upon, it’s getting dripped upon by adjacent trees.

It takes a certain form of stoicism (or perhaps idiocy) to mop the sweat from ones brow in the laundry before setting the control to “heat/dry” knowing that soon, even more wringing-wet hot air will be jetting out the back of the damn thing into the rest of the house.  Within 15 minutes of switching on the wretched thing to convert money into heat whilst munching the planet’s dwindling resources, I was reminded of a Hong Kong dry cleaning shop I once visited in the monsoon.  Even the proprietor was growing mildew whilst I watched.  And so it was anywhere near my laundry room.

There is an additional challenge with respect to my use of cloth nappies on the horizon anyway.

In another uninvited COVID spin-off (the gift that keeps on giving if there ever was one), my wife’s employer has decided to offset muted business conditions by forcing staff to take extended annual leave over the Christmas break.

So, I am looking at spending nearly one whole month in 24/7 within 20 meters proximity to my beloved with nowhere to go.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love my partner dearly but she’s not big on amicable silences or personal spaces.   I am.  This rarely augers well over the Christmas break.  Generally after the first few days, boredom sets in and I fall foul of one or more unspecified personal Christmassy behavioural metrics.  This will inevitably trigger lots of sighing, gazing mournfully out of windows and protracted afternoons spent playing the famous “What’s wrong?  Nothing!” game before I flee back to my office (no longer an option).

I’ll probably have to spend the month in disposables.  She hates my cloth nappies.  She hates the smell.  She hates the consequential washing (even though I do it, it forces her to SEE them).

Let’s face it, she hates my nappies.  This, in effect means that she hates a part of me.  There is only so much of THAT elephantine-scaled-room ornament that can be buried by Christmas-time chocolate coated almonds (and we have a LOT of those).

But wait, there’s more…

She’s hinted ominously about “finding somewhere we can go for a night or two away”.  This is going to be quite difficult.  COVID has forced millions to holiday domestically (if at all) and as we live in Australia’s premier summertime tourist destination, holiday accommodation is pretty tight.  That's my hope.  If she succeeds, I’m anticipating the “If you love me, you’ll leave your nappies behind for this trip” conversation.  Of course I can’t because if I did, I might wet the bed.

Ho, ho, ho…

[Little Sherri]

3 hours ago, oznl said:

It takes a certain form of stoicism (or perhaps idiocy) to mop the sweat from ones brow in the laundry before setting the control to “heat/dry” knowing that soon, even more wringing-wet hot air will be jetting out the back of the damn thing into the rest of the house.

Not to ignore the rest of your post, which was interesting, but, I have to ask, so, dryers in Australia vent into the rest of the house? Here in the frozen North (and it really is frozen out there right now), where it might make sense to retain some of that thermal energy you've paid for, dryers are universally vented externally. About 20% of our dryers are heated by natural gas, so, venting that into the house is roughly akin to using the exhaust from your car to heat your garage. Effective, but short-sighted. However most of us have electric clothes dryers, and even those are all vented outside. I think it's part of the building code, because, when the temperature outside is 40 degrees C below the ambient indoor temperature, venting warm air at 100% humidity inside creates rivers on the windows. I really have to get to Australia some day; up here, we see you as basically tanned Canadians, in terms of your politeness, spelling, and general world views, but, evidently, there are differences. 

 

3 hours ago, oznl said:

This rarely augers well over the Christmas break.  Generally after the first few days, boredom sets in and I fall foul of one or more unspecified personal Christmassy behavioural metrics. 

I am facing somewhat of the same issue; it's a bit different, insofar as my wife, when she does paid work, which is rare, works from home, however she spends most of her time dealing with the kids' activities and being on the parent councils and shuttling them about, and all in all, it's a fair exchange. I pay for everything, and I never have to worry about buying tights or dance shoes. But I'm used to having at least a couple to a few hours a day where I'm in my office, alone save for the dog, whereas, once the holidays kick off, I'll have very little reason to hole up in my office for 10 hours a day, and her and the kids will be around continually. They are hinting darkly at the possibility that a return to physically attending schools may be curtailed due to rising pandemic numbers, so I might be in for a month of always having people around me. My wife will interpret my lack of something to do as a need for something to do, and so she'll start imagining fantastic household projects for me. Whereas I want to make beer, drink beer, maybe watch Star Wars movies with the kids, maybe read a book. 

[oznl]

7 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Not to ignore the rest of your post, which was interesting, but, I have to ask, so, dryers in Australia vent into the rest of the house? Here in the frozen North (and it really is frozen out there right now), where it might make sense to retain some of that thermal energy you've paid for, dryers are universally vented externally. About 20% of our dryers are heated by natural gas, so, venting that into the house is roughly akin to using the exhaust from your car to heat your garage. Effective, but short-sighted. However most of us have electric clothes dryers, and even those are all vented outside. I think it's part of the building code, because, when the temperature outside is 40 degrees C below the ambient indoor temperature, venting warm air at 100% humidity inside creates rivers on the windows. I really have to get to Australia some day; up here, we see you as basically tanned Canadians, in terms of your politeness, spelling, and general world views, but, evidently, there are differences.

Clothes dryers in Australia are a "sometimes" appliance and I suspect this is quite different from Canada.  Mostly we don't use them as the weather lends itself to line drying.  Infrequent use means poor maintenance (lint filter cleaning) and they are famous for starting fires.  I'm always grousing at my beloved for running it with a clogged filter and I check that filter before every cycle that I start.  Many people simply don't have one at all.  Australian ones are invariably electric so the only moisture is from the clothes themselves (none from gas combustion) and there is no carbon monoxide.  A quick google suggests that other than requiring that laundries have venting (mine does: a wall-mounted exhaust fan), the building code of Australia/New Zealand (they are harmonised) is silent on the topic.

They SHOULD be vented of course and there is an aperture on the casing for optional ducting installation.  The problem is that in my laundry, it is by necessity mounted on an internal wall and being a lower storey, there's no roof cavity to run a duct.  Vent installation is non-trivial and the duct run would be so long I'd worry about lint trapping and fire risk.

In my "other" house (currently rented out but one I will retire to), the bloody thing can go in the garage where it will presumably devote its autumn days to rusting our cars.

Yes, we can get rivers on our windows: even here.  It sucks.

 

[oznl]

I wet my nappy accidentally last night before bed.  I tried to stop it but I couldn’t.

As usual with “developments” in this field, alcohol WAS involved.  I’d spent the evening in a comfy chair with a never-emptying red wine glass watching cable TV rubbish.  It seemed the more red wine I drank, the funnier channels that only a few hours earlier, seemed banal and ridiculous became.

I was dimly aware that my ABU Simple (which I’d changed into just before dinner) was by now a bit wet at the front but the capacious seat was dry and I knew that wetting in bed, it was these as-yet-unconquered territories within my nappy that would see me through until morning.  It was time for me to be horizontal.

My partner (who goes to bed earlier than I) was as usual, already asleep when I got to our bedroom.  I peeled off my shapewear panties, exposing a slightly yellowish and swollen-at-the-front nappy but confirmed that there was indeed plenty of room left at the inn so to speak.  I pulled on my terry-lined plastic pants over it and exchanged my daytime t-shirt for a bedtime t-shirt.  As it’s been very warm at night, I’ve just been sleeping in a t-shirt and nappy.

Heading into the en-suite, I grabbed my toothbrush, my toothpaste and turned on the tap.  As is so often the case when I do that these days, I felt instantly that it was highly likely I was going to urinate.

Normally, I make zero effort to control my bladder but slightly inebriated and slightly concerned that the rear of nappy should see some of the nocturnal pee action to avoid leaks, I semi-reflexively clenched so as NOT to pee.

Instantly, my usually-these-days-silent bladder roared at me in outrage at this impediment and a monumental pee urge hit me like a crick bat to my stomach.  I actually bent over slightly and grabbed at myself but it was already too late.  I realised I was now wetting myself and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

I needn’t have worried.  The “void” lasted about 4 seconds before it was done.  I didn’t really need to pee an entire swimming pool.  It just felt like I did.

I greeted next morning’s dawn with 1.3 liters in my britches: my 619^th consecutive night in nappies.

[Little Sherri]

12 hours ago, oznl said:

I actually bent over slightly and grabbed at myself but it was already too late.  I realised I was now wetting myself and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

 

I needn’t have worried.  The “void” lasted about 4 seconds before it was done.  I didn’t really need to pee an entire swimming pool.  It just felt like I did.

My experiences of late have been somewhat similar - in cases where I have been distracted and neglected to waive a dismissive "go ahead" hand at the gatekeepers for a few minutes, I've been struck with what feels like a fairly urgent need to pee, but then everything convulses and it's over in less than 10 seconds. I can't stop it, either because I actually can't stop it, or, because in the time it takes to seize control, the event is all over with, anyway. 

Also, I seem to almost always be able to "go" while standing in front of the sink with the water running, even if I've just gone - there is some reserve capacity in there that nature set aside just for these moments, apparently. I'm not sure what evolutionary survival advantage this conferred to my ancestors, but here we are. 

[oznl]

A Christmas parable: 

No matter how much practice we get as grown-ups in nappies, it seems we never quite get past the “leaks occasionally” status.  This week I decided to go all retro and spend some time in the great outdoors Christmas shopping with VWP (Visibly Wet Pants).  I haven’t done that since I was learning to permanently use adult nappies back in Christmas 2018.

To add insult to the injury, I was in a cloth.  The Faustian pact with cloth nappies is that we trade out visual discretion and receive in return, comfortable, sustainable, flood-resistant and relatively leak-proof long-haul pee management.  This was simply not supposed to happen.

To somewhat minimise the “teletubby” look that can go with bulky cloth nappies and plastic pants, I’d used a Babykins pull-on cotton diaper-pants layered with Babykins dual layer terry pull-on pants all sealed up beneath their white vinyl encased waterproofs.  A black shaping/compression pant, some loose over-sized shorts and an overhanging t-shirt completed the ensemble and should have seen me good for the day without further intervention.  I could certainly tell what I was wearing in the mirror but I’m very familiar with the shape of me.  I would reasonably suspect that Joe Public, LESS familiar with the shape of me would be none the wiser.

It was a long-haul shopping trip, right across to the opposite fringe of the metropolis.  As it turned out, pre-Christmas traffic along with frequent heavy rain showers really slowed down my day.  The Bruce Highway (this is not a joke: only in Australia would a national highway be called “Bruce”) was doing its customarily famous holiday-traffic pantomime of a car-park with the 45 minute trip up to the northern outskirts of the city turning into a 1.5 hour crawl. 

With my current level of reduced continence after nearly 2 years of 24/7 wearing along with my morning coffee and a can of coke zero, my nappies were VERY necessary for this trip.  For the most part I was stuck on a freeway and I don’t think I had holding power to manage for that anymore.  If that’s emerging dependency, I guess I tick that box.  I was aware that I was dribbling in my underwear a bit every few minutes but I wasn’t particularly worried.  I know that these days, whilst I void very often, the volumes voided are usually quite low.

Arriving at my first destination, I got out of the car and was annoyed to notice that the elastic of my plastic pant at the rear of my right thigh felt a bit wet.  The day was only young!  Some rather awkward rummaging around in the seat of my pants in the car-park suggested that my plastic pants had ridden up a little, exposing some damp cotton nappy to my outerwear.  Overall however, I wasn’t really that wet and my shorts were still quite dry.  Having re-positioned things, I completed task 1 of my shopping list, returned to the vehicle and headed for venue #2.

At venue #2, I STILL felt a bit wet down there and I imagined that this time, my compression panty was slightly damp in the relevant area as well.  Maybe I didn’t fix it right the first time.  Another somewhat-undignified rummage, another brief shop and on to a burger-and-fries and rather-large-coke-zero before making tracks for venue #3.

By now I could feel that my nappy was wet but not badly so by any means.

At venue #3 I got out and immediately noticed a small damp patch on the car seat beneath me.  Oops.  There was the tiniest wet spot on the seat of my shorts and it again seemed to be more about cotton padding escaping from slightly-too-small plastic pants rather than absorbency failure.  Figuring that the spot would be very small and a slightly more protracted rummage and poke in the seat of my shorts could fix things, I shopped and returned to my vehicle.

Venue #4 was nearly all of the way back home back down the Bruce Highway on the edge of the city itself.  It seemed like all the cars and caravans that had clogged the Bruce on the way up had also decided that the day was wearing on and so clogged the Bruce again southbound back towards the city.  Again, a 45 minute trip turned into one hour, and then one and a quarter hours.

I was using my nappy regularly and semi-automatically as my lunch time coke zero worked its way through things.  I was slightly concerned because clearly I was not 100% waterproof in the underwear department but I was back on a freeway and decided that a “better out than in” strategy would be best for peeing since I didn’t want to flood and any attempt at holding these days becomes swiftly uncomfortable and probably futile.

Regardless, everything seemed comfortably ok down there as I inched my way back towards the city. 

I felt “quite” wet by now but I was in cloth so this was to be expected.

At venue #4 I got out of the car.

Almost immediately upon rising, the seat of my shorts felt cool with the breeze against my thighs:  BOTH thighs.  Evaporative cooling.  Uh Oh.  I’d been sitting in the driver’s seat for over an hour since I’d last checked.  A quick glance at my (fortunately leather) car seat showed a substantial wet spot and a visible rivulet of what in all likelihood was pee.  Cautiously dabbing at my bum confirmed that I was indeed wearing wet pants.

This was a dilemma.  It was the last venue for the day and specifically the very one that my partner wanted me to visit for her.  Failure was not an option.

It started to rain heavily again.

“Screw it!” I thought.  The rain was rapidly turning into a torrential tropical downpour and I figured the worst that could happen was that somebody would assume that I’d sat down on some rain-sodden object.

And so I bought Christmas supplies in a sopping cloth nappy beneath a pair of shorts with a fairly wet bum.

At least I didn’t have to queue up with people standing behind me.

When I got home, I had to clean my car seat.  It was soggy and smelled faintly of pee.  When I got upstairs I saw the seat of my shorts in the mirror.  They were NOT black but dark blue but they’d practically turned black where my plastic pants had leaked into them.  That they were wet was visually quite obvious.  At least the house was empty so I could change and chuck my shorts into the wash undetected.

VWP: I went shopping in them and it wasn’t a dare.  At least I didn't sit on Santa's lap.  Ho, ho, ho…

[oznl]

Well, merry Christmas, happy holidays, whatever works for you all!

Today I passed the second anniversary of my return to nappies.  Presumably I have now been in nappies for a longer time as a grown up as I ever was as an infant thanks to my mother’s vigorous and early training initiative.

I’m still waiting to grow tired of this venture.

Last night I slept just in a T-shirt and an ABU Simple under terry-lined white plastic pants.  As is now somewhat default, I had hazy recollections of the odd dribble here and there but in fact I awoke at dawn to find myself empty-bladdered and thoroughly wet.  As is now somewhat default, I haven’t the slightest idea if this happened during sleep or not.  It just happens.  This morning would be my 697th wet morning.

At my morning change, I had to hold my used night nappy back against myself for a few seconds because I found upon removing it that I was still dripping a bit.  This was probably a consequence of me trying to make sure I was completely empty to make sure I could get through a few minutes for washing and changing without discomfort.

I changed into an Abena + booster under Gary PUL waterproofs and a compression pant that will last all day.  I had a small wet spot in the front of my nappy within minutes and a couple of hours later as I sit writing this, that wet spot has grown to be the size of a small saucer through an ineffable number of drips and dribbles.

I could probably control this if I wanted to but I don’t want to.

As Christmas day and Boxing day were “big” days from a drinking perspective, I’d used BetterDry for both.  Last night upon my evening change, I found that not only was my BetterDry totally drenched, the insides of my plastic pants were quite wet although my outerwear was fine.  I’ve no idea when that happened and I was quite oblivious to how close to leaking I was.

It’s a bit of a pain being stuck in disposables for 7 days per week as I am during the break.  It’s expensive and I feel a bit guilty at the amount of waste this produces but it avoids the negative spousal pressure associated with cloth.  And the laundry…

The only cloud on the horizon is that somehow (during household maintenance I suspect), I have hurt my back quite badly and it’s NOT getting better by being ignored.  I’ve been trying THAT cure for days now.  I am ok sitting or standing but moving from one phase to the other is spectacularly painful.  I am under some pressure to go and see a physiotherapist but I have concerns about how long I can go nappy-free right now.  If I can find a physio that’s close to home, I will probably be ok.  I still don’t think I’m ready to “come out” to the medical establishment about the situation I have placed myself in.

At least I THINK it’s my back and kind of HOPE it's my back.  It has occurred to me that the pair of pain points at my lower back under each bottom rib correspond quite closely to the location of my kidneys.  I have no other symptoms of a UTI however and as I have not been in a dirty nappy for quite some weeks, it’s hard to imagine how that could be a thing.

[Little Sherri]

On 12/24/2020 at 1:28 AM, oznl said:

This was a dilemma.  It was the last venue for the day and specifically the very one that my partner wanted me to visit for her.  Failure was not an option.

 

It started to rain heavily again.

 

“Screw it!” I thought.  The rain was rapidly turning into a torrential tropical downpour and I figured the worst that could happen was that somebody would assume that I’d sat down on some rain-sodden object.

I relied on this a few weeks ago at a home improvement warehouse store, when I found myself in dire need of something, 15 minutes from home, and 15 minutes from closing, while in a diaper that had leaked a bit at the leg gathers on both sides. It was pouring rain outside, so I basically rubbed up against my truck, and even sat on the bumper, to create other damp spots that, I hoped, would serve to clutter the radar sufficiently to obfuscate the real situation I had put myself in. 

 

1 hour ago, oznl said:

If I can find a physio that’s close to home, I will probably be ok.  I still don’t think I’m ready to “come out” to the medical establishment about the situation I have placed myself in.

This is a decision I am still wrestling with as well. My neurologist wants me to go see my family physician for a complete physical, which I have not done in a LONG time, and also, he has dictated a note to my doctor that I he should prescribe an ultrasound of my testes; there are some possible endocrine implications to be investigated, apparently, and he just wants to make sure everything looks right with the equipment. I have not had an ultrasound, or any other detailed investigation, down there, but, a friend of mine has, and he said it went like this: they package everything up in a towel except for the boys, which they lube up and then roll around with a cold plastic wand. How in God's name am I supposed to get through 30 minutes of that without a diaper on? But at least, if I elect to wear one, whoever is doing it will be unknown to me, and I unknown to them, such that I'm imagining they wouldn't ask any questions if they saw anything. I shall refrain from wearing anything decorated.

Whereas my family physician has known me since I was in my teens - he will have some questions for sure, if at some point a nappy comes into view. Do I buy some awful "looks like underwear" product for those visits? Possibly. Or, do I take a deep breath, and walk a little further down my chosen path? 

1 hour ago, oznl said:

Today I passed the second anniversary of my return to nappies.  Presumably I have now been in nappies for a longer time as a grown up as I ever was as an infant thanks to my mother’s vigorous and early training initiative.

Congratulations, and Godspeed, sir. I'm about 4 months from my second anniversary, although in my case, I'll have to have been doing this for about three years before I've outlasted my first 24/7 sojourn, and for about 10 years, in terms of wearing diapers at night. Like you, I am not yet weary of this. Weary of everything except this? Possibly. But not this. Yet. 

[Stroller]

A lot of your Xmas experience mirrors mine.  I'm in disposables for a few weeks, since the girls are back from college and in the house virtually all the time.  I've had no leaks though, as I'm finding it quite easy to tell how wet they're getting.  I've always got a booster in anyway, except when I need a change in the evening & know I won't have filled my nappy much before bedtime.  I'm having to manage the dustbins carefully.  The landfill bin isn't big and only gets emptied every fortnight, and my nappies take much of that space.  I'm generally in an Astronaut or an Alpaca during the day, and a Molicare at night.

It's morning, before anyone else is out of bed.  That's about the only time I can be on DD for any time, without the risk of someone approaching from behind!  I'm still in my overnight nappy, & I'll go upstairs for a change and a wash soon.

For Xmas I got a Harry Potter dressing gown, and a Fatface onesie (that's a 'daytime outerwear' onesie), and I've been wearing one of the other most of the time.  Also some Harry Potter Lego, now constructed and on display.  My daughters have accused my wife of trying to turn me into a toddler - lightheartedly, and it's not causing problems.  Little do they know...

Oh yes, then there's the reindeer slippers...

So I've been in nappies during the day for over 2 years, and at night for 9 or 10 months.  The question of going back has never entered my head.  I'll address the medical exam problem when I get there, but it won't involve doing without a nappy.  Good luck to everyone who's planning a fully nappied 2021, and to oznl and Little Sherri in particular for sharing so much.

[eatenbywo1ves]

Finally giving it ago because everyone keeps perpetuating that the desire never real goes away, whoever started that myth can go suck an egg....

Past one week on Friday, the only things that need to be overcome are wearing around family and getting the best value out of my purchase. Some point I'll rope someone in to make those not my choices anymore, hopefully.

[oznl]

Greetings from the future and happy new year.

Through the miracle of time zones, it’s already 2021 down here and has been for over 10 hours.  The good news (if you are my lawn at least) is that it’s raining a bit.  The not-so-good news is that so far, like my lawn, 2021 looks much like 2020.   State borders are again largely closed and radio news bulletins feature border crossing delay information with the same sense of normality that they may describe the weather.  This morning was my third consecutive new year’s morning that I greeted from the comfort of a nappy (ABU Simple under terry-lined plastic pants) but possibly the first one for which I have no clear recollection of how that nappy got to be quite so wet come morning.  This isn’t so much a “sometimes” thing now.  Lately it’s been happening most mornings.

I was never a fan of New Year's Eve celebrations but it seems like this year society has gotten ahead of me in the non-partying-zeitgeist.  Various state Government’s down here have all-but-banned New Year celebrations and as unpleasant as 2020 has been, I cannot see that page being turned in any meaningful way for at least the first half of 2021. 

This isn’t a great time of year for our bizarre pursuit down here.  Whilst obviously, I’ve remained in nappies, a warm, wet and bloated BetterDry and plastic pants and a compression garment under your shorts is hardly comfort-wear for tropical garden maintenance on a hot afternoon (clue: EVERY afternoon is hot).  It’s not great for mobility either.  Swinging a pruning saw about with a dead turkey loosely tied to your nether regions soon sees gravity have its wicked way.

The good news for the week is that I think my back is a little better.  I’ve figured out that it helps a LOT not to use it and even small sojourns up ladders or onto roofs will quickly move things backwards by a number of days so I’ve been couch-testing.

I have some cautious optimism that I will get by without a physiotherapist and can thus dodge the “medical establishment” bullet for a while longer.

On an earlier update I had pontificated that in the event of requiring physiotherapy, I felt it would be possible to get by without nappies for the hour or two that this might take but it has since occurred to me that I haven’t tested myself in any way for nearly 9 months now and things may not be what they seem down there whatever I imagine.

That new habits and emerging dependencies may only be clearly seen some time after their establishment is something I’ve said before but still this can surprise us. @Little Sherri experienced this himself the other week after deciding NOT to use his diaper for a while and comprehensively failing to do so.  Similarly, I now realise if I stop and think about it that using my nappies is a semi-automatic thing now and whilst my conscious mind is still rubber-stamping approval requests from the relevant body parts, a failure to provide approval is likely to be at best a superfluous formality.

I think this is called “urge incontinence”.  It may well be that I already have it and my daytime decisions to pee are at best delusional coping mechanisms for something that is going to imminently happen anyway.  Whilst I might decide that I’m going to “hold it” for the hour or three required, if an urge should present itself I may not be able to do anything about that: an acutely embarrassing outcome which would be made even more excruciating by the intelligence cheerfully shared with me by my beloved that at least one of the local physios is a well-known acquaintance of hers.

A counter-argument to this is that the mere wearing of nappies (thus removing any price for failure) may be enough to provoke loss of control.  Yes, I have failed to control urges from within my nappy recently but let’s face it, trying not to pee whilst in a nappy is tantamount to a conventional person standing over a toilet and trying not to use it.  If I was NOT suitably protected, it may be that my subconscious firewall would be stronger and I would be able to remain dry for a tolerable period of time.

Testing is required…

[oznl]

On 12/17/2020 at 10:32 PM, oznl said:

Don’t get me wrong, I do love my partner dearly but she’s not big on amicable silences or personal spaces.   I am.  This rarely augers well over the Christmas break.  Generally after the first few days, boredom sets in and I fall foul of one or more unspecified personal Christmassy behavioural metrics.  This will inevitably trigger lots of sighing, gazing mournfully out of windows and protracted afternoons spent playing the famous “What’s wrong?  Nothing!” game before I flee back to my office (no longer an option).

We arrived at this point this morning btw...

[Bonsai]

On 1/1/2021 at 1:10 AM, oznl said:

Testing is required…

If you truly wish to run a scientific test,    your best option would be a “male pad”, a timer, a scale and a defined amount of fluid to drink. Sequence would be:

1. Weight the dry pad.

2. Empty the holding tank and start the timer.

3. Wear the pad and quench your thirst with the testing fluid.

4. Go for a walk / exercise while the time you have fixed for the test runs out.

5. Use the scale again on the spent pad, so to get a quantitative measure of how severe is your incontinence.

6. Empty the holding tank again into a recipient and scale it so to measure how much you were able to retain and close the mass balance equation (perspiration excluded).

As a bonus, you will find out how long a male pad (something that most physiotherapists will barely notice) is enough to keep you dry and therefore fix the maximum that one session of whatever activity you prefer to do without a diaper on can last.

The “standard” for this sort of test would be with 1 h time and 500 ml of water as fluid intake.

[oznl]

12 hours ago, Bonsai said:

If you truly wish to run a scientific test,    your best option would be a “male pad”, a timer, a scale and a defined amount of fluid to drink. Sequence would be:

1. Weight the dry pad.

2. Empty the holding tank and start the timer.

3. Wear the pad and quench your thirst with the testing fluid.

4. Go for a walk / exercise while the time you have fixed for the test runs out.

5. Use the scale again on the spent pad, so to get a quantitative measure of how severe is your incontinence.

6. Empty the holding tank again into a recipient and scale it so to measure how much you were able to retain and close the mass balance equation (perspiration excluded).

As a bonus, you will find out how long a male pad (something that most physiotherapists will barely notice) is enough to keep you dry and therefore fix the maximum that one session of whatever activity you prefer to do without a diaper on can last.

The “standard” for this sort of test would be with 1 h time and 500 ml of water as fluid intake.

That would be the scientific way of quantifying any IC.  I probably don't need to go that far though.  I just should evaluate whether or not I'm "safe" out of nappies for a few hours.  I need to do this out of nappies.  When I'm in them, the bar is just set too low and I end up using them anyway and not being sure if it was accidental or deliberate.

[Little Sherri]

On 1/2/2021 at 8:01 AM, Bonsai said:

If you truly wish to run a scientific test,    your best option would be a “male pad”, a timer, a scale and a defined amount of fluid to drink. Sequence would be:

I respect the idea of an empirical documenting of output, but, for the purposes of an appointment, I have no trust in male pads with respect to their "positional" reliability - they might be able to confine 500 ml of fluid, but, being held in place with, presumably, men's underwear, which typically are not very snug, the edges of the pad strike me as offering little to no protection from moving liquids that aren't immediately gelled within the stuffing. I know sometimes my diaper successfully redirects and constrains rivulets until they can migrate to unsaturated stuffing elsewhere within its confines. Also, I have nothing to tape pads into right now... not that a trip to Walmart couldn't rectify that, but, it would feel like a step backwards. But the continuation of this topic does remind me that I have to come up with some idea of how to handle my impending appointments. Printed plastic pants with a sober man-pad taped into them...? Hmmm....

[oznl]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 But the continuation of this topic does remind me that I have to come up with some idea of how to handle my impending appointments. Printed plastic pants with a sober man-pad taped into them...? Hmmm....

I've thought about it.  If I'm truly backed into a corner and have to do that, it would be a vanilla, tactical pull-up.  I find them expensive and remarkably ineffective for daily use but at least I could remove/replace it as circumstances required.

There's a part of my brain that is curiously reluctant about testing my continence.  I need to have a long hard think about why that is.  I simply don't know.

[Little Sherri]

38 minutes ago, oznl said:

There's a part of my brain that is curiously reluctant about testing my continence.  I need to have a long hard think about why that is.  I simply don't know.

That's interesting, @oznl. There's a certain amount of shock and awe that comes into play when you come to a sudden realization that you might be, perhaps advertently, accomplishing a thing that you set out to accomplish (sort of), but weren't really sure you'd ever arrive at. There's a certain amount of plausible deniability in not testing, I guess. I was frankly a bit shocked when I tried to play around with "holding", and then eventually voided involuntarily, and I. Could. Not. Stop. It. The sense of powerlessness was very real. I was "incontinent" in that moment. Now, in reality, I could have avoided that moment in a number of ways - heeded the demands from below earlier, maybe in conjunction with restricted fluidic intake. Certainly I don't put myself in the same category as the people here with complete, protracted incontinence from whatever neurological or physiological etiology. But in those moments, when it got away from me, if I hadn't had a diaper on, I would have been peeing down my legs. It's an unsettling feeling. 

[oznl]

12 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

That's interesting, @oznl. There's a certain amount of shock and awe that comes into play when you come to a sudden realization that you might be, perhaps advertently, accomplishing a thing that you set out to accomplish (sort of), but weren't really sure you'd ever arrive at. There's a certain amount of plausible deniability in not testing, I guess. I was frankly a bit shocked when I tried to play around with "holding", and then eventually voided involuntarily, and I. Could. Not. Stop. It. The sense of powerlessness was very real. I was "incontinent" in that moment. Now, in reality, I could have avoided that moment in a number of ways - heeded the demands from below earlier, maybe in conjunction with restricted fluidic intake. Certainly I don't put myself in the same category as the people here with complete, protracted incontinence from whatever neurological or physiological etiology. But in those moments, when it got away from me, if I hadn't had a diaper on, I would have been peeing down my legs. It's an unsettling feeling. 

I'm starting to think this is a Douglas Adams "42" scenario for me personally.  It's not the answer that is important, it's about understanding the question that led to it.  This requires further introspection and explanation but it's late and I have to rescue a Gecko off the cat.  I'm no patron saint of Geckos (air-conditioning-destroying agents of Satan) but if I don't, I will have to deal with regurgitated Gecko on a rug by morning.

More later...

 

[Little Sherri]

2 hours ago, oznl said:

More later...

I eagerly await your analysis. Also, do tell as to how Geckos vex the HVAC - is it a kamikaze scenario involving the capacitors, or high-speed contact with rotating components? Geckos are unknown in these parts, except as children's pets, that either live for a quarter of a year (most people's experiences), or, for the better part of a decade (for children who read up a little). Our cats mostly regurgitate hairballs, slightly slimy but incredibly unaltered kibble, or, small mammals from the Rodentia order. 

[oznl]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I eagerly await your analysis. Also, do tell as to how Geckos vex the HVAC - is it a kamikaze scenario involving the capacitors, or high-speed contact with rotating components?

I'll answer the easy question first.

Where we see a split system AC, Geckos see a luxury condo from which their aerosoled faeces may be sprayed about human rooms.  Mothballs are alleged to dissuade them but apart from making your house smell like your grandmother's wardrobe quickly, the evidence is scarce.

Suicide bombing on the PCB (yes, most likely across some filter caps) is the usual demise involving an exploded Gecko and a $600 part.  Modern "inverter" AC are particularly vulnerable as they contain considerable electronics.  Old school "clunk on/clunk off" AC less so but not entirely immune.  I've had no less than THREE major AC overhauls due to this.

The Asian house gecko is prolific in my part of the world where they chatter, squabble noisily (yes, noisy lizards - this is how I knew the cat had one cornered) and occasionally, amusingly plummet from their ceilings into the salad bowl due to the shortcomings of electrostatic attraction vs gravity.

Out cat seems to think they taste good - for a short while...

 

[oznl]

On 1/5/2021 at 9:46 AM, oznl said:

There's a part of my brain that is curiously reluctant about testing my continence.  I need to have a long hard think about why that is.  I simply don't know.

I've had a long hard think about this.

Am I still continent after two years in nappies?

For me, it’s a Douglas Adams “42” scenario:  It’s not about what the answer IS, it’s about what the question behind that answer really was. 

We know that the range of possible outcomes to a simple question like that is going to sit on a spectrum bounded by continence at the one end and incontinence at the other.  It might as well be “42”.  It’s not that hard to test and others have already proposed robust methodologies for doing so.

So why am I always making excuses about not finding out?  I’ll walk through a thought experiment on the two most likely possible outcomes of “finding out”.

Let’s say I test to discover that I have sometimes-usable but degrading/marginal continence (I think this is the most probable answer based on the limited evidence available).

This forces me to a choice point.

I now have solid evidence that my “therapeutic and recreational” pursuit no longer is simply therapeutic and recreational.  It is also materially degrading a part of my body’s functionality.

If I choose to remain on my diapered road, all of the scenarios that I’d envisaged would cause me to moderate or avoid diaper usage (medical attention, close family weddings, funerals, camping trips, sleep overs, pool parties, airline security checks, marriage-saving compromises, other unspecified embarrassments) would soon have to be done diapered anyway as I would no longer have the choice.   I would have nobody to blame but myself for this and for icing on this cake, I would have to, yet again, confront my spouse with something I know she deeply does not want to hear.  This time that her nappy-clad husband has rendered himself incontinent (after first assuring her this was highly unlikely).

Armed with this insight I must choose to either retreat from living in nappies and “stop the rot” or accept incontinence and the implication that I am a selfish bastard.

I suppose it might be possible to simply practice continence from within the confines of my nappy, actively managing micturition events in a kind of “virtual bathroom break” to see if I could recover lost ground.  I suppose this is how many people wear 24/7 for years at a time without any apparent loss of control.  I suppose I should do this.   But I REALLY don’t want to.  When I’m in my nappy, I have zero interest in managing my bladder.  A large part of the strange attraction is just not caring.

Let’s face it.  It’s highly likely that I’m going to choose my nappies.  I don’t think I can mentally go back to where I was before.  That makes me a selfish bastard.

Let’s say on the other hand, that I discover that I am perfectly continent out of nappies.

This means that all of the physiological changes I have “observed” are in my head and I’m probably even crazier than my life partner already thinks I am. 

Since this would be after practically two years of sustained nappy use, I would need to conclude that learned incontinence is at best psychosomatic if not outright imaginary.  Ipso facto: I’ve wasted two years and an incalculable quantity of spousal social capital on a fool’s errand. 

Wait a minute…  Wasted?  Fool’s errand?  Why so negative?  Isn’t the cause of science as validly upheld by the DISPROVING of a hypothesis at its proof?  Was this ever just a science experiment?  And anyway, I’d have the comfort of knowing I could safely ditch my nappy if convenience required it.   So, where does that sense of failure or disappointment hale from?  Because I was NOT incontinent?

Apparently yes.

Testing my own continence will, irrespective of the outcome, force me to confront an inconvenient truth about myself:  that I would irrationally PREFER to be incontinent over and above other things that I value.   Despite the inflicting more pain on others (and possibly myself), this is what I would probably do.  No more excuses, no more subterfuge.  I would be wearing nappies because I HAD to.  Nothing to see here, move along in your life please.

This conclusion can be found by a thought experiment as readily as a real-world one.   

This is something I haven’t truly admitted to myself, let alone anybody else. 

I am scared I might have succeeded and I am scared I might have failed.

It’s a bit mad even by my standards.   YMMV...

[Stroller]

7 hours ago, oznl said:

I now have solid evidence that my “therapeutic and recreational” pursuit no longer is simply therapeutic and recreational.  It is also materially degrading a part of my body’s functionality.

 

7 hours ago, oznl said:

Armed with this insight I must choose to either retreat from living in nappies and “stop the rot” or accept incontinence and the implication that I am a selfish bastard.

Where to start?  I had to leave this for a couple of hours before coming back to it.  I completely get where you are with all this, oznl.  Having said that, it's not somewhere I stopped on the road to where I currently am.  If that's coherent...

My journey has been a bit more simple, in that I felt I really had to go into nappies full-time to get any peace of mind for the rest of my life.  I was very lucky that I could bring my wife along into understanding that need, and being prepared to go along with it.  All that took time, and I never begrudged that time.  On the other had I never had any doubts about where I needed to get to, and now I'm in nappies all the time I'm very happy to be here.

I can't see it changing for me, so the question of whether I'm continent or not doesn't really arise.  I live on the assumption I am incontinent, as far as wetting is concerned.  I exercise no conscious control of my bladder function anyway, and just don't worry about it.

Selfish?  Well I don't think I am, although others may beg to differ.  I just had to go this way to save myself.  I think my marriage would have failed if my wife hadn't been prepared to adapt to me being a little boy in nappies full time.  I feel very lucky.

[Little Sherri]

9 hours ago, oznl said:

Let’s say I test to discover that I have sometimes-usable but degrading/marginal continence (I think this is the most probable answer based on the limited evidence available).

Thanks for this very detailed self psychoanalysis, @oznl. Well described, as usual. Based on my experiments of late, in service of determining if I can get away with wearing something other than a nappy to an upcoming set of medical appointments, one of which will definitely involve at least some of "the equipment" being on an EVA (extravehicular activity... aka outside of the capsule... this begs the question, as an aside, as to why I am using an acronym that I need half a dozen words to explain. Answer: fumbling toward humour - all the best jokes require detailed explanations). My "42" is that I am pretty much where you describe in the above.  

9 hours ago, oznl said:

Let’s face it.  It’s highly likely that I’m going to choose my nappies.  I don’t think I can mentally go back to where I was before.  That makes me a selfish bastard.

This one I struggled with, although it's your story, and the "right" answers are whatever you believe they are. Were we having a beer or a glass of cab-merlot together, I would probably try to dissuade you from the notion that doing this makes you a selfish bastard. You sound, overall, like a fairly selfless bastard. You work hard to provide a very comfortable standard of living to your family, and rather than gradually stunting yourself and possibly rounding off the edges of your mind with prescription pharmaceuticals, you've found a solution that leaves your silhouette a little rounded instead.

I have a friend who is struggling with the loss of her husband, essentially - he used to be a gregarious asshole, the life of the party, always a bit too much, a bit in your face, but, she married the guy who walked into the room and consistently stole the microphone, even if he didn't use it for much good once he got hold of it. However he went into a blackhole of depression and mused constantly about how sturdy the rafters in the garage looked, then he spent 30 days as an inpatient, and now he's no longer talking about the merits of various gauges of rope, but, he sits in the dark by himself a lot, and a stiff breeze could bowl him over. He would no longer even go to the party. He will likely never return to work. 

Not to compare his situation with yours - and, I feel badly for the guy, he probably needs the help he's getting, my goal here is not to disparage seeking help or the usefulness of psychoactive medications that have saved countless lives - BUT, all I'm saying is, if he could have just put on a nappy and gone back into the fray, I'm sure that's what he would have chosen. 

So I don't think that your path is entirely selfish, although admittedly, I do have some skin in the game; my wife might have a different viewpoint. 

9 hours ago, oznl said:

So, where does that sense of failure or disappointment hale from?  Because I was NOT incontinent?

 

Apparently yes.

For me, I don't think this is the case. I never set out to become incontinent, however, I have also decided that if that's a side effect of this lifestyle, I am willing to face that, because I don't intend to go back if I can avoid it. I figure that if I ever need to explain it to anyone, I'll lean into a medical explanation, "urge incontinence", which, at that point, won't be an untruth, really, it's only the backstory that would cause eyes to widen if I delved into it, which I imagine I will not. 

THAT said, will I be going to my wife anytime soon to say, by the way, my grip on my plumbing is waning... (insert joke here)? No. Although maybe she actually believes that already. I am unsure of this. 

I will offer you this, something I've brought up before from time to time in various forums here, which some people have found displeasing, but which I take some comfort in: a study I read a while back, that I was cued toward by an offhand mention in a newspaper article, which caused me to seek out the academic study and read it in its entirety. The abstract is as follows: some gerontologists hypothesized that, in some cases, decline in geriatric long-term care patients being attributed to advancing dementia, Parkinson's disease, etc, were in fact due to incorrect dosing of psychoactive medications - sedatives, anxiolytics, antidepressants etc. They experimented with reducing the dosages or changing or eliminating some drugs in some patients, and found that, in some cases, people who were essentially bedridden, or who required comprehensive care (feeding, diapers), were returned to some degree of functionality and independence once their meds were tinkered with. A side note on this was that there were people who had essentially "situational incontinence" - they couldn't physically get themselves to the bathroom, or couldn't manage it cognitively - sometimes for a number of years, who, after they got some of their faculties back, were "weaned" either partially or entirely off of incontinence products. So some of these septo, octo and nonagenarians who had been wearing diapers, sometimes for years, were able to retrieve at least some of their urinary (and, presumably, fecal) continence. All of which suggests to me that, like breathing and reflexes, these capabilities are pretty hard-wired, and if nothing has happened to the wiring, allowing the muscles to go out of condition will not result in a permanent disability. Not to say that it wouldn't be a long and uncomfortable road back, but, it is likely that a road remains, for a lot of us, if we ever find ourselves absolutely needing to take it. So you still having a road back is in no way a "failure", in my estimation. 

1 hour ago, Stroller said:

Selfish?  Well I don't think I am, although others may beg to differ.  I just had to go this way to save myself.  I think my marriage would have failed if my wife hadn't been prepared to adapt to me being a little boy in nappies full time.  I feel very lucky.

I think @Stroller said this well. I believe that I am largely in the same boat... I was struggling with some deep dissatisfaction that has since declined considerably. I used to deliberately plot opportunities - sometimes expensive ones - to be away from my family, either by sending them away, or by going away myself, so that I could have a day or three of relief. I no longer do that at all, because I already have what I want. If I'm the least bit smart about it, I can wear a diaper all the time, everywhere, discretely, and it is harming nobody. However, as you often say, Oznl, YMMV. If my wife said that it was diapers or her, choosing diapers would definitely impose some collateral damage on my kids, although, in that situation, I would ask the question, was it me that was being selfish? Or, was it my wife? But it has not come to that, so far. 

[oznl]

Thank you @Little Sherri and @Stroller for your comments.

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 I was struggling with some deep dissatisfaction that has since declined considerably.

Likewise.

10 hours ago, Stroller said:

I felt I really had to go into nappies full-time to get any peace of mind for the rest of my life.  I just had to go this way to save myself. 

Those really sum up what put me here.  I regard myself as pretty resilient but towards the end of 2018, I could see that I was on a slippery slope.  I'm well aware that my partner is VERY keen for me to obtain a diagnosis of depression and medication and has repeatedly told me this.  I think is because she imagines that this will "cure" me.  I'm not so sure.  Sometimes I wonder which one of us has the bigger hang-up although the residual guilt about giving her more than she bargained for remains.  She knew about the nappies but she never knew about permanent nappies (at the time, nor did I).

9 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 You sound, overall, like a fairly selfless bastard. You work hard to provide a very comfortable standard of living to your family

Well, used to...  I'm wary of drawing any conclusions one week into the new year but looking around, the employment landscape for those of my cohort are bleak at best.  I know many who are enduring a very long, under-funded retirement.  I've got to order more nappies shortly and beloved checks internet banking daily...  I can't wait for THAT conversation.

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I have a friend who is struggling with the loss of her husband, essentially - he used to be a gregarious asshole, the life of the party, always a bit too much, a bit in your face, but, she married the guy who walked into the room and consistently stole the microphone, even if he didn't use it for much good once he got hold of it. However he went into a blackhole of depression and mused constantly about how sturdy the rafters in the garage looked, then he spent 30 days as an inpatient, and now he's no longer talking about the merits of various gauges of rope, but, he sits in the dark by himself a lot, and a stiff breeze could bowl him over. He would no longer even go to the party. He will likely never return to work.

I think many of us know at least one such person.  I often wonder about antidepressants being used reflexively as a kind of pharmaceutical wall paper over the cracks in our minds.  I wonder about how many geniuses of bygone eras would in modern day, simply have been psychologically steamrollered into a dreary "normality" by Lexapro?

Anyhow, we fear what we don't understand.  Deluding myself that I now understand, I tried a brief continence test this morning. 

A quite simple test, not super-scientific but a rough guide:  I woke up this morning and before changing my (fairly wet) night nappy, made extra sure I was completely empty.  Changing into an Abena L4 + booster (being nappy-free would create an unreasonable spousal expectation, re-ignite an old debate and in the event of wet pants, open another battlefront).

I then decided not to use my nappy and see what happened.

After about one hour, dim twinges reappeared from my bladder the like of which I have not felt in a very long time.  It was like hearing a voice from your past over a crackling telephone line.  It wasn’t urgent, I was just “aware”.

I walked outside into the back garden to collect a large fallen palm frond that had crashed down during the night (a perennial horticultural chore in a tropical garden).  As I stepped off the step to the lawn, I felt a brief, warm squirt at the front of my nappy.  There was no overwhelming urgency and it was so quick, I wasn’t even sure that it had happened.  Even a grope inside there was ambiguous as the “stay dry” liner did its thing.

A couple of minutes later, I thought it happened again.  A second or two spurt of pee with no significant associated urge although the urge level was elevating.

At about 90 minutes, I was now in discomfort.  There had been one or two more inexplicable squirts and I could feel that there was indeed a small but expanding wet patch at the front of my nappy.  It was clear I was consistently leaking (in very small amounts) anyway and now the urges were becoming quite uncomfortable.  Just short of two hours, sitting at my wife’s study desk (sorting a PC problem for her) I just let go.  I was just sick of failing to stay dry.  There wasn’t even that much pee, maybe about 15 seconds of whatever anemic flow I get these days (and having started it, I couldn’t stop it anyway) but I felt better.  Normal transmission resumed after less than two hours.

There’s your answer.  In addition to intermittent bed wetting, it seems I now have minor urge incontinence and leakage if I try to stay dry during the day.  Still, a part of my brain argues that it would have been different had I not been wearing a nappy.  The price of failure being visibly wet clothing, I would have “tried harder” but it’s hard to see how I could have “tried harder” with those initial leaks because I didn’t feel them coming.  Maybe I can fix this but I still don't want to.

On an unrelated note, the UK COVID-19 strain has appeared in Brisbane (only one case outside of quarantine).  In response, the city has been placed into 3 days of level 4 lockdown and we are all confined to barracks.  This has effectively killed my partner's holiday plans for this weekend deferring for now the "if you loved me, you'd leave your nappies at home" crisis that was looming...