Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[oznl]

In awe of the 7 syllable name, the 4500ml capacity (alleged - YMMV), and a nearly 30% lower price relative to the increasingly-difficult-to-find Molicares, I was seduced by the low cost allure of the “ID Expert Slip Maxi”:  I mean, with a name like that it has to be good right?

Well, kind of.

If you pee carefully, standing up.

The padding through the gusset is remarkably wide, and flat.  It’s a bit like wetting a picnic blanket.

The trouble is it’s also like wetting a picnic blanket sitting or lying down: pee travels.

The “leak guards” were clearly air-brushed onto its surface by Tinkabell.  They were that tiny.  I don’t think they should call them “leak guards”.  I prefer to think of them as “leak observers”.  They might as well have printed pictures of guards on the liner for all the good they did.

Whilst seated, an ID-Slip that was past its prime (ie: been on for more then 3 hours) rewarded me with a novel experience: wet pockets.  Somehow, pee gets pass the leak guards around my pubic zone and heads off in both directions to colonise my hips.

In bed, there are less obvious consequences to using them because of my waterproof training pants: until my morning change.  It’s then I find that my ID-Slip is at best 40% wet and another 40% has soaked my terry trainers.  I guess the other 20% just evaporated.  Life in a sub-tropical climate.

I’m using them as the lightest duty nappy of my day: the evening weekday shift between gym and bedtime for which they are ok.

The only other curious observation is the “wetness indicators”.  I imagine these are used by carers (or un-carers in an institutional setting).  That’s all very well but wouldn’t you position the wetness indicator in such a place that you didn’t have to send the patient up a ladder whilst standing below in order to see?

[oznl]

The first of December marks the official start of summer in Australia and the return to hot weather.

Of course, in MY part of Australia, that’s a rather pointless technicality.  In fact, the hot weather started in September (along with the bushfires) but never fear, it will cool down towards the end of next April.  Even then though, the ceiling fans are going to remain on standby probably until June.

Summer in South East Queensland is really about 6 months long: 10 months if you’re a kid and don’t mind swimming-induced-hypothermia.

This morning (Sunday) it was 26C already at 07:30 when arose and two hours later, it’s just cracked 30C (09:30).  It probably won’t get much hotter than this through the day but nor will it fall south of 30C much before 6pm.

Not exactly the kind of climate that lends itself to wearing a thick adult diaper, plastic pants and a compression stocking under your shorts but 24/7 is 24/7.

Designed by Northern Europeans, Molicare padding will fall apart on an outdoor working day in Queensland heat faster than a Norwegian on a pineapple plantation.  Accordingly, when planning a long day trip with a bunch of outdoor activities two days ago, I decided to wear a BetterDry instead of my usual weekend Molicare premium slip.  The BetterDry held up a lot better but I can’t say I truly appreciated the additional insulation: I spent 12 hours marinating in the tropical sun and my diapers (hydrating furiously) before floating home but the car seat survived unsullied.

Changing into my night nappy, I saw the first tell-tale signs of nappy rash in the relevant areas.  Quelle horreur!  A double-dose of sudo-crème overnight seems to have steered me out of that ditch based on the visual evidence of this morning’s diaper change however.

Our sole remaining resident teenager has gone on holiday to the USA and so my wife and I have had the house to ourselves.  Cashing in early on “empty nester” privacy, I’ve been managing the heat at night by simply going to bed wearing nothing but my diapers and plastic pants.  This must impose considerable incremental challenges in my wife’s ongoing objective not to notice them but somehow, she has risen to this occasion.  No comment has been made.

And so it was as I was standing at the kitchen counter measuring coffee into the filter machine, already starting to sweat that I heard the neighbour’s kids greeting the still, damp heat of a tropical dawn by a quick bounce on the trampoline from over the back fence.  At approximately 1 second intervals, a mop of blonde hair would appear briefly above the fence line after a large “Boing!” noise from our otherwise-secluded rear garden.

Boing, head, boing, head, boing, head, boing head...  Have these children no sweat glands??

It then occurred to me that I was standing directly in front of the large windows above our kitchen counter wearing nothing but a milky-white pair of plastic pants over what was quite obviously, a fairly thick nappy.  It was also a fairly wet one.  As is increasingly common these days, I had no clear idea when this had happened or even if I was the one who had wet it but the circumstantial evidence clearly pointed toward me.  The relative humidity of my underwear however was probably of secondary import compared to the strikingly unusual choices it reflected.

Thank the deity of your choosing that I was watching the BACK of a blonde-haired-head bouncing above the fence line and not the cheery face that owned it…

Cue rapid retreat and search for pyjama pants.  Teen will be back next weekend and clothes around the house will again be a thing.

[Little Sherri]

On 11/30/2019 at 7:03 PM, oznl said:

Changing into my night nappy, I saw the first tell-tale signs of nappy rash in the relevant areas.  Quelle horreur!  A double-dose of sudo-crème overnight seems to have steered me out of that ditch based on the visual evidence of this morning’s diaper change however.

The Gods be thanked, I seem to have conquered the diaper rash monster. I have had some really bad ones in my time; I'm fairly convinced that diaper rash once sent me to the hospital - back when I was only wearing diapers at night and on the odd day when nobody was home, an ingrown hair went septic in the nether regions and formed an abscess that everyone thought was a hernia, and tried to push back inside, which I thought was the definition of "excruciating", until they determined via sonogram what it actually was, and then fed a needle roughly the diameter of a drinking straw into it. I still feel like I need to talk to somebody about that; the fact that I let them do that to me while I apologized profusely for my grunts and sharp intakes of breath and occasional involuntary arm motions says something fundamental about how my psyche is constructed. If I set about doing that to my unrestrained dog, he would undoubtedly attempt to kill me at some point, and deservedly so. 

Now, I am religious about using diaper cream, and there are a couple of cheaper supermarket nappy brands that are on my "emergencies only" list. However, I don't live in a subtropical environment; water here is currently a solid in its natural form. We do get a good 6 - 8 weeks of humid weather in the summer, with occasional forays above 30 C, but homes, cars and offices are for the most part air conditioned so relief is generally close at hand. 

[oznl]

13 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I'm fairly convinced that diaper rash once sent me to the hospital - back when I was only wearing diapers at night and on the odd day when nobody was home, an ingrown hair went septic in the nether regions and formed an abscess that everyone thought was a hernia, and tried to push back inside, which I thought was the definition of "excruciating", until they determined via sonogram what it actually was, and then fed a needle roughly the diameter of a drinking straw into it.

I had a few of those early on.  Naturally, I managed my own day-surgery using tools dipped on isopropyl alcohol and liberal quantities of isopropyl alcohol to clean the crime scene.  I think this must be because subconsciously I must enjoy cavorting about the en-suite bellowing obscenities.

I've switched to a hair trimmer and the ingrown hair problem seems to have gone away.

14 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

We do get a good 6 - 8 weeks of humid weather in the summer, with occasional forays above 30 C, but homes, cars and offices are for the most part air conditioned so relief is generally close at hand. 

We have massive amounts of air conditioning around the house but I'm a bit disinclined to use it routinely.  Firstly, we have some of the most expensive electricity in the world and secondly,  I just can't see the point of living at my latitude and fighting the heat.  We only use AC on the hotter days (and quite a bit in the bedroom at night lately).  In the evening, open windows, ceiling fans and perspiration seem to do the job.

14 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

water here is currently a solid in its natural form.

This happened at my place once about a decade ago.  There was a light frost on car windshields.  It made the news that night...  Sometimes I think it might be amusing for it to snow here just to see what happens.

Anyway, I seemed to have managed that rash away before it ever really got going - we are back to normal now.  I think it was a combination walking around wet for a long day in high temperatures.

[Newbee]

That’s why I use nappy rash cream everyday at work as I’m constantly walking around at work and I work in hot kitchen. 
By the onzl I wore a betterdry nappy to work for the first time today and I understand why you wear them to work. 

[oznl]

On 12/4/2018 at 10:17 PM, oznl said:

Last Saturday after a multi-year descent into desperation, I rolled the dice on my 30-year marriage.  I told her that with my headspace today, I can no longer keep my nappy thing inside the ever-narrowing swim lanes she is painting for them and that henceforth, I will be wearing a lot more and at my discretion.  Furthermore, I have told her that this wearing will include at least some period of experimental 24x7 usage.   She has opted to continue our partnership.  I feel bad and good all at the same time in a kind of cold, clear air of shared truth.

Wow.  That was one whole year ago.  That's a bit of a head-spin.

[oznl]

And so it seems I have spent the last 8 months continuously diapered, have been diapered for 10.5 months of the last 12 (I had to take a 4 week sabbatical back last March) and it’s been a whole year since I rebelled against the one-night-per-week rationing system I’d been living under.

This week I accomplished the office Christmas party in nappies: for a beer-based afternoon/evening event followed by a bus trip home (I traded driving for beer) I think even mainstream vanilla people would appreciate the overwhelming convenience of a high quality, high capacity, comfortable adult diaper under plastic pants if only they could get past their inhibitions.

As the event segued directly from the office toward the end of the working day, I had to use the office complex disabled toilet to change myself into a fresh BetterDry before leaving.  This necessitated walking through the office and past reception carrying a fresh nappy (folded up in a dark cloth bag) but I don’t think anybody took any notice.  A few café patrons watched me retreat into the disabled bathroom to re-emerge 5 minutes later minus the bag (empty, it was in my pocket) but I doubt I was even noticed.

I enjoyed my beer and my dinner.  I, perhaps uniquely, never queued for the bathroom.   I’m not sure how undiapered people managed bus trips after beer parties.  I was comfortable throughout.  For the bus journey home, I sat quietly up the back dribbling nearly continuously but the seat remained dry.  I don’t know how I would have made the trip otherwise.  Off the bus, I was still weeing all the way up the hill walking toward home.  It was dark, I was wearing dark jeans and I was so close to home so I didn’t really care if I leaked but the amazing BetterDry held the line.

It was a little bulky down there at the end though, a bit like wearing a recently dead cat, kind of soft, warm and heavy swinging around between your legs.  Not that I’ve ever worn a dead cat you understand, it’s just a guess.

Home, shower, cloth diapers and bed.

Clear signs of emerging dependency are somewhat hard to spot, potentially camouflaged as they are by habitual use.  It remains difficult to precisely remember using my nappy during the night but this could be as much to do with banal normality of doing so as it could be genuine sleep-wetting.  Wetter-than-expected morning diapers routinely happen a couple of times per week now.  The thought of having to get up to pee is even more unattractive to me now than it was when I started and I suspect I don’t care anymore if I become a bedwetter.  It’s possible I already am one.

Daytime usage fluctuates wildly.  Some days are near-normal and I’m just an odd person who chooses to wet diapers every 10 – 20m instead of waiting and going to a bathroom.  Other days, I seem to experience near continuous urges, trying to use a toilet seems like an enormous burden and just possibly, there might be a bit of unbidden dripping happening down there. The evidence is vague for this though.  I’m usually wet to some extent anyway and so a bit of extra wetness is at best an ambiguous signal.  As usual, I’ll wait and see.

I’ve STILL no interest in going back to big-boy-underwear.  None at all.  It’s clear to me that were it not for the pressure from others, I would have fully mentally resolved my diapered status as permanent and moved on.  As it happens, there is still some domestic unease and like a cat prepared to jump out of danger’s way, I remain poised for flight back to continence if something radical happens.

For now, I’ll just press on with month 9.

[oznl]

Domestic challenge #231

“I’ve booked the cleaner to come and do the house next Friday, she’ll be here about 7:30…” my wife mentioned to me casually over breakfast this morning.

The periodic presence of a paid cleaner is an ongoing friction point in this house.  I don’t understand why it’s necessary to pay a cleaner when there’s a perfectly good teenager who does absolutely NOTHING in terms of contributing to domestic maintenance and said cleaner won’t even touch the teen bedroom because aforementioned teen doesn’t arise before 10:30 am at least.  Yes, said teen is a “university student” but classes (such as they are) consume no more than about 5 hours per week and in any case, university finished for the year in early November and will not resume until next March.

There’s also little co-incidence about the choice of day.  Friday is my “work from home” day.

Freed from the tyranny of commuting, I can lounge around in bed until say, 07:30, peel off a rather wet cloth night nappy and change into a traditional kite-folded and pinned terry nappy under plastic pants, rinse the night nappy, leaving it in the laundry tub to soak, make a coffee and still be online for an 8am conference call.

“Right then…”  I replied.  “I’d better make sure that I’m up and suitably dressed”.

“Yes you will” she replied with what looked a lot like a “cat that got the canary” smirk.

I suspect that what we have here is a turn of the screw from the Mahatma Ghandi playbook of passive resistance.

The cleaner has been a highly intermittent visitor in our lives: largely because of my antipathy toward it (an antipathy backed by my willingness and habit of undertaking routine household cleaning chores).  

Previous (and infrequent) cleaner appearances have been associated with requests to remove or conceal all evidence that I wear nappies.

The nappy-footprint in the house is more than you think it would be.  There are folded cloth nappies in the walk-in-robe.  There are a couple of opened packs of disposables under the bed.  There are waterproof pants airing out.  There’s a nappy bin in my study.  On Friday’s there would be cloth night nappies soaking in the laundry tub.

I am planning on not fully complying.

I’m willing to stash a wet cloth night nappy somewhere for the hour or two until she’s gone as that might be smelly.  I’ll be in my terries but under capacious, dark shorts.

If the cleaner wants to forage under the bed, she’ll find adult nappies.  If she looks hard enough in the walk-in-robe, she will see more nappies and waterproofs. 

It’s my house too.  I’m the one who paid for it.

I expect there to be a dispute about this closer to Friday.

[Greybird]

Hi Oznl, We have had many cleaners over the years and all have had the nappy display to deal with and most have been positive. My wife had a high powered job in London city so I organised the domestics. I have been changed by two of our cleaners and one, who was a great seamstress, made me some nappies. If I felt like  it I used to walk around the house in t-shirt and nappy with plastic pants and only had one who was uncomfortable with it, so I covered up and hid the nappies, but with all the others I told them I needed nappies and they were fine. I never pushed the subject, rather just left the evidence (clean always) lying around. With one I discovered she had cleaned out a wardrobe and reorganised the nappies and plastic pants and on another occasion, when I was working from home, I went into the kitchen to find the lovely lady emptying the washing machine and shaking out the plastic pants. There was one who would bring her daughter in holiday time and I would cover up and there would be no evidence of the nappies, respect always. They ranged in age from 30s to 60s.
People are much more broad-minded than we give them credit for, cleaners, like hotel staff, see stuff!!! For most it is all just part of looking into other peoples lives, temporarily. 

 

[oznl]

It’s been a soggy week on the night diaper front with at least three out of the last seven nights involving a saturated night diaper that I can’t remember saturating.  This is an outcome that is clearly escalating in frequency.

One inexplicably-wet night was associated with the reappearance of the seldom-these-days-seen “diaper dream” but it was a bit different to its predecessors.

Whilst I’m not 100% recalling, the gist of it was that I dreamed that I was laying in bed at night wetting my nappy.  The physical sensation of doing this was remarkably realistic for the Molicare-under-trainers I was wearing and the pattern of wetness suggested I was laying on my back.  I could feel a gentle trickling across my crotch and down my perineum to make my bum wet.

I can’t remember having any particular opinion about this and in contrast to previous pee dreams, there was no great build-up of escalating “I need to pee” scenarios.  I wasn’t even aware OF a need to pee.  I just became aware that I was wetting my nappy and that was ok.  This dream was more documentary than drama.

Of course, if you are dreaming a vivid sensation of wetting yourself in bed and you have insight that this is what is happening and you really ARE actually wetting yourself in bed, is it a dream at all?  How would I know?  What is real?  Are we living in the Matrix?  Does it matter?  What would Descartes say?

Except it wasn’t MY bed I thought I was in.  At least not my current one.  I “knew” I was in a bed in  a bedroom from a house I’d moved out of nearly 14 years ago in a city 500 miles away.  I was sleeping in the distant past.  It had to be a dream.

The next morning’s wet nappy was definitely not a dream though.  It was distinctly “now” and “local”. 

Yesterday morning I did it again (sans dream), waking up to discover my nappy was in fact drenched with no recollection of me deliberately doing so.  As I changed out of it into my day-nappy, I also realised that the terry lining on my waterproof trainers was also pee-sodden around my right hip (with a very small bonus wetting down between my legs due to sheer overflow).  It appeared that I had wet myself laying on my side.  This isn’t something I would do in a disposable in bed deliberately as I’d know it would be a recipe for rising damp. 

There is a recurring pattern to these nights now and I suspect at this point, I would have to formally regard myself as an adult intermittent bedwetter:  strange days indeed.

[Newbee]

Hi onzl 

how are you feeling about waking up in a soaked nappy?

[oznl]

1 hour ago, Newbee said:

Hi onzl 

how are you feeling about waking up in a soaked nappy?

That’s a REALLY good question and I had to pause and think before replying.

I think I’m feeling a combination of disbelief and dislocation.

Disbelief insofar as a part of my brain is denying that this is happening.  There is a big part of me that remains convinced that I am in fact, waking up to wet but simply not remembering doing it the next morning.  Having said that, vividly dreaming about wetting in “the wrong bed” whilst actually doing it and having evidence of wetting laying on my side (a practice I would never undertake in a disposable whilst awake due to the risk leak) suggests that I was NOT “online” when those wettings took place.  I have claimed bedwetting because that’s what the stronger evidence says but a large part of my brain still hasn't signed off on this.

Dislocation insofar as I find myself reacting with a curious, distant neutrality toward what many others may regard as a personal catastrophe: the resumption of bedwetting as an adult (albeit still rarely).  Why am I not aghast that this has started to occur and furiously concentrating on reversing any new habit forming in this regard?  I don’t know.  Perhaps part of my conflicted headspace is anesthetised by disbelief.

I wonder if I am taking this sufficiently seriously.  I feel a little bit like a tourist in a war zone sometimes.

[Stroller]

I'm surprised this hasn't happened to me as yet.  Given that night-time is the only time I'm not in nappies it would be a bit more serious if it did!

[oznl]

On 12/13/2019 at 6:36 PM, Stroller said:

I'm surprised this hasn't happened to me as yet.  Given that night-time is the only time I'm not in nappies it would be a bit more serious if it did!

My hunch is that my subconscious has learned that such behaviour is to be "permitted" (and not worthy of fully wakening)  but would thus not occur outside the context of being in nappies but it's still something to consider for those dabbling with 24/7.  I have no evidence at all for this supposition ?

As a postscript to my previous commentary, on Friday night I slept dry.  Well, I wasn’t really dry because I went to bed a bit wet but could clearly remember waking up every few hours and wetting some more.  That didn’t bother me because I don’t stay awake for any length of time as I don’t actually get up or, since I was wearing cloth, even bother to move.  You’d think if ANY night I was to be relaxed enough not to wake up properly to wet it would be when I’m in my bullet-proof cloth diapers but whatever.

Saturday night I went to bed dry (Molicare + waterproof trainers), sleeping under the AC again due to yet-again, high heat and humidity overnight (it’s been a very trying summer in South East Queensland this year and it’s hardly even begun).

I stirred for some reason at 4:33am (that’s what the clock radio said), I don't know why.  The first thing I’d almost reflexively do when stirring like that is empty out whatever might be in my bladder into my nappies.

I discovered that this was unnecessary as it seems the matter had been taken care of at some earlier point and I was already wet.  It's a bit hard to feel in a high quality disposable but a moment of confusion as to why the "tank was empty" and a cautious dab inside my nappy indicating moist conditions and I just fell back asleep for vivid dreams about large houses (no diaper content).

This is the third time that I think I've wet myself during the night without realising in the last seven days..

 

[Sarahs]

The joys of being a woman.

In the office my desk is right beside the toilet entrance and my leakage is such that I can survive in a pull-up with a pad inside it, if I go to the toilet every couple of hours I can change the pad and just keep wearing the same pull-up, I only work 6 hour days and can use 2 pads at work and a fresh one in the mostly dry pull-up when I leave work gives me about 3 hours to get home, plenty of time to do groceries or mall etc on my way home. In winter I can wear plastic pants over the pull-up for that additional security.

I use cloth at home as it is cheaper and more practical although it does create mountains of washing and in summer plastic pants are not my favorite thing.

The other joy.of being a woman is pantie girdles and body shapers are great to hide diapers and pull-ups and have been a part of.my wardrobe since I was a teen.

I work 6 hours or more 5 days a week and have been at the same law firm for 11 years and I still don't think anyone has figured out my incontinence.

 

[Little Sherri]

On 12/12/2019 at 8:58 PM, oznl said:

Disbelief insofar as a part of my brain is denying that this is happening.  There is a big part of me that remains convinced that I am in fact, waking up to wet but simply not remembering doing it the next morning.  Having said that, vividly dreaming about wetting in “the wrong bed” whilst actually doing it and having evidence of wetting laying on my side (a practice I would never undertake in a disposable whilst awake due to the risk leak) suggests that I was NOT “online” when those wettings took place.  I have claimed bedwetting because that’s what the stronger evidence says but a large part of my brain still hasn't signed off on this.

Dislocation insofar as I find myself reacting with a curious, distant neutrality toward what many others may regard as a personal catastrophe: the resumption of bedwetting as an adult (albeit still rarely).  Why am I not aghast that this has started to occur and furiously concentrating on reversing any new habit forming in this regard?  I don’t know.  Perhaps part of my conflicted headspace is anesthetised by disbelief.

I understand what you're describing completely, and this very closely mirrors my feelings when "it" happens - or when I think "it" has happened, "it" being an uninitiated bedwetting. It seems to have happened to you more often than me, but going from once a year to four times a year is still a 400% increase. When I wake up in a soaked nappy seemingly without having stirred all night, I am both exhilarated, and a little unnerved. There is also a definite sense of nostalgia, or perhaps familiarity is a better word, to the sensation. I used to wake up in a soaked diaper at least a few days a week, though back then I never wet my diaper deliberately before I went to sleep, (though I sometimes did in the morning if I woke up and had to pee). But I recall that sense of not being fully in command of myself - I would pledge to myself that I wasn't going to wet the bed on a particular night, even engage in bargaining with "God" (my parents weren't religious people, but felt that I needed to know about God, so the version I got was, well, there's this fellow in the sky who knows everything and is making all the big calls, plus he gave us Christmas, although as an aside, Santa Claus and God are from completely different departments and don't know each other - anyway, we go to church two or three times a year to please Him (God, not Santa), and you can ask Him for things, but generally to no avail, and if you have any questions, I think there's a bible in the bookshelf).  But inevitably I'd wet the bed within a night or two. 

Except now I'm not mad at myself when it happens - I'm strangely pleased with myself. My daytime wearing could conceivably have to be shelved at some point due to spousal blowback or career demands (maybe if I became an acrobat or belly dancer), but I really don't think I could ever go to bed without a diaper on again - I just would not sleep very well.  

Daytime use has provided me very little evidence that anything happens by itself, though in a decent disposable, as you point out, it can be really hard to tell. The closest I have come to losing any daytime control has been not being aware that I am still dribbling, long after initiating a transfer, when I assume it must be finished - it's like I have to open the tap, but then it has autonomy about when to close again. Also, not peeing every 20 minutes or so can cause feelings that used to occur only after several hours, although, again, this seems to be somewhat arbitrary - the odd time when I'm engrossed in work, I might realize 40 minutes or an hour after changing that my diaper is still dry, and so I'll let some out, because nappies generally deal better with regular light showers than intermittent tsunamis. But, on another day, I'll get a spike of urgency in less time than that if I haven't been going. 

It would be really convenient if I could just authorize an automated transfer with a time limit - say, okay, for the next three hours, dribble at will, but then check back for further authorization. I've read about people catheterizing themselves and then letting it drain into a diaper, which essentially mimics urinary incontinence, but with an opt-out feature. However I have zero interest in performing medical experiments on my plumbing - I know, down to the core of my being, that doing so would eventually result in a difficult conversation with an ER triage nurse, followed by a meeting with a team of highly-paid, highly educated professionals trying to keep straight faces under raised eyebrows, while I lie on a bed wearing a gown rolled up to my bellybutton. 

[oznl]

When I started down this road, more than one year ago, I’d thought I might last a week or two.  I can even quote myself (blogs enable that):  On Friday December 7, I said “I think I am half-hoping that I will spend a week or two diapered, get bored with it and move on with life with this aspect of myself more in proportion with the rest of me.”

I can recall (apart from the idea I might become bored with it) mindfulness of an array of social or logistical challenges which would see me scurrying back to the land of the conventionally-underweared. 

It turned out that I just dealt with those challenges (in a nappy) and moved on.  I can write off driving past those warning posts as  “adaptable”, “innovative” or any one of half a dozen other self-affirming adjectives.

 

Signs of dependency was certainly one of the challenges however for which I thought I would pull the pin.  It’s harder to think of an affirmative adjective for becoming a bedwetter.

Since I gave up obligatory bedwetting in 1968 (almost completely), the fact that since August, I have drifted into doing it at least once per week would seem to suggest the dependency IS a thing.

I’m bewildered at myself for being so sanguine about it all:  “oh well, sometimes I wet the bed, that will be something to think about at the next sleepover!”

It’s strange but my daytime control is very similar to yours.  Mostly usable, reduced range, some evidence of dripping but I could probably stop it if It thought about it more.  The complete reverse of the experience of so many others.

I'd hate not to wear a nappy at night though.  I listen to my wife get up once, sometimes twice, and feel remarkably smug.

[oznl]

Newbie mistake #347

Going on Christmas holidays in a southern hemispheric tropical climate and forgetting that you have a nylon laundry sack containing a used BetterDry from your last day at the office stuffed into the laptop case under your desk in the study until four days later…

The nappy has now gone but its memory lives on in my laptop bag and amazingly, the laptop within it.

[Newbee]

I guess you won’t make that mistake again onzl.

[Little Sherri]

18 hours ago, oznl said:

The nappy has now gone but its memory lives on in my laptop bag and amazingly, the laptop within it.

Oh wow, yes, "that" scent can have an amazing afterlife, haunting surfaces or vessels seemingly forever. My experiences with this come from a job I had a decade ago that took me into long term care homes, many of which were haunted by the immutable uric undertones of people, and incidents, long past, and then of course there is the Diaper Genies I had when my kids were young, which were never handed down, given away, nor resold - they required burning, ideally, but if that was impractical, then entombment, after an exorcism, once their purpose had been served. I have considered buying a new one, now that my beloved knows about my preference for plastic underwear, but it would be hard to explain to the kids, and also, a soaked Better Dry has the size and weight of a deceased raccoon, whereas the Diaper Genie engineering whiteboard would have listed maybe an L-XL adolescent's pull-up as the outer design limit. 

I did leave a mildly-dampened reusable absorbent change pad in my office closet, which I use if I'm "in the saddle" for long periods in my office, in case of a product failure. I didn't realize it had seen fire, and the next time I went to retrieve it, maybe four days later, when I pulled it out of the sack I keep it in, while not overwhelming, the scent was notable. 

[oznl]

After lashings of enzymatic cleaner-spray, my laptop and laptop case now smell like my diaper bin: the sweet odour of vanilla beans and deception. 

It’s Christmas eve already here in Queensland (yes, our time zone is UTC + 10 so we live in the future - except compared to those of us from New Zealand).

The day started early with my wife getting up at 6am to head down to the local Fisho (there’s a Queensland word for your dictionaries) to collect her Christmas order of tiger prawns (they are prawns here, not shrimp, don’t listen to Paul Hogan, they are in fact a completely different species and putting them on the barbie just kills the flavour).  After her return, we drank coffee on the back deck under the fans as she graciously pretended not to notice that I was revealingly clad in only short pyjamas and a rather soggy night nappy.  I got changed/dressed later – it’s Christmas so standards do slip.

After months of unrelenting drought and bushfire (it really has been one hell of a spring climatically speaking here), 9am this morning has so far produced dull grey skies at 29C (85F) and 80% humidity with the weather bureau warning of the possibility of severe thunderstorms.  That should produce some turbulence on the sleigh flight.

With one eye on the sky, I might just take a quick look at our backup generator this morning (I'm a tech-nerd so naturally there is one).

Murphy’s law would have us sweating on an electricity-free back deck with a swimming pool full of fallen tree debris, watching 1 kilogram of tiger prawns decomposing in the heat on Christmas day.

It occurred to me that tomorrow will be the first Christmas morning that I will have woken up wet since 1967 as I did not commence 24x7 operation until Dec 27 last year.  In stark contrast to my last nappy-clad Christmas morning, I will refrain from being photographed playing with my new toys wearing nothing but a nappy.  I think the world can do without that image.

I hope all on DD have a great Christmas day to the extent possible (I’m not that much of a Christmas person myself, I’ll be over the whole thing by about 10am) and thanks for following my saga.

[oznl]

The one year update...

It is 12 months ago today that I pulled on a cloth diaper and plastic pants before putting on my shorts, nothing usual there.   The fact that I had been diapered only a couple of days previous was also not unusual as I had  rejected the maritally-tolerated nappy rationing system imposed upon me some weeks earlier.  What WAS unusual was that this day’s diapering had no specific time or date set for conclusion.  With an absence of fanfare suitable for such an obscure and curious endeavour, I went “24/7” as the ABDL vernacular goes.

Despite a 4-week sabbatical in March driven by a combination of spousal promise (real) and operational necessity (perceived), I remained diapered for the next year.  I am still diapered today.  Accordingly, I will disregard the inconvenience of that short break and issue a “one year” update:

So, how’s it been?

First up, I’ve been surprised about just how persistent my obsession for using nappies has proven to be.  There have been some fluctuations here and there with respect to the overall level of enthusiasm but there has been no point over the year where I seriously considered just not bothering with the next change.  My odd preference has proved neither episodic nor ephemeral but rather a kind of a psychological constant for which nappies are a therapy, not a cure.

Secondly, after spending a year in them, one gets VERY good at managing their nappies.  Initially, the logistical and social challenges associated with planning for work, travel, changes, rashes, leaks, odours, disposal, privacy etc. seem overwhelming and mistakes do get made.  Over time, routines and experience take the sharp edges of these barriers and we learn to navigate around them.  Things do get easier but it can be a surprisingly expensive hobby.

Thirdly, in terms of marriage, I still have one although having one spouse unilaterally decide to wear (and use, if only mainly for wetting) nappies cannot exactly be described as a marital tonic.  Our sex life which was already suffering under my flagging capacity and enthusiasm, has deteriorated further to be nearly non-existent.  On the face of it, this appears to be by mutual, tacit consent and to be fair to myself, the advent of her own menopause may also have been of ineffable agency here.  It may also have oddly helped that an unrelated familial crisis did occasionally relegate this one of my own making, back into second place.  After one year, she has learned not to see selected items, to avoid me at certain times in the bathroom, not to waste too much emotional energy with censure and NEVER approach the lidded bin in my study.  Cordial social discourse has returned but I don’t push things.

Fourthly, I should make comment on incontinence, the ABDL stalking horse for permanency.

It hasn’t been a “12 month guide” scenario for me but then again, I did not specifically seek that.  Although I have not consciously exercised bladder control to any significant extent for at least the last 9 months of this year, I am fairly confident that I remain with usable, if less-than-pristine daytime continence.  There have been the odd unauthorised drips and dribbles.  There are also likely some questions of reduced bladder capacity and increased urgency but fully evaluating these outcomes would require an effort at practicing continence that I remain curiously disinclined to make.  Suffice to say that after 12 months, I’m awfully good at effortlessly wetting my pants: anywhere, anytime.  I suspect that if taken out of nappies, I might wet my pants simply because I wouldn’t think in advance NOT to but that’s not loss of control, that’s forgetting to control.

In sharp contrast with the experience of others however, night times are a very different scenario.  I seem to have fallen off a plateau of simple habituation toward in-bed nappy wetting and have drifted with accelerating velocity towards waking up wet in the mornings with little or no recollection as to how this happened.  If for some reason, I needed to come out of nappies quickly, during the day I am confident I could, with care, do so just so long as I stayed close to a toilet and thought about things.  At night at this point, I would continue to wear a nappy as a precautionary measure as I simply no longer trust myself. 

Fifthly, I’ve actually lost all my grown-up underwear.  It appears that like socks and pens, left to their own devices, underpants disappear, as if organised by some remote escape committee, in order to make their way towards a refuge-planet in accordance with Douglas Adam’s theory.  My “underwear” drawer became a full time “plastic pants” and compression pant drawer back in April.  For the life of me, I don’t know where my underpants went.  I thought they were in the bottom of my nappy hamper but an archaeological dig the other day suggests otherwise.  I eventually struck wicker but not polyester/cotton.  They have fled.  I wish them “bon voyage”.

So, here’s the big one, the metaphysical elephant in the room so to speak: am I happier?

This is surprisingly hard to answer.

Like any year, its had ups and downs.  Unlike any year, there have been other familial crisis.  It is therefore to be expected that I did not spend 12 months skipping through a soft-focus field strewn with rose petals but nor did I spend it in the dark smouldering fugue that was November 2018.

I have regrets.  What I do is not normal and it exacts a toll on my spouse as well as me and imposes some limits upon what else I can do and will do.  I may be making irreversible changes to myself.  For example, I have become a some-times adult bedwetter AND I remain curiously undisturbed by this development.  That’s two potentially-irreversible changes for the price of one.

On an upside, I’ve met a lot of interesting people: it seems that our small “.alt” world is skewed toward the intelligent and the thoughtful.  There are a number of people on this forum (and if you think you might be one of these, you probably are) whom I would like to integrate into my mainstream life as friends, if only I could think of some way of doing this without having my wife convinced I was trying to organise a gay sex orgy.

There is one other positive that still holds true today: I still can’t get it out of my head that what I am having here is some kind of extended “holiday”.  As I ruefully consider that my rather-comfortable night nappy has been on rather a long time and I really need (for the sake of the furniture) to take it off, I then have that small happy consolation that instead of taking off my nappy, I’ll simply change it and carry on.   I’m still on holidays.

That still makes me happy today.  The thought of NOT being in a nappy makes me depressed.  I’m always in a nappy.  Ipso facto, I must be happier.

I’m thinking about writing an alternate 12-month guide for the more lackadaisical 24/7 diaper enthusiast such as myself.  The working title: “The Tourist’s Guide to Twelve Months in Nappies” if people are interested.   Maybe I could even get it made a sticky post.

[Tadpole]

Oznl, it has been wonderful to follow your progress through this thread - so many questions I've had for years have been answered and in a most eloquent and entertaining way. And our off-list discussions have supported me in so many other ways too - it has been quite a year. Thanks!

Tad.

[Greybird]

16 hours ago, oznl said:

The one year update...

It is 12 months ago today that I pulled on a cloth diaper and plastic pants before putting on my shorts, nothing usual there.   The fact that I had been diapered only a couple of days previous was also not unusual as I had  rejected the maritally-tolerated nappy rationing system imposed upon me some weeks earlier.  What WAS unusual was that this day’s diapering had no specific time or date set for conclusion.  With an absence of fanfare suitable for such an obscure and curious endeavour, I went “24/7” as the ABDL vernacular goes.

 

Despite a 4-week sabbatical in March driven by a combination of spousal promise (real) and operational necessity (perceived), I remained diapered for the next year.  I am still diapered today.  Accordingly, I will disregard the inconvenience of that short break and issue a “one year” update:

 

So, how’s it been?

 

First up, I’ve been surprised about just how persistent my obsession for using nappies has proven to be.  There have been some fluctuations here and there with respect to the overall level of enthusiasm but there has been no point over the year where I seriously considered just not bothering with the next change.  My odd preference has proved neither episodic nor ephemeral but rather a kind of a psychological constant for which nappies are a therapy, not a cure.

 

Secondly, after spending a year in them, one gets VERY good at managing their nappies.  Initially, the logistical and social challenges associated with planning for work, travel, changes, rashes, leaks, odours, disposal, privacy etc. seem overwhelming and mistakes do get made.  Over time, routines and experience take the sharp edges of these barriers and we learn to navigate around them.  Things do get easier but it can be a surprisingly expensive hobby.

 

Thirdly, in terms of marriage, I still have one although having one spouse unilaterally decide to wear (and use, if only mainly for wetting) nappies cannot exactly be described as a marital tonic.  Our sex life which was already suffering under my flagging capacity and enthusiasm, has deteriorated further to be nearly non-existent.  On the face of it, this appears to be by mutual, tacit consent and to be fair to myself, the advent of her own menopause may also have been of ineffable agency here.  It may also have oddly helped that an unrelated familial crisis did occasionally relegate this one of my own making, back into second place.  After one year, she has learned not to see selected items, to avoid me at certain times in the bathroom, not to waste too much emotional energy with censure and NEVER approach the lidded bin in my study.  Cordial social discourse has returned but I don’t push things.

 

Fourthly, I should make comment on incontinence, the ABDL stalking horse for permanency.

 

It hasn’t been a “12 month guide” scenario for me but then again, I did not specifically seek that.  Although I have not consciously exercised bladder control to any significant extent for at least the last 9 months of this year, I am fairly confident that I remain with usable, if less-than-pristine daytime continence.  There have been the odd unauthorised drips and dribbles.  There are also likely some questions of reduced bladder capacity and increased urgency but fully evaluating these outcomes would require an effort at practicing continence that I remain curiously disinclined to make.  Suffice to say that after 12 months, I’m awfully good at effortlessly wetting my pants: anywhere, anytime.  I suspect that if taken out of nappies, I might wet my pants simply because I wouldn’t think in advance NOT to but that’s not loss of control, that’s forgetting to control.

 

In sharp contrast with the experience of others however, night times are a very different scenario.  I seem to have fallen off a plateau of simple habituation toward in-bed nappy wetting and have drifted with accelerating velocity towards waking up wet in the mornings with little or no recollection as to how this happened.  If for some reason, I needed to come out of nappies quickly, during the day I am confident I could, with care, do so just so long as I stayed close to a toilet and thought about things.  At night at this point, I would continue to wear a nappy as a precautionary measure as I simply no longer trust myself. 

 

Fifthly, I’ve actually lost all my grown-up underwear.  It appears that like socks and pens, left to their own devices, underpants disappear, as if organised by some remote escape committee, in order to make their way towards a refuge-planet in accordance with Douglas Adam’s theory.  My “underwear” drawer became a full time “plastic pants” and compression pant drawer back in April.  For the life of me, I don’t know where my underpants went.  I thought they were in the bottom of my nappy hamper but an archaeological dig the other day suggests otherwise.  I eventually struck wicker but not polyester/cotton.  They have fled.  I wish them “bon voyage”.

 

So, here’s the big one, the metaphysical elephant in the room so to speak: am I happier?

 

This is surprisingly hard to answer.

 

Like any year, it’s had ups and downs.  Unlike any year, there have been other familial crisis.  It is therefore to be expected that I did not spend 12 months skipping through a soft-focus field strewn with rose petals but nor did I spend it in the dark smouldering fugue that was November 2018.

 

I have regrets.  What I do is not normal and it exacts a toll on my spouse as well as me and imposes some limits upon what else I can do and will do.  I may be making irreversible changes to myself.  For example, I have become a some-times adult bedwetter AND I remain curiously undisturbed by this development.  That’s two potentially-irreversible changes for the price of one.

 

On an upside, I’ve met a lot of interesting people: it seems that our small “.alt” world is skewed toward the intelligent and the thoughtful.  There are a number of people on this forum (and if you think you might be one of these, you probably are) whom I would like to integrate into my mainstream life as friends, if only I could think of some way of doing this without having my wife convinced I was trying to organise a gay sex orgy.

 

There is one other positive that still holds true today: I still can’t get it out of my head that what I am having here is some kind of extended “holiday”.  As I ruefully consider that my rather-comfortable night nappy has been on rather a long time and I really need (for the sake of the furniture) to take it off, I then have that small happy consolation that instead of taking off my nappy, I’ll simply change it and carry on.   I’m still on holidays.

 

That still makes me happy today.  The thought of NOT being in a nappy makes me depressed.  I’m always in a nappy.  Ipso facto, I must be happier.

 

I’m thinking about writing an alternate 12-month guide for the more lackadaisical 24/7 diaper enthusiast such as myself.  The working title: “The Tourist’s Guide to Twelve Months in Nappies” if people are interested.   Maybe I could even get it made a sticky post.

 

As usual, Oznl, a most insightful  post. I’ll just add a couple of observations of my own, especially on the incontinence front. I decided to go 24/7 some 6/7 years ago and like you I loved it. I felt oddly fulfilled. It was the culmination of over 40 years of desires/needs/wants to be in nappies, which caused turmoil in my poor adult brain. I have always had a small bladder and it never grew, so nappies were the rationalisation. I have been a bedwetter almost all my life so that never phased me. Fast forward to prostate operation and compulsory incontinence. Pre op, I did have some control albeit with urgency, post op, none. I now have to plan how long one nappy will last, will it be discrete, will it be seen and do I care, which is the most comfortable especially when wet? What to do at the beach? My point is, it’s different, there is no longer any option, no going back. Do I mind, no, not really, it’s now just down to better planning.

[oznl]

5 hours ago, Greybird said:

As usual, Oznl, a most insightful  post. I’ll just add a couple of observations of my own, especially on the incontinence front. I decided to go 24/7 some 6/7 years ago and like you I loved it. I felt oddly fulfilled. It was the culmination of over 40 years of desires/needs/wants to be in nappies, which caused turmoil in my poor adult brain. I have always had a small bladder and it never grew, so nappies were the rationalisation. I have been a bedwetter almost all my life so that never phased me. Fast forward to prostate operation and compulsory incontinence. Pre op, I did have some control albeit with urgency, post op, none. I now have to plan how long one nappy will last, will it be discrete, will it be seen and do I care, which is the most comfortable especially when wet? What to do at the beach? My point is, it’s different, there is no longer any option, no going back. Do I mind, no, not really, it’s now just down to better planning.

Thank you for sharing.  It's nice to know people are interested to read.  Your recent life experience of clinical incontinence colliding with a lifetime of ABDL inclination would be a very, very interesting tale for a lot of people wondering what a "cure" looks like...