Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[DiaperboyEddie12]

@oznl I am not sure if I asked you this before.  But why not just wear your nappies to the Doctor visits.  Be honest with the people who are your doctors. 

On another note.  I really like reading this thread from time to time.

Though reading all the long book style comments is not easy for me so I have to scan what is written.

[oznl]

29 minutes ago, DiaperboyEddie12 said:

@oznl I am not sure if I asked you this before.  But why not just wear your nappies to the Doctor visits.  Be honest with the people who are your doctors.

TLDR:  Because I don’t wish to be incorrectly defined as a nappy fetishist and judged accordingly, as an object of curiosity with that diagnosis appearing on an indelible medical record.

To split a hair, I’m not being DIS-honest with any practitioner.  It just isn’t a discussion point.

  If I was asked a direct question such as “Do you wet the bed sometimes?” I would draw in my breath, gird my padded loins and answer truthfully in the affirmative.  I see no benefit in misleading a practitioner.

I don’t want to “come out” to a practitioner and all that entails.  I have no doubt that my recently-retired family general practitioner (who spent most of his decades in 1953 as far as I can tell) would have immediately attempted to refer me to a psychiatrist and then had something really interesting to talk to the nurses at his practice about over red wine after work.  This isn't supposed to happen but I know for a fact that it does.

Even with my current practitioner, the body integrity disorder we have is not understood well, if at all by medical science and frankly, I don’t really want to be either misunderstood OR attempting to position myself as an agent of enlightenment here.

I was (still am), I think, looking for the least-controversial path to being left alone in nappies for what remains of my life.  I thought that the eventually, OAB will become severe enough and I will cross the diagnosis rubicon with that.  At this point, I planned to decline any invasive treatment and thusly defined by medical science, get on with my days.

32 minutes ago, DiaperboyEddie12 said:

On another note.  I really like reading this thread from time to time.

Though reading all the long book style comments is not easy for me so I have to scan what is written.

Yes, this rambling blog (it really isn't a thread at all) is more of a series of essays than a collection of posts.  I enjoy writing and I enjoy reading so I suppose in a sense, I author this for my own satisfaction as much as anybody else's.

I realise that long form prose might be tough to read on a phone or an ipad. 

To try to help you out here, I put a "TLDR" summary up the top ?

 

[dribblez]

I for one can completely understand why you decided not to wear a nappy, and would do the same.

My own journey started 4 years ago, but I took a three month holiday from wearing after the first year, and I've never got the hang of being permanently relaxed down there. That being said, my range is certainly much less than it was, and it depends on multiple factors - weather, degree of hydration, and I think, the mystery ingredient known only to my internal body processes. Last week it was about an hour, other times it could be 2 hours plus.

I'm starting to have more and more unexpectedly wet nappies when I wake up, but it's not every night - yet.

As for the length of your posts, don't change a thing. They are easy enough to read on a phone and always worth a couple of minutes out of my day.

[jeremy12312]

I almost did the doctor reveal once, but chickened out at the last second. 

It was an annual physical, which for my dr started with fully dressed for questions, then shirt off for an exam, then pants off for testicular cancer screening. 

I went in fully confident that I was going to keep my diaper on under my pants just until after the nurse took my vitals.  She left the room and while I was waiting for the doctor, I panicked, pulled off the diaper, and went commando. He was fast that day and came in just as I was burying it in my backpack. 

Everything went fine, but he said something to me that he’d never said before at the end which made me kinda think he knew.  “You’re the last patient of the day in this room.  Take as much time as you need to get dressed.”

 

 

[Little Sherri]

I've essentially played chicken with wearing to the doctor. It started with an appointment I was late for - I had planned to dash home and don underpants that weren't available in cases of 36, but traffic interfered with that, and I ended up having to go to his office still wearing a diaper. I'd planned to possibly toss it in the restroom, but because of Covid protocols at the time, the restrooms were unavailable. I got called into his office, and had to take a deep breath, however the ensuing discussion did not involve the removal of my trousers. The next time, I wore one to an ultrasound of 'the area', however I was given a chance to undress in private and everything below the waist had to come off, so the diaper got folded into my pants and that was that. I wore one to a scan where it was easy as pie and nobody was the wiser, and then, a year later, I returned for the same scan, again in a diaper, and this time I was given a transparent paper gown that I didn't know was transparent until I was under the harsh lights of the waiting room. THAT was a test of my resolve, for sure. Not having been in a diaper in front of anyone but my wife, I was now fully "out" in a room full of strangers. Most were not paying attention. A couple were. A receptionist or technologist or whatever she was rushed over with a second transparent gown, which, coupled with the first one, became translucent. White diapers glow under florescent light, apparently. 

My "plan" right now, such as it is, is to wait out my current doctor, who has to be in his 70's, since he's been ministering to me since I was in my late teens, and would want to send me for a battery of unnecessary tests, were I to tell him I was wearing diapers all the time these days. When he retires, I will pick up with a new doctor, and, if I can muster the guts, I plan to tell him or her that I've had urge incontinence for years, and I'm managing it, next question please, and hopefully from then onwards, I can wear diapers to appointments and not think much about it. 

[oznl]

A terrible night’s sleep the other day: 1.5 hour stints of restless wakefulness interspersed with short, light sleeps filled with jumbled, semi-lucid dreaming, the kind that makes you wonder if you really are awake or asleep.

I must have been asleep enough at some point to wet the bed.  This is par for the course these days.  It seems like testing myself for nocturnal continence and failing swept aside some last kind of psychological barrier.  It’s like my subconscious mind says “You’ve ignored me long enough, THAT ship has now officially sailed, I’ll take care of it myself …”

The odd thing was, I think I was in one of those funny lucid-dreaming states when it happened.

Historically, my brain would fabricate some fabulously complicated and implausible dream-narrative around a less-than-fully-wakeful wetting event.  Thusly, I would find myself bicycling through the Cotswolds wondering where the toilets were before remembering I was in nappies or, needing to pee and repeatedly peeing in a public toilet that had been installed up a tree, the repeated use of which never seemed to quite deliver the desired relief, until it DID with extraordinarily vivid sensation, that kind of drivel.

Not last night.  All that dream-happened was that one minute, I was talking to a group of former work colleagues on a street corner about a job that had been advertised but for which HR would block my application as it was too soon after my redundancy (interrupt this point with a brief moment of epiphany that occurred this week:  I don’t think I WANT to go back).

At some point during the dream-conversation, I became aware that I was also laying on my side in bed in a (fairly dry) BetterDry but there was a faint vibration sensation at the tip of my penis that is usually an indicator that pee is coming out.  There was only the slightest sensation of spreading warmth down there but I think that was because I was on my side and my dry-ish nappy was drinking up my pee pretty much as fast as I was producing it.  I knew I wouldn’t leak and so nothing mattered.  There was really no point in staying awake.

Suddenly, I was back in la-la-land, talking to my colleagues again.

Next, I’m back in bed again, laying on my side, aware that I was now dripping slowly inside my nappy (usually a yellow flag for leaks).  I felt that I had no chance of leaking still though as I just wasn’t wet enough.

And then memory stopped recording…

The unusual thing was the complete absence of any “I’m peeing” sensation during any of this.  I’ve long since stopped receiving most messages from my bladder since it never fills these days apart from that a deliberate pee during the day will often provoke a sharp sense of urinary urgency but paradoxically, only at the same time I’m actually peeing.  I get the physiologically-correct sensation but the timing is all wrong with it arriving before (or milliseconds AFTER) the voiding event that it was supposed to herald has already started.  A bit like the way some people use their indicators whilst driving now that I think about it …

This nocturnal episode had nothing.  The only reason I concluded that I was wetting was the slight warm and that faint vibration from the tip of my urethra.  There was zero sense of any urgency (or any need to pee at all) and I suspect the flow rate was very, very low.

When I woke again (probably only seconds later) to find myself dripping, it was just that.  I could feel warm drops but that was the only sensation I had.

A couple of hours later at my morning change, I examined the night’s toll.  My nappy was wet of course but not THAT wet and mainly at the front and sides: a pattern consistent with a contained side-wetting.  I had no recollection of consciously using it although it would have been unusual for me not to be at least a bit damp before retiring to bed.

The take-away from all of this is some degree of insight into what sleep-voiding looks like with me.  It’s certainly NOT the case that I fall asleep, my bladder fills up and then I sleep through a pee urge.  It’s more like my deliberate daytime voiding behaviour of high frequency/low volume/semi-automatic peeing persists into sleep.  I will, from time to time through the night, have a very small pee in my nappy that is unrelated to any “bladder full” messages but rather the continuation of daytime habit.  I guess this is what also explains the relative rarity of leaks during the night.  It also suggests that re-training should be possible in case the need arises.

[oznl]

Consulting my notes, I realise that it was nearly two years ago when I recounted our rear neighbour’s children emerged practice of intermittently peering into our back yard and kitchen by virtue of the trampoline that their parents had thoughtfully installed up against our back fence.  Their spawn’s periodic escape from the surly bonds of gravity allowed them parabolic sight-lines over the top of the fence into our otherwise-extremely-secluded garden.

The epiphany of the children’s ability to bounce-per-view straight into our kitchen via its enormous and un-blinded windows however, had struck me only as I stood contemplated them one morning whilst making coffee resplendent only in my t-shirt and my thick, wet cloth night nappy under white plastic pants.

After a series of piercing-scream-delineated injuries, the parents went on to install a play fort up against our fence next to the trampoline.  This presumably allowed their spawn to achieve surveillance-altitude to their neighbours property with less frequent recourse to an osteopath.

The only real solution was more sartorial caution in my own kitchen but in any case the problem receded as the kids grew bored of their trampoline/play-fort infrastructure and switched to torturing each other instead.  Then, a few months ago, these kids were removed along with the furniture by their parent/owners to another house only to be replaced by tenants some weeks later.

The new tenants had a housewarming party the other Saturday, with kids: theirs and spares.  They’d presciently, bought another trampoline and installed it next to the remaining play fort in exactly the same location.  I was out drinking on my back deck with my beloved on that same night.  Although in nappies of course, there were pants over the top so that wasn’t really an issue.

Nevertheless, as we sipped champagne in the cool early-evening spring air, the songs from the emerging tree-frogs and the creamy texture of double-brie were eclipsed by a steady “boing boing boing boing” and the occasional glimpse of mop-topped hair over our fence.

“Brilliant…” announced my beloved with uncharacteristic brevity…

It got worse.

More guests arrived, bad 1990s music started and what seemed like 47 children discovered the adjacent play fort, built to the exact height to directly overlook the boundary fence onto our rear garden, deck and kitchen.

We heard their sotto voce whispers of the handful of kids already ascended to their more cautious compatriots on the ground:  “PSSST! Come UP, you can SEE them!”

Then the LED torches appeared (it was dusk) shooting blue/white pencil beams from the gloomy confines of the dusk-darkened play fort, into our drinks and canapes.

I briefly considered watering the garden near the play fort-fence: with my pressure washer.

Things got worse again the next week.

Our property is bordered by TWO other houses at our rear.  The other house was already well-secluded by dense, tropical foliage growing from the ground high up into the bordering trees.  The existence of this carefully-cultivated wall of vegetation ironically had nothing to do with my nappies but rather the predilections of the fairly solidly-built owner of that other property to cook naked at his bay-windowed kitchen.

After a series of inadvertent-but-excruciatingly-embarrassing gaze-catching incidents between his kitchen and my rear deck, we jointly decided that bougainvillea trained to grow between the palm trees bordering our properties would be beautiful.  Being South American, he loved to see Bougainvillea as it reminded him of home.  Although we too loved seeing the Bougainvillea, we loved seeing less of our overweight naked South American even more.

Within 18 months, joint-neighbourly plant love had given rise to an impenetrable green wall of subtropical foliage between towering palms that meant that it was like having no neighbours at all.  It looked as brilliant from his side of the fence as ours.  I heard him yelling once through the greenery and wondered if that was the kind of noise one makes when a mishap occurs using a deep fryer naked.

All things pass however.  Perhaps gutted by the loss of the former trampolining neighbours, this owner too sold his property a few months ago and the new owners moved in a week or two back.

The yellow-flag-warning should have been the tree-lopping trucks parked outside his place that I navigated around on my way to my gig-economy-non-work job the following Monday.

By the time I got home on Monday night, our back property border looked like a Vietnamese jungle that had just had the full “Apocalypse Now” experience: a battleground of destroyed vegetation.  Vivid red flowers and deep green foliage lay decapitated and dehydrating and gasping their last on the pavers surrounding our pool, a botanical metaphor for a few minutes after the final siren is sounded on the battlefield.  A few splintered and traumatised sticks remained between the now-bare palm tree trunks.  My beloved and I gazed mournfully into our neighbour’s kitchen bay window to see what the new owners were cooking for dinner. 

Technically, they’d only removed the foliage that was on THEIR side of the fence but since their side was the sunny side, that was most of it, Bougainvillea bushes only having a limited grasp of civil survey lines and town planning simply grew towards the light.

“F%^k…” announced my beloved with uncharacteristic profanity.

They then rammed the point home, switching on their own rear deck lighting, immediately and comprehensively illuminating ours in the process (at no extra charge).

We sat out on our deck, contemplating the magnitude of our tragedy, bathed in the cold blue-white light of our new neighbour’s low cost 650nm LEDs.

Then, my beloved had a thought.  This happens.

“I think you should just sit out here during the day, in just, you know, just your UNDERWEAR THINGS and let’s see what THAT does for them”.

It’s the first time she’s made reference to my nappies in a very, very long time.  I was wondering if she’d forgotten about them.  It was also the first time she’s made reference to my nappies that was at least only indirectly pejorative or not a part of a command imperative.

I’ll take that as a small win. 

I’ve this week installed a fence extension to obstruct the view from Fort F$%kwit and am currently attempting to jump-start the surviving Bougainvillea.  As an interim measure I’ve installed a spare LED floodlight from our deck to point back into their property.  This may seem childish but I prefer to think of it as educational:  I will try to tacitly teach them why that foliage was there.  I believe it’s working because they noisily close all their rear window blinds and complain to each other when I turn it on.  A week earlier though and they’d never have glimpsed it.

I have elected NOT to take Beloved’s recommendation and take my lunch out on the deck just in my white plastic pants and nappy despite the rapidly warming weather.  If I did, I’d at least wear my “Cookie Monster” t-shirt to go with it.

[DiaperboyEddie12]

19 minutes ago, oznl said:

Consulting my notes, I realise that it was nearly two years ago when I recounted our rear neighbour’s children emerged practice of intermittently peering into our back yard and kitchen by virtue of the trampoline that their parents had thoughtfully installed up against our back fence.  Their spawn’s periodic escape from the surly bonds of gravity allowed them parabolic sight-lines over the top of the fence into our otherwise-extremely-secluded garden.

The epiphany of the children’s ability to bounce-per-view straight into our kitchen via its enormous and un-blinded windows however, had struck me only as I stood contemplated them one morning whilst making coffee resplendent only in my t-shirt and my thick, wet cloth night nappy under white plastic pants.

After a series of piercing-scream-delineated injuries, the parents went on to install a play fort up against our fence next to the trampoline.  This presumably allowed their spawn to achieve surveillance-altitude to their neighbours property with less frequent recourse to an osteopath.

The only real solution was more sartorial caution in my own kitchen but in any case the problem receded as the kids grew bored of their trampoline/play-fort infrastructure and switched to torturing each other instead.  Then, a few months ago, these kids were removed along with the furniture by their parent/owners to another house only to be replaced by tenants some weeks later.

The new tenants had a housewarming party the other Saturday, with kids: theirs and spares.  They’d presciently, bought another trampoline and installed it next to the remaining play fort in exactly the same location.  I was out drinking on my back deck with my beloved on that same night.  Although in nappies of course, there were pants over the top so that wasn’t really an issue.

Nevertheless, as we sipped champagne in the cool early-evening spring air, the songs from the emerging tree-frogs and the creamy texture of double-brie were eclipsed by a steady “boing boing boing boing” and the occasional glimpse of mop-topped hair over our fence.

“Brilliant…” announced my beloved with uncharacteristic brevity…

It got worse.

More guests arrived, bad 1990s music started and what seemed like 47 children discovered the adjacent play fort, built to the exact height to directly overlook the boundary fence onto our rear garden, deck and kitchen.

We heard their sotto voce whispers of the handful of kids already ascended to their more cautious compatriots on the ground:  “PSSST! Come UP, you can SEE them!”

Then the LED torches appeared (it was dusk) shooting blue/white pencil beams from the gloomy confines of the dusk-darkened play fort, into our drinks and canapes.

I briefly considered watering the garden near the play fort-fence: with my pressure washer.

Things got worse again the next week.

Our property is bordered by TWO other houses at our rear.  The other house was already well-secluded by dense, tropical foliage growing from the ground high up into the bordering trees.  The existence of this carefully-cultivated wall of vegetation ironically had nothing to do with my nappies but rather the predilections of the fairly solidly-built owner of that other property to cook naked at his bay-windowed kitchen.

After a series of inadvertent-but-excruciatingly-embarrassing gaze-catching incidents between his kitchen and my rear deck, we jointly decided that bougainvillea trained to grow between the palm trees bordering our properties would be beautiful.  Being South American, he loved to see Bougainvillea as it reminded him of home.  Although we too loved seeing the Bougainvillea, we loved seeing less of our overweight naked South American even more.

Within 18 months, joint-neighbourly plant love had given rise to an impenetrable green wall of subtropical foliage between towering palms that meant that it was like having no neighbours at all.  It looked as brilliant from his side of the fence as ours.  I heard him yelling once through the greenery and wondered if that was the kind of noise one makes when a mishap occurs using a deep fryer naked.

All things pass however.  Perhaps gutted by the loss of the former trampolining neighbours, this owner too sold his property a few months ago and the new owners moved in a week or two back.

The yellow-flag-warning should have been the tree-lopping trucks parked outside his place that I navigated around on my way to my gig-economy-non-work job the following Monday.

By the time I got home on Monday night, our back property border looked like a Vietnamese jungle that had just had the full “Apocalypse Now” experience: a battleground of destroyed vegetation.  Vivid red flowers and deep green foliage lay decapitated and dehydrating and gasping their last on the pavers surrounding our pool, a botanical metaphor for a few minutes after the final siren is sounded on the battlefield.  A few splintered and traumatised sticks remained between the now-bare palm tree trunks.  My beloved and I gazed mournfully into our neighbour’s kitchen bay window to see what the new owners were cooking for dinner. 

Technically, they’d only removed the foliage that was on THEIR side of the fence but since their side was the sunny side, that was most of it, Bougainvillea bushes only having a limited grasp of civil survey lines and town planning simply grew towards the light.

“F%^k…” announced my beloved with uncharacteristic profanity.

They then rammed the point home, switching on their own rear deck lighting, immediately and comprehensively illuminating ours in the process (at no extra charge).

We sat out on our deck, contemplating the magnitude of our tragedy, bathed in the cold blue-white light of our new neighbour’s low cost 650nm LEDs.

Then, my beloved had a thought.  This happens.

“I think you should just sit out here during the day, in just, you know, just your UNDERWEAR THINGS and let’s see what THAT does for them”.

It’s the first time she’s made reference to my nappies in a very, very long time.  I was wondering if she’d forgotten about them.  It was also the first time she’s made reference to my nappies that was at least only indirectly pejorative or not a part of a command imperative.

I’ll take that as a small win. 

I’ve this week installed a fence extension to obstruct the view from Fort F$%kwit and am currently attempting to jump-start the surviving Bougainvillea.  As an interim measure I’ve installed a spare LED floodlight from our deck to point back into their property.  This may seem childish but I prefer to think of it as educational:  I will try to tacitly teach them why that foliage was there.  I believe it’s working because they noisily close all their rear window blinds and complain to each other when I turn it on.  A week earlier though and they’d never have glimpsed it.

I have elected NOT to take Beloved’s recommendation and take my lunch out on the deck just in my white plastic pants and nappy despite the rapidly warming weather.  If I did, I’d at least wear my “Cookie Monster” t-shirt to go with it.

@oznl interesting update.

[BabyJilly_S]

That's funny and sad all at the same time. You certainly can turn a phrase

Whats the old adage? Good fences make good neighbours.....

[Little Sherri]

8 hours ago, oznl said:

“I think you should just sit out here during the day, in just, you know, just your UNDERWEAR THINGS and let’s see what THAT does for them”.

I loved this. Also your use of the retaliatory LED lighting. Good fences make good neighbours. I had a pine tree die, possibly courtesy of my lawncare company's playing fast and loose with herbicides, and its drying remains will, upon removal, open up a sightline to my pool deck from my neighbour's yard. The neighbours have been fine so far, other than that they allow their kids to rip around on an ATV seemingly every time we decide to eat outdoors. However, I am already researching what I can install there that won't take a decade to fulfil the mandate. Things grow slowly in the frozen North. 

On 9/22/2021 at 11:18 PM, oznl said:

I get the physiologically-correct sensation but the timing is all wrong with it arriving before (or milliseconds AFTER) the voiding event that it was supposed to herald has already started.  A bit like the way some people use their indicators whilst driving now that I think about it …

This is my experience as well. 

[oznl]

“Have you just WET yourself?!”

Although such interrogative demands from lovers may be the stuff of fantasy for some, it’s NOT a conversational bon mot that I’m accustomed to hearing from my own.  The question wasn’t delivered in a bon mot conversational flavour anyway.  Nor was it delivered in a smouldering-velvety-undertone-of-sensuality flavour either.  She’s been doing such a stellar job ignoring the mere existence of my less-than-conventional under-attire for years, let alone their status with respect to usage that such a well, DIRECT question completely blindsided me.

It was late Sunday morning, I’d been doing chores: the various kind of tedious house tasks that in better aeons, I presumably may have had wiry and underfed surfs perform for me whilst I contemplated what kind of ale they should then bring me to quaff with the pheasants I was planning to eat for brunch.

But I digress…

Washing one or more of our collection of cars had been on the agenda.  I’m not sure where all these cars came from and I’m not sure how well washing a motor vehicle would fit with my previous Elizabethan metaphor but that’s how words roll when you write without a plan.

I’d come inside to the kitchen to rinse out my chamois.  No point wiping down the paintwork with a cloth encrusted with last month’s dirt.  My beloved was standing at the sink checking her phone: presumably one or more of the 47 social medial channels she seems to be simultaneously engaged with.

Glancing up from her smart phone, she paused, visually considering me for a second before delivering her short sharp exclamatory interrogative as to whether or not I’d just peed in my pants.

The question hung in the air whilst I squandered 900 milliseconds attempting to evaluate her intent and thus construct a reciprocally strategized response. 

Yes, in all probability I HAD wet myself although I don’t pay that much attention to it these days.  It had been a couple of hours since my morning nappy change and whilst I couldn’t specifically remember having peed in it to any extent, there certainly been some and so I’d be wet to some degree.  Still, I was kitted out in a high capacity nappy, early in its shift held tight under solid plastic pants and a compression panty.  The furniture and carpets should be well safe from such horrors that may or may not lurk within.

Running out of time to construct ANY alternative narratives, I stumbled through the truth.

“Uhhh, well yeah.  I AM a LITTLE bit wet I think, not THAT much but wha??”  The words fell out of my mouth likes clowns falling out of a clown car as her gaze shifted from my face down to focus  on my midriff.  I followed her gaze with mine and noticed for the first time, a dark, dinner-plate size puddle of dampness extending across the front of my blue shorts, creeping up to wet and thus darken the bottom of my grey t-shirt. 

Suddenly the context to her question was crystal clear.  To the uninitiated, it looked an awful lot like I’d wet my pants and could be now before her, silently dripping pee onto the kitchen tiles down my inner thigh.  Fortunately for me, things were NOT as they appeared.

“Oh THAT!   Yeah, the trigger fitting on the hose exploded while I was washing the car!”

That’s exactly what had happened.  Crafted by Asian artisans in exotic Chinese construction-palaces, the implausibly low cost of the modern trigger hose fitting is reflected in its complete lack of durability.  Cheap to buy, the price they exact is in drenching their owners when they almost inevitably disintegrate under pressure within a year or so of purchase.  Sure enough, when hosing down the dust of car #3, the fitting failed catastrophically, firing water directly back at me just a few minutes earlier.  I thought most of it had got me in the face but it seems that paradoxically, it seems my plastic pants and nappy do just as good a job in keeping wetness OUT as IN and so accordingly, I hadn’t realised that there had been some unfortunately-positioned outerwear drenching further south on my physique.

As, an aside, It would be nice to spend ten times as much on a trigger hose that would last ten times as long but sadly, with consumer fixation firmly set upon ever-decreasing prices in hardware stores, that’s not even an option.  Spending more than $10 on a trigger hose these days simply seems to deliver more different colour plastics in the injection moulding and more pointless squirting-modes to go wrong rather than incremental quality.  Even a brass one I bought fell apart as it turned out that various brass bits were held together by the same low cost Chinese plastic except that the exploded weighty bits also worked as shrapnel.

She studied my crotch for a fraction longer and I was relieved to see her face defrost.  “Oh THAT’S ok then” she said, transferring her attention back to her smartphone.  “I just thought there’d been some sort of catastrophic failure down there!”

Life, and Sunday, picked itself up off the floor and carried on.

I suppose I should be happy that in response to what in her mind, appeared to be my arrival in the kitchen in pee-soaked trousers should have been so calm and pragmatic.  Instead of screeching from afar before phoning emergency services, she’d simply admonishingly warned me that my soggy state was less camouflaged than I may have thought and that I might care to do something about it before a teenager surfaced (low risk, it was only 11am).  This is a positive thing I suppose.

Overwhelming that comforting rationalisation however was the deep flush of embarrassment I was suddenly feeling.  For the first time in approaching three years, I’d just stood before my beloved and told her that I’d wet my nappy. 

Whilst I’m fairly sure she’s worked out by now that this happens, it’s NOT something I’ve ever advertised to her during any of these strange days.

[Puppyz]

Me personally....I'd take that as a win. 

Just the phrasing of "have you just WET yourself?" doesn't hold the same level of disdain as "did you just Piss in your pants?" 

Just the way it comes across to me without being able to hear the tones etc heh

[oznl]

 

A thought occurred to me during my morning nappy change today.

I’ve been told that revolutionary epiphanies, brilliant insights and great moments in science have all occurred whilst thinking on the porcelain throne.  Since I spend very little time on or near the porcelain throne these days (outside of the brief rendezvous involved with a #2), either I’d have to think less or conduct my moments of zen reflection during nappy changes instead.

Anyway, my nappy-change-thought-of-the day:

In the last month I went outside the house without a nappy exactly TWICE.  Both times to deal with medical appointments and thus avoid awkward conversations with a practitioner to fend off completely spurious (and presumably expensive) urological work-ups.

In the case of my general practitioner, I probably shouldn’t have bothered.  I could have easily gotten through that appointment in a nappy.

In the case of my dermatologist, not so.  I’ve had a history of minor skin cancers (curse of the Australians) culminating in a not-so-minor skin cancer (malignant melanoma) a few years back.

It’s ok.  I’m well-versed on my unfortunate predilection here.  I’d spotted that odd mole VERY early on, called it out to my GP, got an instant referral, followed by a biopsy which invoked the full might of medical process culminating in minor surgery all within about 72 hours.

Technically though, I remain a “cancer patient” for 5 years and get a VERY thorough skin check by a dermatologist annually (I will be getting skin checks for the rest of my life: I know how my body rolls in this respect).

You can NOT get through a dermatologist skin check in a nappy without it attracting attention.

I get through my dermatologist skin checks in my frayed, ancient, sole remaining pair of underpants (which arguably are more embarrassing than my nappy would be).

But, back to my thought.

My subterfuge here may not have worked.

Relieving my overnight BetterDry from a highly active tour of duty (some major bedwetting appeared to have occurred, I could recall none of it) I’d had a quick rinse in the shower to cleanse the relevant areas.  Since I’m wet near-permanently on my two-nappy-per-day diet, I take great pains to wash carefully and use cream at each change.

I was drying myself in preparation for my waiting Abena and booster pad when, gazing at myself naked in the mirror (I find this helps with lessening my breakfast appetite)  it occurred to me that my “nappy area” doesn’t exactly appear normal anymore.

For a start, I am as bald as a badger down there.  I do this to help with odour control (hair is at a microscopic level quite porous: it will happily absorb pee).  I guess having a shaved crotch area isn’t solely the preserve of the voluntarily-nappied (or even Brazilians) though in this day in age.

The next thing I noticed was a series of minor “tape wounds” at the front of each thigh.  It’s quite common with BetterDry for the lower tape edges to make contact with my thigh skin in the rough-and-tumble of nocturnal tossing and turning.  This, in combination with persistent pee-wetness down there means that there are usually a couple of red marks in the lower nappy-tape zones.

On top of that, gazing at myself thoughtfully in the mirror (never for more than a few minutes as NOT wearing a nappy these days seems to more or less guarantee a dribble of pee will want to come out), I noticed that despite a good wash (including a skin-friendly soap alternative), a faint white haze of residual sudocreme (nappy rash cream) remained visible here and there on my skin.  I guess it is water repellent so it stands to reason that it may be reluctant to come off in the shower.  Perhaps I should try some engine-bay degreasant instead?

The last thing I noticed was my skin itself.  After literally years marinating in wet (and VERY occasionally, full) nappies, it seems to have turned to leather in the relevant areas.  My skin there is thick, wrinkled and tough.  It feels tough.  It looks tough.

I dimly recalled some unsolicited information I’d heard along the lines somewhere from an aged care worker talking about changing nappies on her patients.  She’d said that after a while in nappies, they all developed arse skin like a rhinos (which as they aged, often broke down anyway).

Is rhino-arse from nappies a thing? (Other long-haul 24/7 folk may have insight on this).

In any case, it occurred to me that a highly experienced7 dermatologist doing a fairly thorough skin check might notice these clues.  It may be that I’m not as discreet as I imagined.

Nothing was said of course.

[Stroller]

12 hours ago, oznl said:

Is rhino-arse from nappies a thing?

I'm certainly a lot more resilient down there than I used to be.

[oznl]

Ooh, I had a "blow out" this morning after delaying changing my night nappy: a BetterDry too!  I don't think I've actually had this pleasure before.

I took off my terry-lined plastic pants in my study (I had no idea there was a problem) and suddenly it looked like somebody had shot a fluffy duck.  Padding went everywhere!

Catastrophic failure of the plastic backing sheet near the front.  It wasn't even THAT wet.  Must have been a manufacturing defect.

11 hours ago, Stroller said:

I'm certainly a lot more resilient down there than I used to be.

Ah, so NOT just me then.  Good to know.  Embarrassing to think what the dermatologist made of it.  He does visit my nappy zone on his very thorough cancer checks.

[BabyJilly_S]

I  would guess manufacturing defect myself.

I have taken to using Betterdrys as my nappy of choice for overnight. They are very good pricewise, are solid, hold plenty without leaking and haven't failed me yet. 

As for the leathery 'ole ass, well, that's something to look forward too 

[Little Sherri]

On 9/29/2021 at 10:53 PM, oznl said:

Spending more than $10 on a trigger hose these days simply seems to deliver more different colour plastics in the injection moulding and more pointless squirting-modes to go wrong rather than incremental quality.  Even a brass one I bought fell apart as it turned out that various brass bits were held together by the same low cost Chinese plastic except that the exploded weighty bits also worked as shrapnel.

I laughed out loud at this episode. It could have happened to me. I sat on the seat of my lawn tractor a week ago without checking it for puddles - it had been raining - and I was rewarded with damp shorts but a dry derrière - yes, diapers are as good at keeping moisture out as they are at keeping it in. 

On a side note, I bought myself a foodservice hose nozzle in 2006 that I still have and that still works great. It was about $60 and also required an adaptor to take a civilian garden hose. It is more or less indestructible, as long as I don't let it freeze. Another bonus is that it's architecture is designed for higher flow rates and pressures than typical household hose bibs offer - up to 13.2 GPM and 175 PSI, versus an average home supply of maybe 8 to 10 GPM at 50 to 60 PSI. Although you guys also have 240 V power, so maybe your hoses run at 200 PSI - let me know! So with the larger passages inside it, it offers lower restriction, so you get a lot of flow and more pressure from it. It's made by an Italian company called PA. Google "PA RB35". I'm sure there is an industrial hose or pressure cleaning supplier that could sell one to you. Make sure to get the hose adaptor - the bottom of the gun has a swivel with an NPT-F 1/2" fitting (at last in North America). 

On 10/2/2021 at 9:17 PM, oznl said:

The next thing I noticed was a series of minor “tape wounds” at the front of each thigh.  It’s quite common with BetterDry for the lower tape edges to make contact with my thigh skin in the rough-and-tumble of nocturnal tossing and turning.  This, in combination with persistent pee-wetness down there means that there are usually a couple of red marks in the lower nappy-tape zones.

On top of that, gazing at myself thoughtfully in the mirror (never for more than a few minutes as NOT wearing a nappy these days seems to more or less guarantee a dribble of pee will want to come out), I noticed that despite a good wash (including a skin-friendly soap alternative), a faint white haze of residual sudocreme (nappy rash cream) remained visible here and there on my skin.  I guess it is water repellent so it stands to reason that it may be reluctant to come off in the shower.  Perhaps I should try some engine-bay degreasant instead?

The last thing I noticed was my skin itself.  After literally years marinating in wet (and VERY occasionally, full) nappies, it seems to have turned to leather in the relevant areas.  My skin there is thick, wrinkled and tough.  It feels tough.  It looks tough.

I hadn't considered these tells. I haven't been naked in front of a doctor in a while, but, I do have semi-permanent "nappy lines" emblazoned on my skin, "tape wounds" on occasion, a military haircut policy, the perpetual scent of nappy cream, and, I suspect, a bit of rhino skin as well. I have also seen a doctor for diaper rash on two occasions, happily both very early on in my 24/7 "career", and both times I blamed long-distance running. I wonder if he saw through that... he said he was giving me a fungicide mixed with a steroid, just like for diaper rash. At the time I thought he was referencing the diaper rash cream he'd given us for the kids on occasion when they were younger. Now, I'm second-guessing that. Oh well, water under the bridge.

[oznl]

I’m a big fan of cloth nappies.  I find them exceptionally comfortable to wear, wet or dry (let’s face it though, on me they’re usually wet).  I love their extraordinary wicking capacity and consequential deep reluctance to leak.  Peeing whilst laying on my side, stomach or swinging from the ceiling fan (haven’t tried that last one yet), they’re bullet proof in bed.  They’re great for the environment.  Pull-on terry/cotton “nappy pants” even offer superior physical flexibility to the wearer.  If I was ever to attempt parkour, I’d do it in my Babykins cloth pull-ons.

It’s a shame that they are bulky and can get smelly.

For those reasons, I’m wary about using them outdoors or even too often around my beloved.  They are confined to a couple of days and nights during the week.

My hideously-paid gig-economy real estate job has been seriously interfering with my cloth nappy time.  For the last three weeks, last minute “gigs” have cropped up the night before my cloth days, puncturing the free day near home I’d use them for.  This means that instead of waddling about in a damp-but-sustainable way that by lunchtime, I’m trudging around trying to stop a soggy Abena/plastic pant combo from sliding down to my knees every 5 minutes (I’ve resolved to switch to the Rearz Hybrid Elite (aka “Barry”) for full work days when nappy-finances permit).

This “disruptor of the cloth” happened again late last week.  I was still in my night nappy when the email hit: a condition report for tenant entry.  This is about 3 hours of work alone in a vacant house.  The only human interaction is to collect and return the keys from the relevant estate agency.

The packet of Abena under my bed was in fact, just an empty polythene bag.  I had more in my study but by god, that was almost 12 meters away!

“What would @Stroller do?” I thought.  The answer seemed obvious: "Stuff it, I’m going in cloth…”

Changing out of my overnight BetterDry, I hauled up a Babykins dual-layer terry pull-on (like a giant soaker-pant) and then a full Babykins cotton pull-on-nappy over the top.  Over that voluminous-but-cloud-comfortable gear, white encased plastic pants and a compression pant.

An uncharacteristically cool and dark day for spring, I decided I could live with some unwanted extra insulation in trade for some much-needed visual stealth so put on my heavy cotton Babykins onesie over the lot before a black collared t-shirt and capacious black jeans.

Looking in the mirror there was no doubt that my bum DID look big in this but not unduly so.  I’d describe myself as “well padded”.  A dark, over-sized and over-hanging collared shirt furthered my disguise. 

The agents I’d collect from would see me for no more than 30 seconds and don’t know me anyway.

And so I set off for a half-work-day in fluffy cloth nappies.

They felt brilliant but they didn’t stay fluffy for long.

At this point of my journey, I can’t really do this job without a nappy anyway.  It’s not that I’m incontinent but more that my bladder cruise range is such that I can’t handle more than an hour or two without a small pee.  There are no bathroom breaks and so there’s no point in even trying to wait that hour or two that I might manage.  I find it’s better just to stay relaxed down there and let things drip and dribble as they will: nappies seem to leak far less with this usage mode.

Accordingly, I was a little bit wet by the time I got to the house after collecting the keys – it’s quite noticeable with cloth but not in an uncomfortable way – the early phases of using a cloth nappy involve a fairly heavy wet warmth highly localised at the scene of the crime.  I suspect this is haptic contrast as unlike a disposable, wet cloth feels wet and thus starkly different to adjacent dry cloth.  As the morning wore on, nature, and cloth’s superb wicking ability took its course and I could feel my nappy growing closer and heavier all around me.  The eventual emergence of slightly cool patches at my leggings had me worried for a while but a quick rummaging-down-in-my-pants manual investigation (kind of tough when you’re wearing a onesie and probably impossible in company) suggested that it was just slightly damp leg elastics on my plastic pants rather than any leaking.  Air ingress when bending and stretching was precipitating a certain amount of evaporative cooling.

By the time I made my way back to the agency to return keys, my nappies were pretty heavy but the Onesie was doing its thing.  I felt wet of course (in the characteristic cloth fashion) but was wet everywhere down there as padding was all around me.  It was also soft and comfortable.  There were no tapes to dig in to me anywhere and I wasn’t in any way worried about leaks.  I also seemed more, well, flexible despite the bulk.  I was able to get up and down on my knees to inspect and photograph various things pretty easily compared to my gravity-seeking-Abena.

I made it back home: warm, wet and decadently comfortable.  Although I’m not overtly AB, it was kind of cool to be in full AB regalia under work gear: wet cloth nappies, white plastic pants and a onesie.

I kept that nappy on for the balance of the day.  Sure enough, when I dropped my jeans, I could immediately smell “wet nappy”: that characteristic warm-pee smell that we associate with toddlers is almost inevitable with cloth.  There is no odour control in cloth.  All that can be done is to limit air exchange.  It was identifiable but not offensive and I’m pretty sure it was well contained under my layers of clothing and plastic pants.  In any case, I was largely on my own.

I rinsed them out in the shower before tossing them into a bucket to soak and changing into an even-older-school kite-folded and pinned terry for the evening and night.

Mission accomplished:  I’ll be doing that again.

[Stroller]

3 hours ago, oznl said:

Mission accomplished:  I’ll be doing that again.

Congratulations oznl!  Remember to take a dummy with you next time for full AB credibility...

[oznl]

At some point last week I rolled through the 2.5 year mark of uninterrupted nappies.  I’ve been a little longer than that as “24/7” but I can now say it’s been a solid 2.5 years since I last peed in a toilet instead of my pants.  I’m estimating that I’ve got more than 2,000 adult nappy changes under my belt now (pun not intended). 

After my 2 year mark, I’d been wearing nappies during the day longer as a grown up than I did as an infant.  At the 2.5 year mark, I’ve been wearing nappies at night for longer as a grown up than I did as an infant.  I’ll try to think of some kind of intelligent reflection on this milestone later.

I thought this milestone might settle some kind of psychological score and I could pop down to K-Mart and buy some underwear but apparently not…  Instead, up in Brisbane’s northern suburbs for work, I visited my nappy-dealer at Littles Downunder.  In addition to another case of BetterDry, I also bought a carton of Rearz Hybrid Elite (aka “Barry”) for use during those long on-the-road work days in the gig economy.

There’s only 36 nappies in a carton but since I only work 2 – 3 days per week, it should last me a little while.

They are NOT a cheap nappy this side of the planet but they are a good one.  The reason for making the switch out of Abena during work days is that the endless cycle of clambering in and out of my low-slung car seemed to be further accelerating the boosted-Abena’s deep longing for gravity: by about lunch time, I was hauling up my soggy underwear every few minutes and I suspected the casual observer would notice this.

“Barry” gets just as soggy but remains firmly and comfortably anchored in place.  It’s the sort of nappy I feel that I could pogo-stick across America in without dampening my ankles.

They are also leak proof.  Or at least I thought they were.  At the time of writing I’m back in my home office after 6 hours on the road and I’ve realised that I’ve a slight press-out leak deep down at my inner thigh which seems to have slightly gotten past my plastic pants as well.

I thought I’d noticed a very faint dampness down there by about lunchtime on the road but it was not wet enough to truly discern (and there’s only so much investigative nappy-sleuthing that can be done with dignity out on the road – especially considering its location).  Fast forward a few hours and back home, changed out of jeans into cotton shorts (same nappy though) and there is definitely a tiny amount of pee where it shouldn’t be.

Annoying.  It wasn’t even THAT wet at changing, just over a litre on board. I hope it’s a one off.  I suppose I could use BetterDry but they are just so bulky when wet.

In other strange day news, I think I’ve “paused” bedwetting.  It’s hard to be 100% sure in the nebulous grey world that is sleep-peeing but what I DO know is that for the last several nights, I have at least two clear recollections of waking and using my nappies. 

I accept there was never any actual pee urge to precipitate these wetting events (I never seem to have these much these days) so it’s entirely possible that the two or three remembered events were not the all of them.  I may well be still wetting the bed and the micro-pees I can recall are just a subset of what happens but it’s different.  For quite a while I’d be greeting the dawn in a wet nappy with vague-to-zero idea about how it had gotten that way.

In what MIGHT be a related factor, my sleep patterns have gone back to complete rubbish.  I could easily fall asleep in a chair at 4pm but lay in bed wide awake at midnight, only to waken again at 4am and cat-nap after that.

It might just be that I’m not wetting in my sleep simply because I’m not much asleep.

Many people have spoken however about the erratic trajectory emerging diaper dependence takes.  Apparently it has a notorious habit of ebbing and flowing but ultimately, over the long haul, there’s more flow than ebb (insert next pun here).

There are still strange things happening here and there.  This morning I had another one of those “zero effort, all-you-can-feel-is-wetness” pee events just after waking.  I was just laying there in bed when I realised that the rather pleasant creeping warmth sensation I was experiencing was because I was having a smallish pee in my nappy.  It didn’t feel like I was having a pee except for the wetness and I couldn’t specifically recall authorising one.

Waking up for a pee seems quite annoying to me though now.  Since it seems I’m coming to some kind of uneasy peace with the idea of drifting into incontinence, I wish my body would just crack on with it so I wouldn’t have to agonise about it.

I seem to recall reading a recount somewhere that suggested this regression of a regression (pausing bedwetting) was some kind of “terminal lucidity” before some kind of momentous drop in continence although it’s hard for me to see what the causality for this could be.

For now, I’ll just go and change, watch, observe and report as necessary…

[Little Sherri]

7 hours ago, oznl said:

In other strange day news, I think I’ve “paused” bedwetting.  It’s hard to be 100% sure in the nebulous grey world that is sleep-peeing but what I DO know is that for the last several nights, I have at least two clear recollections of waking and using my nappies. 

 

I accept there was never any actual pee urge to precipitate these wetting events (I never seem to have these much these days) so it’s entirely possible that the two or three remembered events were not the all of them.  I may well be still wetting the bed and the micro-pees I can recall are just a subset of what happens but it’s different.  For quite a while I’d be greeting the dawn in a wet nappy with vague-to-zero idea about how it had gotten that way.

 

In what MIGHT be a related factor, my sleep patterns have gone back to complete rubbish.  I could easily fall asleep in a chair at 4pm but lay in bed wide awake at midnight, only to waken again at 4am and cat-nap after that.

 

It might just be that I’m not wetting in my sleep simply because I’m not much asleep.

Welcome to my world, although I have had a greater frequency of "I don't remember doing it" wettings since I started going to bed in an at-least-slightly-wet diaper, per your prescription. For me, though, the cause seemed to be the opposite of sleeping poorly - I moved a bit out into the country, and maybe it's the air, or maybe it's that I'm drinking more, but, whatever the cause, I started sleeping like a rock, and simply not waking for anything, including to dampen my drawers. But I have also on occasion been vexed upon being roused by an alarm from the gatekeepers that I've been trying to force into retirement lo these last 2.5 years or so.  

Your work day in cloth nappies was interesting as well - that's an adventure that I have yet to have. I find my cloth nappies too bulky for anything but exasperating my spouse when nobody else is home, or after the progeny have gone to bed. I can't do anything more ambitious than taking the dog for a walk, and that, only in the colder months when a heavy overhanging jacket rounds off the silhouette.  I do love the way they feel, though. 

Congratulations on your 2.5 year "contiguous" anniversary; I know that your actual time in the saddle is longer than that. I would not be where I am if I hadn't "met" you, and a few other key advisors here, when I did, but I rank you as first among greats, because your life, as you so articulately describe it, although bathed in tropical sun, otherwise resembles mine in many aspects. You proved it was possible to largely go about your business in toddler's underpants, and I am attempting to replicate the results of your pioneering study. 

[oznl]

In the perverse way of this business, my “night nappy drought” comprehensively broke the very night after the evening I’d chronicled it.

I’d gone to bed in an (only slightly) wet terry towel cloth pinned nappy under plastic pants.  I wasn’t that wet because it’s frequently hot here now and I’d been working most of the day auditing a large house (a small mansion really).  Whilst not physically onerous, you ARE on the move constantly and never have the chance to sit for four hours or so.  I’d also again channeled my inner @Stroller and conducted that work from the comfort of a Babykins cloth nappy under plastic pants and onesie (in retrospect, that onesie was probably a mistake given the time of year. It finished up nearly as wet as my nappy).

I’d chugged a fair amount of fluid before bed in an attempt to recover hydration but seemingly remained fairly dry.  My cloth nappy was very much at the “small warm wet patch at crotch” stage of affairs only.

Perhaps it was that I’d spent the day at work in thick cloth nappies, a juxtaposition that looms large in my consciousness, that I’d had a series of jumbled-but-vivid nappy dreams that night.

In the first, I was at work, my OLD work, the PROPER work with conditions, co-workers, a salary and benefits.  It must have been in the morning because the daily parts delivery shipment had arrived and it was the usual chaos of sorting parts for jobs and allocating techs (not my role but I watched it happen every day).  All of this was all perfectly normal except for the fact that I was wandering about the office wearing just a business shirt and a Rearz “Rebel” nappy.  (I’ve never even worn a Rearz “Rebel”.  I suspect this made a cameo because my nappy-pusher, LittlesDownunder was running a sale on them).

My co-workers (who were all shadowy, jumbled analogs of real former co-workers) could all clearly see my nappy.  I felt extremely awkward about this but they didn’t seem to react.  Nevertheless I suspected I was being judged.

It then occurred to me that I was wet and that my nappy would therefore be visibly swollen and pee coloured at the front (this happens in disposables).  For some reason this bothered me a LOT more that the fact that I was semi-naked and wearing it.  Then I remembered that my Rearz was patterned and that this might camouflage things somewhat.  Had I just rationalised a reason for switching to ABDL patterned nappies?

In any case, the fact that my wet state might at least be hidden made things SLIGHTLY better: like getting shot and killed quickly might be better than getting shot and bleeding to death slowly over a few hours.  Neither of these states was exactly an aspirational goal of mine.

Next I was in a jumbled dream analogue of my childhood home.  I’d walked through a mixed up, upside-down and dim twisted version of my childhood dining room, lounge and hall back toward my childhood bedroom.  Somewhere in the house was a distorted and vague dream analogue of somebody that I thought could either be my beloved or my mother (it was a dream, it was confusing) but I was basically alone.

I was stuffing plastic pants into my dream-childhood-wardrobe to finish drying them out in cool dark (something I do with my real life study wardrobe which has been repurposed to my nappy-stash, the harsh Australian sunlight quickly destroys plastic pants).  I then realised that a suitcase on the shelf at the top of my wardrobe containing disposable nappies was disgorging disposable nappy-fluff in a steady stream back down onto the floor at my feet like a running tap.  I couldn’t stop it.  Soon my blurry beloved/mother was going to find the mess and I’d be in trouble.

Weird eh?  It wasn’t like I’d gorged on a shellfish dinner the night before.

Anyway, suddenly it was 6am in real, waking life and the clock-radio was talking to me.  I think I DID stir during the night thanks to the large colony of giant fruit bats that have decided to nocturnally strip the palm trees adjacent to our bedroom window of their weird and tasteless berries but I could not remember using my nappy.

One of my habits these strange days is upon waking, to run a quick nappy security check.  I only usually wear two nappies per day which means towards the end of the shift, they are generally used very thoroughly.  A leak check is in order as an occasional bedwetter, I won’t notice a leak always during the night.  I only have vague ideas what I would do if I DID discover a major leak.

Finding my pyjama pants dry, I ran an exploratory fingertip over my nappy under my plastic pant legging and waist elastic.  I felt soaked terry towel at all points of the compass.  I had comprehensively peed myself during the night.  This was far beyond what simple wicking of the few tablespoons of pee that were in my pants upon retiring could have caused.

On a side note, I STILL find waking up in a securely fitted and wet cloth nappy under plastic pants to be a pleasure of almost Roman decadence.  Warm and wet on the inside, dry and comfortable on the outside, absolutely unbothered by my bladder.  I think even vanilla people would find something in this if they could only put aside their inhibitions enough to experiment.

I had absolutely no idea about when I had gotten so wet.  I could remember my weird nappy dreams but not one single aspect of those dreams involved actually USING my nappies.

I released whatever was in my bladder and sometime later, an anaemic trickle appeared but basically I was empty upon waking.  I had wet the bed again.

I don’t know why but I was strangely relieved to welcome it back.

[Stroller]

11 hours ago, oznl said:

On a side note, I STILL find waking up in a securely fitted and wet cloth nappy under plastic pants to be a pleasure of almost Roman decadence.  Warm and wet on the inside, dry and comfortable on the outside, absolutely unbothered by my bladder. 

Yup, me too.  And it's every morning...

[WBxx]

On 10/14/2021 at 6:57 PM, oznl said:

On a side note, I STILL find waking up in a securely fitted and wet cloth nappy under plastic pants to be a pleasure of almost Roman decadence.  Warm and wet on the inside, dry and comfortable on the outside, absolutely unbothered by my bladder.  I think even vanilla people would find something in this if they could only put aside their inhibitions enough to experiment.

 

Well said … same here.

No wonder kids who were diapered for bed wetting often long for the same as adults.  It’s an addictive combination.

[oznl]

One thousand and one nights in nappies: that rather Arabian-exotically named milestone too was passed this week.  Whilst not incontinent (during the day at least), mounting evidence of “dependency” has had me been pondering about why I feel the need to do this. 

Allow me to indulge myself. 

This may read like a whine but it’s not.   I have no complaint and I find the practice of pinning all one’s miseries on one’s parents to be often at best, convenient: we are what we make of ourselves.

This is an attempt to understand through explanation, a kind of self-therapy.

I was (apparently, I struggle to recall) toilet trained spectacularly early in accordance with the fashion of the day.  According to my mother’s boasts (if only she knew…), I was out of day nappies by 20 months of age and dry enough at night to dispense with nappies before 30 months.  This was aggressive schedule was timed to ensure that when her next child arrived, the first would be trained and she would have less nappies to deal with.  She continued on producing siblings until, after four of us, further procreation was halted only by an alleged mysteriously-hinted-at medical issue (I’ve long since learned to view slightly critically whatever I am told by her).

I have NO idea why she seemed to think such fecundity was necessary.  She mainly complained about us and said later that my father never wanted children.  He certainly acted like he didn’t for much of the time.

In keeping with other fashions of the day, I was strictly bottle-fed (something she boasted about in the 1970s but curiously reversed this boast to having been breast-fed after fashions changed decades later).  I never saw anything except formula and bottles given to my siblings.  I was also apparently put into rooms to be left alone for longish periods of time as an infant so that I would learn to not “crave human company” too much.

Probably not a super recipe for maternal bonding.

All of my younger siblings completely flew in the face of her initial toilet training success – particularly with respect to bedwetting, all with long, protracted bouts of night nappies extending until at least 6 or 7 years of age.

We didn’t starve and although we were beaten regularly enough, they were not unduly frequent in the context of the era and we probably deserved at least some of them anyway.  We were provided with medical care (when things got bad enough), sent to school and we weren’t asked to leave home until we had at least reached legal adulthood.

I guess that ticks the boxes for care but I think the wheels fell off the familial cart a little in terms of emotional satiation.

We were all scared of my father (a fulminating dark depression of rage much of the time with various psychiatric pathologies darkly hinted at by our mother).

Our mother, I only realise now, was somewhat immature, emotionally stunted herself (from what she assured us was her own much-more-horrific childhood) and probably suffered greatly with the reality of isolated stay-at-home suburban motherhood.  This manifested in a constellation of petty, game-playing, favouritism and hypochondria all glued together uneasily with an unreliable syrupy sweetness peppered with bouts of childish vindictiveness and rages that as children, always had us on edge.

Her love felt far from unconditional back then to us.  There were many criteria by which as children, we could lose it.  Its withdrawal by banishment from the family to a Dickensian-described boarding school was a constant threat of hers that genuinely scared us.  Like Queen Victoria, there was a pecking order in affection for her children.  Her “favourite” child was named and famed (fear not, we beat him mercilessly for it).  This mother would feed you and clothe you but you could NOT entrust her with your secrets: she would use them against you if there was advantage to be had.  She still does.

I can remember once as small children, we were taken to a mediocre, feux-historical fake castle on the edge of town for one of our (very rare) outings.  Mother wanted us to try the stocks (what was wrong with mini-golf?) so that we may experience them.  Not ONE of us would have a bar of this.  I didn’t because I did not trust her not to leave me there and I strongly suspect my siblings shared this misgiving.  A ludicrous proposition indeed but not when you are only 10.

Even today, friendship between siblings seems to be distant and based on shifting alliances.  Mother still keeps her hand in, tactically managing information disclosures that establish tensions and battles (I do not participate).  A new favourite child was crowned years ago and remains feted by her, to inherit all of their estate, such as is left of it.

I’ve made it sound worse than it probably was.  There were some good times but they don’t loom large in my memory (or my siblings’ minds for that matter: one of the few things we align on is that we didn’t enjoy our “childhood” thing that much).   Within the constraints of their personalities and their own formative years my parents are better now.  I don’t judge them.  Whilst I’ve assiduously tried to do (some) things a bit differently as a parent myself, I’m acutely aware of ways in which I actually am most likely terrible at it also.  They don’t give you a manual to be a parent.

I suspect however, somewhere back there in the very early 1970s, under yellow, gloomy 60 watt bulbs in that miserable little suburban brick box lurked the formative forces that made it so that I just want to be in nappies all the time today. 

Was some experiential dimension of nappies-in-infancy wrenched away from me too early?

Am I trying to recover (or just find) some kind of safe space that I felt I have missed?

Have I somehow mapped the transference of a mother’s affection to new siblings with their reliance on nappies? 

Or something else altogether?

The only thing that seems clear to me is that in my mis-wired mind, my nappies are inextricably bound up with some notion of comfort.

Answers on a postcard please…