Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[DL-Boy]

5 hours ago, Newbee said:

Sorry oznl stupid auto check but I guess it’s my fault for not proof reading.

I meant to ask how does it make you feel that you are forgetting how not to pee yourself.

I hope mentally you are able to cope with this.

Newbee, don't feel bad.  I'm constantly plagued by not so much "Auto-correct" since I use Swype on my Android device a lot, but rather with Swype entering the wrong word because it see multiple words that might come from the same swype trace, or I enter the word sloppily.  Since Swype isn't doing any predictive process for the next word, my posts sometimes come out as gibberish and when I go back to read them and make corrections, sometimes even *I* cannot figure out what I meant to say.

[Stroller]

I can't speak for oznl, but losing the ability to control when I wet really isn't a problem for me.  I'm in nappies all the time now, and will stay that way.  So it really doesn't matter.  Having no control is a big part of feeling little to me.  With luck I'll never have to find out whether I've lost control or not - why should I worry?

[DL-Boy]

9 minutes ago, Stroller said:

I can't speak for oznl, but losing the ability to control when I wet really isn't a problem for me.  I'm in nappies all the time now, and will stay that way.  So it really doesn't matter.  Having no control is a big part of feeling little to me.  With luck I'll never have to find out whether I've lost control or not - why should I worry?

How you doing with your viral infection?

[oznl]

15 hours ago, Newbee said:

Sorry oznl stupid auto check but I guess it’s my fault for not proof reading.

I meant to ask how does it make you feel that you are forgetting how not to pee yourself.

I hope mentally you are able to cope with this.

It will be interesting to see the first significant war that is instigated in part by auto-correct and its apparently deliberate attempts to undermine our communications ?  But, to your question...

In general, I’ve been quite surprised at my equanimity in the face of apparent physiological decline.

Although I was from the outset, abandoning the practice of urinary continence, I cannot recall having a specific objective to BECOME incontinent (and to date, I think I have NOT).  I was curious (I still am) but I was expecting, and I may have blogged as much, that I might pull out of this experiment should evidence of genuine physical dependency arise.

Clearly that hasn’t happened.

The closest I came to such an epiphany and abandonment was around 8 months ago when I woke up one morning in a wet nappy that I simply could not recall wetting.  That was something of a shock but a much milder one than I'd have expected.  Days subsequent to that event I came up with all sorts of rationalisations about how this may have occurred OUTSIDE the context of accidental bedwetting and additional salve was supplied by the lack of immediate repetition of this event.

Of course, it did happen again, and again, and again with slowly elevating frequency to the point where I will now almost habitually greet the dawn in a wet nappy that I will have at best only partial recollection of making.

My rationalisation engine chugs away still at this and I remain convinced that I am waking to use my nappy, just no longer waking enough to clearly remember doing so the next morning.  It logically follows therefore that without a nappy, I would not wet, therefore I am not a bedwetter.

As for day continence, I believe I still have it.  I cannot recall a significant quantity of pee that didn’t commence without my permission.  There have been the odd drips and dribbles but I suspect that those small damp patches relate to undrained urethras and previous events.  There’s also been times that I’ve unthinkingly or reflexively wet myself but again, I knew it was “ok”, I was in a safe nappy and if I’d been concentrating, I could have stopped it from happening anyway.

I suspect there is something of the “boiling the frog” parable here where changes occur are so slow and so subtle that they’re effectively invisible.  It may also be a little bit like dementia which is, in a strange way, its own anaesthetic.

There remain unanswered questions.  Clearly there have been some physiological changes (possibly atrophy) that now hinder my ability to STOP a pee once it has started.   That is a solid change that I CAN see.  More so however, untested and unknown is my current bladder capacity and whether or not I might experience urge incontinence if I tried to exploit that capacity.  This requires “real world” testing.  So does my bedwetting hypothesis.  There’s no point me testing these from within nappies because I know I’ll just semi-automatically use them.

Having lost the window of household privacy I would need (since visibly wet pants, bedding and puddles are potential risks) with the cancellation of other family members travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m still waiting for that opportunity to test.

I will be interested to see how I process any “failures” in real world bladder testing and if such an event would convince me to abandon nappies and attempt to re-train myself.

I believe however that the more likely scenario is that I’ll have frequency and urgency day and night for a while but remain dry, generally having a rotten time running to the bathroom a lot until I recover some dis-used muscle strength.

As an adherent of the “Renaissance Man” philosophy,  I shall use science and conduct an experiment when my circumstances permit ?

[oznl]

7 hours ago, Stroller said:

I can't speak for oznl, but losing the ability to control when I wet really isn't a problem for me.  I'm in nappies all the time now, and will stay that way.  So it really doesn't matter.  Having no control is a big part of feeling little to me.  With luck I'll never have to find out whether I've lost control or not - why should I worry?

I think this is a key critical difference between @Stroller and myself.  At his later stage in life, and probably under less pressure from his partner, he's able to "make the call" and resolve to remain permanently in nappies.  Working from home with a wife who still works out of an office, I've gotten a glimpse into how much easier that makes things.

I suspect if he's not yet a bed wetter, he soon will be in a similar sense that I am.  There's just no point properly waking up anyway.  As for his daytime continence, it is at best irrelevant so what of it?  Even if he has it, he won't be using it.

Always over my shoulder is the threat that i will be FORCED to come out of nappies, regardless of my wants but for the wants of others.  There remains the distinct chance that I will NEED to be continent next week.

I'm on holiday.  Stroller has emigrated.

Watch out for that 10 day COVID-19 drop @Stroller, nearly got Boris that one...

[Stroller]

5 hours ago, oznl said:

I think this is a key critical difference between @Stroller and myself.  At his later stage in life, and probably under less pressure from his partner, he's able to "make the call" and resolve to remain permanently in nappies.  Working from home with a wife who still works out of an office, I've gotten a glimpse into how much easier that makes things.

I suspect if he's not yet a bed wetter, he soon will be in a similar sense that I am.  There's just no point properly waking up anyway.  As for his daytime continence, it is at best irrelevant so what of it?  Even if he has it, he won't be using it.

Always over my shoulder is the threat that i will be FORCED to come out of nappies, regardless of my wants but for the wants of others.  There remains the distinct chance that I will NEED to be continent next week.

I'm on holiday.  Stroller has emigrated.

Watch out for that 10 day COVID-19 drop @Stroller, nearly got Boris that one...

Absolutely right there, oznl.  I can't see myself ever having to come out of nappies again, now my wife's accepted it.  And I imagine you're right about the bedwetting too - already I don't wake like I used to, and the wetting sometimes starts without warning when I'm still half asleep.

And as far as COVID19 is concerned, I'm now starting day 15.  It's turning out to be a very slow recovery process.

[oznl]

Last night just before dinner I changed out of my day-worn ABU Simple and dripping-wet plastic pants (only on the inside) and decided I'd best go for an evening-shift nappy and change that out for a night nappy before bed.

I'd run out of ID-Slip (been out of stock at my supplier for ages) and am running low on Molicare.

I found my *last* Tena Slip Maxi in a bag.

Later that evening, wet but far from saturated (I thought). I started wetting again sitting in my armchair watching Netflix.  Almost immediately I felt those slightly-cool rivulets running across both hips that told me of a significant leak.

As it was my "evening" shift, I was NOT wearing plastic pants.

As I have been wearing 24/7 for so long, i could NOT stop peeing!  I tried to but it didn't work!  In dismay, I felt my shorts dampen around me and I briefly panicked about audible droplets falling to the floor.  With the "stop" button disabled, I shifted to what I hoped was a less leaky position, sat as still as I could and let nature take its course.  I had no idea where it was all coming from.

Thank the deity of your choice for the camouflage of  black shorts and the dim evening lighting.  I had to wait for my wife to go to bed before I could stand up and start sponging and drying my leather chair.  My shorts were totaled.  The bottom of my T-shirt was also wet.

No more Tena...  You cannot be trusted.  We are done.

 

[DL-Boy]

Well I must have been dehydrated for the past 24 hrs.  My Abena L4 that I put on at 11 pm last night, lasted me until 7 pm today before it started showing signs of reaching capacity...  I'm now in one of my large Total Dry Plus and just received my sample packs of two large Total Dry Overnights and two large Total Dry X-Plus.  They don't feel very substantial but I am told that the X-Plus is the same product as the Bambino Bianco, but with a different printed landing zone.  If that's the case, it has to be pretty good.

And @oznl, I have never tried Tena.  Are they the same ones that some retailers sell or are they only through medical diaper suppliers?  And is it just me or have you also noticed that once reaching capacity, a tiny squirt more can literally pour OVER the top of the waistband, even if you are sitting upright?  I guess when they're fitted tightly to the body, once the padding is at capacity, any further liquid will either go with gravity if it can find an out, or UP & OVER if not.

[oznl]

19 hours ago, DL-Boy said:

Well I must have been dehydrated for the past 24 hrs.  My Abena L4 that I put on at 11 pm last night, lasted me until 7 pm today before it started showing signs of reaching capacity...  I'm now in one of my large Total Dry Plus and just received my sample packs of two large Total Dry Overnights and two large Total Dry X-Plus.  They don't feel very substantial but I am told that the X-Plus is the same product as the Bambino Bianco, but with a different printed landing zone.  If that's the case, it has to be pretty good.

And @oznl, I have never tried Tena.  Are they the same ones that some retailers sell or are they only through medical diaper suppliers?  And is it just me or have you also noticed that once reaching capacity, a tiny squirt more can literally pour OVER the top of the waistband, even if you are sitting upright?  I guess when they're fitted tightly to the body, once the padding is at capacity, any further liquid will either go with gravity if it can find an out, or UP & OVER if not.

Here in Australia, you can occasionally find Tena Slip Maxi retailed at Chemists (Drugstores) although these ones would have come in as part of a bulk order from a medical equipment supplier.  The range of adult nappies available at retail level in Australia is mostly pretty bad:  Depends, over-priced Molicare pull-ups and a few Tena.

The Abena L4 are available mail-order but they are quite expensive (many things become very expensive on their way to Australia).

Some people swear by Tena Slip Maxi but for me, they have been at best untrustworthy.  I tried them early on in my 24/7 phase back in late 2018 but quickly ditched them as a "daily driver" nappy.  The usual failure mode is that the cloth backing become curiously wet and dampening my outerwear or their absorbency simply not living up to anything like the claims.  Saturday night's pants-wetting fiasco was that pee simply poured out both sides of the front crotch into my shorts pockets instead of wicking down into the seat where there was plenty of dry padding still.  This was an unusually bad failure and since the Tena was a "sole survivor" out of a long-ago-opened packet, I'm wondering if its overall absorbency had been compromised by atmospheric humidity.

[oznl]

Science experiment:

A rare opportunity one year and two weeks after going back into nappies with no plan to leave them: I have the house totally to myself for perhaps 5 hours.

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed my teenager’s University and all-but-shut the small food retailer that occasionally employs her but rarely, a brief shift has been offered.  This shift was first thing Monday morning and aligned with my wife’s departure for her city office (her business is neither closed nor working from home).  Thusly, I found myself awaking alone around 7:30am.  Fittingly, my night nappy was drenched beyond any recollection I had of making it that wet and although I had not leaked, I was not far away from doing so.

8:30am:  After listening to the morning news on the radio, I removed my sodden underwear, showered briefly and re-dressed myself WITHOUT a nappy.  It took some time to find a pair of “grown up” underwear pants and a black, sacrificial pair of shorts that could be rinsed discreetly should the need arise.

  As near as I can tell, the last dribble that occurred in my night nappy prior to removal would have been around 8:15am at which point I was completely empty.

9:00am: As last night was a “celebration” night, alcohol had been consumed and I have greeted the day somewhat dehydrated (all of the hydration action apparently having been transferred overnight to my pants).  I have no discernible urge to pee but it feels odd sitting at my desk with curiously empty shorts.

10:25am:  I can feel pee urges.  They are back!  They still work!  They are strong to the point where normally I’d get up and go to the bathroom (well, normally back in 2018).  It also seems I may have leaked, just a drop or two into my underpants.  There is a very small wet spot down there but it may just have been a lapse in concentration.

11:00am: I am by now re-experiencing very strong pee urges.  Very, very strong that make it difficult to concentrate on anything else.  There have possibly been a few drops more pee that has gotten out into my underwear and I’m quite uncomfortable.

11:08am:  I stood up and involuntarily released what felt like a tablespoon of pee.  I thought it was going to be a drop but it was a spurt.  It was clear that this show was over.  Rushing to the bathroom I emptied my bladder gratefully and completely into the measuring jug that I’d thoughtfully placed there earlier.  The flow rate was better than I had seen in a while (all over in maybe 40 seconds) although the urges were intolerable.  Practically speaking, I would have emptied my bladder an hour earlier.

Total quantity voided was about 390ml.  I suspect I had already leaked about 10ml in the incontinent episode that led me to abandon further holding efforts, I am therefore declaring my current peak bladder capacity (the volume at which I lost control of it) as 400ml.  Very much at the bottom end of normal but not as bad as I’d been suspecting.  I managed almost 3 hours without peeing outside a couple of nearly undetectable drips: usable continence in anybody’s book.

Midday: My bladder didn’t enjoy the day out though.  I’m back in an ABU Simple and getting strong bladder spasms every 10 minutes or so which result in a burst of pee that I have little ability to control and with dripping in between.  Right now, I am (temporarily) quite incontinent, I genuinely need my nappy and I’m not that comfortable with ridiculous pee urges.

1pm: signs of normal.  I’ve “left the tap open” and my bladder has gratefully slumped back into its “drip and dribble” zone.  It feels good to be back in a wet nappy.  I suspect my bladder is tired and wouldn’t do a very good job storing pee but it’s ok, it doesn’t need to now.  It's at least stopped hurting.

So, that how a bladder works after you don't use it for a year.  Still continent but you get 2.5 hours cruise range (2 hours in comfort, half an hour in discomfort)  and then you start wetting yourself anyway...

[Little Sherri]

This is fascinating, @oznl. I have not conducted this experiment myself, but I'm tempted to.  I had been able to go for 90 minutes without 'going', back when the gym was open, and that was mere decades, er, I mean weeks ago, so presumably, I still have the capability, but the measurement of your maximum capacity is intriguing. I have no idea where I would land, but I know that my capacity has definitively declined. The nature of my job had me sometimes in my car for hours, prior to this pandemic situation, and I have also been known to drive 20+ hours in one go, in pursuit of the kind of weather that you folks take for granted. I have owned diesel-powered Volkswagen's in my recent past, and those bad boys could, while allegedly melting the polar ice caps, take you 1000 km's between stops. Back then, I occasionally did full tank-burns without stopping to pee, and that was when I was loath to wear a diaper outside of the house, so I had a trucker's bladder, essentially. I know that I do not have that now. 

As a side note, it's also funny how, at this stage in your development, you would use a few hours alone in the house to come OUT of diapers. Whereas, historically, at least for me, a few hours with the house unoccupied would be an opportunity to put myself IN diapers, or, more recently, an opportunity to wear a big printed diaper with nothing over it. 

As to your earlier experience and comments on Tena, I agree completely - they have been banished from my collection, never to return. I had to wear them with plastic pants, essentially like a disposable cloth diaper, because they always, always failed me. I don't know why the tabbed ones even exist. Maybe as a pull-up for inadvertent dribbles while cave exploring with your triplet grandchildren (as the advertisements would have us believe is their most common use), they do the job, but those customers don't want tabs. Customers who do want tabs also want at least some reassurance that trading a bit of their dignity for protection would result in, well, some actual protection. The free market exists to take care of these incongruities, so I have to assume that there is a vast global conspiracy involved. The Illuminati have their reasons.   

[oznl]

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

This is fascinating, @oznl. I have not conducted this experiment myself, but I'm tempted to.

Yep opinion is opinion but numbers are real.

I'm annoyed at myself that I didn't think to use a stopwatch to calculate the voiding rate.  I estimated it afterwards.  This is what happens when you fail to plan.  I won't be testing often because it wasn't very comfortable, I don't want the bladder-exercise and now I have to sneakily wash wet underpants and shorts.  I'm thinking maybe again in three months.  I don't have a baseline measure to compare it with either but i'm moderately certain that a bladder-bursting quantity of pee before 24/7 was a LOT more than 390ml.  Google suggests closer to 800ml.

I won't be conducting the night experiment any time soon.  Our various state Governments seem very happy with "Totalitarian Regime" mode and the opportunity for my wife to travel remains nil for the indefinite future.

I think at this point I need to just come out and say that MOST nights recently, I have at best one or two hazy recollections of releasing in my pants, only feeling a slight trickle and yet greet each dawn with an empty bladder and a full nappy.  It's the new normal.  I must say, so far it's quite comfortable.

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I have owned diesel-powered Volkswagen's in my recent past, and those bad boys could, while allegedly melting the polar ice caps, take you 1000 km's between stops.

I also have an oil-burning German super-cruiser that visits a gas station monthly.  I know even on work runs up to the Sunshine Coast (about 100km / 1.5 hours each way), it's range is now WAY more than mine.

8 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

As a side note, it's also funny how, at this stage in your development, you would use a few hours alone in the house to come OUT of diapers. Whereas, historically, at least for me, a few hours with the house unoccupied would be an opportunity to put myself IN diapers, or, more recently, an opportunity to wear a big printed diaper with nothing over it.

Yes, @Tadpole said exactly the same thing to me a few weeks ago:  I am using one of those precious, fleeting "alone" moments to sneak away and take OFF a nappy instead of putting one ON.  The irony is not lost on me.  The logic here is apart from the fact that I thought I might, to some extent at least, visibly wet my pants (which I did), the merest hint that I might NOT be wearing a nappy all the time I felt would likely trigger a rapid resumption of battle.  There was also the matter of discreetly misusing a glass measuring jug from the kitchen.

 

[oznl]

Week 6 of my house-arrest and I pause to consider the “Lord of the Flies” - like devolution of my life despite tidying my study.

I’ve stopped getting up early.  My wife is still working in the city and so starts most days at 6am.  Until recently, I would similarly do so out of some curious sense of solidarity.  Since my commute is now only 8 meters down a hall, I would find myself starting work out of sheer boredom at 7am.

That’s gone out the window.  There isn’t THAT much to do and sitting in my study for 11 hours is far from attractive.  I realise that I might be similarly unattractive in other parts of the house but it's my study chair:  more on that later.

Instead, I remain in bed, sloth like until something like 8am most week days.  As a consequence, more often than not my diaper is messy as well as wet upon arising because there just doesn’t seem to be any point in getting up to use a toilet or denying myself the relief.  I have no interest in faecal incontinence but nor am I sufficiently precious that I’ll make any special effort to keep an already-wet disposable clean so long as I am rash-free and inoffensively on my own.  

The "me" clean-up (the nappy is usually a write-off) is surprisingly easy as it takes place in my morning shower.  Depending upon how close to leaking I think my night nappy may be, I may not even immediately change upon arising but rather log-on to work at around 8:30am and maybe take care of a meeting or two: in a full nappy, like a kind of private joke.  I do NOT store messy used adult nappies in my study nappy bin: they go bagged directly to outdoor trash receptacles.

It occurred to me this as I was changing myself this morning (at a break around 10am) that since the closure of gyms, I am now experiencing ZERO nappy-free time.  All I do now is change nappies and even this is now more often than not, only happening twice per day.  This is part economy and part sloth.  A high capacity nappy can easily last 12 hours.  There is effectively no dry time for my nappy zone but things seem ok down there.

I’ve taken to wearing ABU Simples under capacious plastic pants during the day to deal with their inevitable leakage or, if I am not planning some exercise, maybe cloth.  For weeknights, I will put on a BetterDry after my late afternoon 5km constitutional.  Just before bed, I will pull a Babykins terry-lined waterproof on over the already-somewhat-WetterDry and that combination is bullet proof until morning.  A couple of nights per week I will wear cloth.  I’ve switched back to limiting cloth nappy use somewhat as I know my wife can smell my wet cloth nappies at least a bit and the laundry is a pain to deal with without a teenager spotting it.

EVERY night now seems to be a “have no distinct recollection of where all that pee in my nappy came from” night.  This slide seems to have accelerated rapidly over the last six or so weeks.  I still don’t think I’m 100% bedwetting but more that it’s become so normal for me to pee on stirring that I’m no longer noticing when I’m doing it.  I’m still loving my newfound ability to sleep in as my bladder is no longer disturbing me.  Instead I awake every morning to find that this problem has mysteriously already been dealt with.

Strangely, irrespective of the extra sleep, I’m often tired during the day and my motivation levels are seriously low.  There are things I *could* be doing for work and yet I’m not.  I think there is a mental as well as an economic cost to all of this.

I’m VERY, VERY bored (reflected in WAY too much DD time) and my lower back is killing me.  I’ve long since discovered that my home office chair whilst comfy for short periods, is not doing my lumbar region any good at all in the face of 10 hour stretches.  It’s also disintegrating.  The horrible fake-leather-stuck-to-fabric stuff is peeling away on the armrests.  Pieces of it are scattered around my study floor carpet like some kind of black snow, adding to the general sense of decay.  When seat coating gives way, it will have to go.  My bum is not 100% reliably dry these days and once that chair is no longer a “wipe it clean” proposition, we’re through…  Pee-soaked chair fabric in a warm study will NOT be tolerated, not even by me.  Teenager has a gaming chair that seems to have half-decent lumbar support and real leather.  I may investigate this chair further.

It occurred to me that with the possible exception of nappies, my current life style must be something like that which Julian Assange’s resembled holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy.  Still, he probably dreams about being back in that embassy right now which is an important parable: things could be worse.

[Little Sherri]

On 4/23/2020 at 4:36 AM, oznl said:

It occurred to me that with the possible exception of nappies, my current life style must be something like that which Julian Assange’s resembled holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy. 

Many of us are living that reality right now, although, yes, as I'm sure Mr. Assange can attest, it could indeed be worse. I'm lucky - my company is still operating, and I've been working from home, and seem destined to do so until at least June, without my compensation being impacted. But it's a curious nether-world we occupy. There are the truly essential workers - and God bless them - who are on the front lines in healthcare or long-term care, the people driving trucks and selling groceries and the cops, firefighters and paramedics, farmers and plant workers. Some of them could work 24 hours a day if they were able. Then there's people like me, the supporting cast to the essential workers - in my case, we make equipment that gets used in food & pharmaceutical production. So I sit in my house and read emails and answer phone calls and try to figure out what people need without going to see them. And then there are the millions who have seen their employment evaporate completely, and they are absolutely on sabbatical for the next several weeks at least. In Canada, there are some fairly generous support programs that have been enacted, but those still pay a hell of a lot less than it costs to live in any major city. I wonder how much longer this can go on. 

[oznl]

Well, we are living the dream here is seems.  A small glimmer of light at the end of our tunnel.  Our "go outside" restrictions are to be relaxed slightly this Friday.  No longer will we be subject to Police "stop and challenge" so long as we are within 50km of our address.  Announced a few minutes ago:

Queenslanders will be able to enjoy some relief from stay-at-home rules and:

• Go for a drive;
• Ride or pilot a motorbike, jetski or boat for pleasure;
• Have a picnic;
• Visit a national park; and
• Shop for non-essential items

This is based on the following conditions:

• Social distancing and hygiene are maintained;
• You remain within 50km of home; and
• Outings are limited to members of the same household or an individual and one friend

Having said that, the definition of "essential services" this end is pretty broad.  Pretty much anything I really need seems to have been classified as "essential".   Mercifully, Alcohol retail somehow got classified as essential service (presumably enough of our leaders also love a drink).  Strangely enough, Bunnings (Australia's answer to "Home Depot" or "B&Q") is also open although shopping there is a slightly surreal experience.  I had to go there today due to a critcal failure of bed infrastructure (no, it did not rust due to pee).  You queue for half an hour to get into the store (store loads are strictly limited) and no more than 4 people in any one aisle (thank you to the mother today who brought her THREE kids with her to the store, single handedly closing down every aisle she entered to others).

It took me over an hour to buy a couple of metal brackets and some bolts.  I got sunburned in the queue to get in outside (sunburn happens all year round in Queensland).

If I wanted a tattoo or a pedicure, I'm out of luck though.  Ironically it was also (at first) somewhat ambiguous if travelling to a store that was still trading was legal or not.  After a couple of early fines got quashed by magistrates, it seems that visiting a business that's allowed to open is ok subject to it being "local" for you.

I work in advanced support for IT intrastructure.  That's an essential service although my employer is busily off-shoring this work to India as fast is it possibly can right now.

 

[Little Sherri]

Today, we are experiencing one of the first truly lovely days we've had this year, and perhaps that has been merciful, because all the weekends so far have been cold and rainy, which has helped us to comply with social distancing and stay-at-home directives. Although I found myself atop a 30-foot extension ladder in the rain yesterday, repairing a piece of trim for a neighbour that had been partially torn free by the increasingly-common 100 km/h wind guests we're subject to. I had the usual thoughts about slipping and plummeting to an untimely demise or life-altering injury. They helpfully have wrought-iron fencing with medieval pickets on top, so perhaps my death would have been quick and merciful. Or quick and agonizing. In any case, I once again played through the scene in my head: the paramedics checking my broken body for protruding bones, and at some point stumbling upon my giant nappy festooned with barnyard characters. At least the neighbour wasn't watching the proceedings - this was to be strictly a contact-less interaction. Other than if I made high-speed contact with the ground. 

So, I am wearing a slim diaper today, because I don't have any summer-wear that can be relied upon to camouflage a big plastic diaper, although honestly putting on shorts was more for my psychological benefit than a logical response to the weather, as it's barely into the double-digits out there. But the sun is shining and water is no longer a solid; at these latitudes, we rejoice in such conditions.  

I almost had a confrontation with my eldest daughter at 4 AM because she turned the lights on in the hall outside our room for some reason, which woke up my wife, who woke me up and asked me to go tell her to turn of the (expletive deleted) lights and go to bed. I jumped out of bed, ready to demand an explanation for this lack of consideration, when it occurred to me that I was wearing only a heavy-looking printed diaper, which somewhat lacked the air of authority I had hoped to project. So instead I sent her a text message telling her to turn off the light, which she promptly complied with. I think that she has adapted to everyone being home, ALL the time, by becoming nocturnal, thus allowing her to have the run of the house for a few hours without human contact that doesn't involve wifi, and this tactic also affords her a reprieve during the day, since she sleeps half of it away, while recovering from her propensity to group-chat until the sky starts to lighten. 

Hopefully, wearing this slimmer diaper will motivate me to go for a run or something, since I will have to change it in the next couple of hours probably. Although I have to confess that I did break one of my cardinal rules on Friday, specifically: 'Though shalt not put a wet diaper back on." I was wearing a big diaper that still had probably 75% of its life left, but my work day was drawing to a close and I had a few hours to kill before it would be acceptable to drink in earnest, and I hadn't run since Tuesday. But, that would mean sacrificing the diaper. Or... not? I took it off, carefully folded it up, and put it under the counter in the bathroom, where I knew it would never be discovered, because it was with cleaning supplies. I put my running clothes on, and headed down to the basement. 90 minutes later, I took a shower, and then pondered whether or not to go through with my plan. I pulled the diaper out with some apprehension, but it really was mostly dry to the touch, the polymer having done its job, so I put it back on and ended up wearing it for the rest of the night. I would not have done that had it been soaked. But this does open up some options for me, perhaps. Although the diaper did have more of a diaper smell the next morning than I'm used to with disposables, more at a cloth diaper level. Maybe letting them breath doesn't improve nappies like it does wine. 

[oznl]

I went out this week. Insofar as beyond the odd “essential” trip to a local shop, I haven’t been much anywhere for the past several weeks, this was noteworthy.  It was a substantial trip.  I needed to be up at the other house that I own which is about 120km (75 miles) north of where I live to supervise some minor construction works.  These works would require on-the-spot decisions and authorisations that I as the property owner would need to make rather than the tenant.

So, a 75 mile drive to the beach.  About 3 hours of standing around occasionally making decisions followed by a 75 mile drive home.  That’s 6 hours out of the house!

Being builders, they start work at 7am so I needed to leave the house at 5am and thus reacquainted myself with the lost skill of changing my night nappy (inexplicably wet again) at silly o’clock in the dark without waking my wife too much (a skill previously honed sharp by early morning trips to the airport).  I used standard “work” configuration protection: a BetterDry, waterproof pants and a compression pant beneath dark jeans.  I’d eschewed breakfast in exchange for more sleep and had a loose plan to duck away from site to find some take-away when the opportunity arose.  I never did really enjoy toast at 4am.

It was a fantastic day up the coast and it was great to be out of the house.  There was little to no traffic and I had contractor paperwork on the car seat beside me so that I could demonstrate to any police that might stop and challenge me that my trip to a beach-side community was legally permissible (that’s a thing these days).

The works went smoothly and sitting at the water’s edge with a rather nice bacon and egg roll and a large cappuccino that I’d gotten (take-away of course) from a local cafe watching the sun come up was a treat.

As I drove home shortly after lunchtime, it occurred to me though that for this trip my nappy was effectively obligatory.  Sure, my house up there has some pretty nice bathrooms but my right of entry is limited and with COVID-19 controls, extremely so.  The tenant is also sometimes a bit difficult.  Because of the area, the nearest public toilets would be at some shops about half a mile away.  Bathroom breaks would require time and space.

My contractors provided me with a compelling benchmark for bladder normalcy.  They arrived straight from the city to site, dove straight into the works, completed them and left with no pee breaks for what had to have been a 5 hour period.

As for me?  There was no way I could do that even if I’d wanted to.  I wasn’t even completely dry after reaching the freeway leaving home!  It’s true that as I don’t practice any kind of control, I’ll inevitably be just a little bit wet not long after changing but I was also well aware that based on my previous week’s “experiment”, that before two hours was up, I’d be wet whether I wanted to be or not and for much of the latter part of that two hour block, I’d be too uncomfortable to be driving safely anyway.  There was no way I could do this without at least two (and probably three) bathroom breaks which would have been logistically challenging.   My nappy that kept me dry (at least on the outside) and comfortable all day.  I’m really not sure how I could have done without it.

It’s not incontinence but it is a degree of (functional) dependency that didn’t exist 16 months ago.  If I had to go “dry” tomorrow, it would have to be a staged withdrawal.

[oznl]

A strange night’s sleep followed by a wet bed…

Friday was the second-and-last night of the week that I typically sleep in cloth nappies as Saturday is wash day for bedding.  I limit myself here as my long-suffering partner doesn’t enjoy the pee-smell from wet cloth nappies in bed and likes her fresh bedding on Saturday to remain so.  As much as she would prefer being shot to being hung, she prefers me in disposables.   At around 7pm I’d changed my terry nappies for the last time for the day, confident that my 60” x 60” folded nappy would last until morning.  I can routinely get 12 hours of these and so I don’t think that much about checking them.

My wife had gone to bed long before me and I was watching rubbish You-Tube TV with a seemingly endlessly refilling red wine glass.  I’ve no idea WHAT I was watching towards the end and decided at around 11pm that my liver and the internet both deserved a break and so went to bed.  I was a little wet getting into bed of course but not majorly so I thought.  I’d probably (well, definitely) drunk too much. 

I rapidly fell asleep.  I don’t even remember if I wet again before that happened.  I think not.

It was a night of vivid, rubbish dreams that were weirdly interspersed with waking reality: like a kind of lucid dreaming.  Part of my brain knew I was asleep in my boring old bedroom and yet another part of my brain was seduced by cartoon dream narratives providing a kind of psychedelic décor to the experience.

Peeing featured in these dreams: not something that typically happens these days.

I kept having monster pee urges in my dreams.  I’d dream that I was using my nappies but always in some ridiculous drunk-dream scenario: in a phone booth, up a tree that was implausibly in the corner, that kind of drivel.  Every time I peed, it was short and sharp, commensurate with my current low bladder capacity.

At some time during pre-dawn, I think it was around 4am, I remember being woken by my wife getting up to go to the toilet (I know, how inconvenient).  Seconds later I must have fallen back asleep and vividly dreamed away a conversation with her about the cat that simply did not happen and was woken a second time with a start when she returned to our bed beside me a few minutes later.

It was then I realised that the sheet beneath me was cool and damp: 4:17am.

A cautious exploration (trying not to attract her attention) revealed that my terry nappies were completely drenched, all the way up the back and sides and that my plastic pants had ridden up a little at the side of one thigh as I’d been side-sleeping, compromising the waterproof defence.  I poked sodden towelling back up into my plastic pants and re-adjusted myself as unobtrusively as I could, scooted myself out of the wet patch to the edge of the bed, pushed the covers back and hoped that the combination of the ceiling fan and low humidity would dry things out a bit before morning.

It did, somewhat.  I dreamed more rubbish; this time about wetting the bed and being found out.  I think I peed a little more during those dreams but it wasn’t much.  Last night’s alcohol had done a good job of dehydrating me by now.

In the morning, I courageously volunteered to strip the bed (it was wash day anyway) and thus the dinner-plate-sized faint yellow stain remained a secret between the washing machine and me.  The mattress protector I dabbed with water (dilution being the solution to pollution) and the waterproof sheet beneath all of that had of course protected the mattress.  My nappy was completely sodden in a way only terry nappies can become with the tell-tale hint of ammonia.

It was probably less than a couple of thimblefuls of pee that had made it out into the bedding but it had spread and cooled.  Had my beloved decided to roll over and grab me for a thermally-rewarding spooning session in the early morning cool, there would have been a surprise for her on my side of the bed rapidly followed by a surprise for me.

I’ve been sleep-wetting for some months now although I suspect I typically do wake to do this but not enough to remember.  This is evidenced by me waking to find myself in a wet nappy I can’t remember making laying on my back: a position I really only using for wetting disposables in bed as I’m a side-sleeper by default.  Last night however it was pretty clear that I simply vividly dreamed my way through a series of red-wine-induced wettings with nary a care in the world about my nappy’s ability to cope.  The leak pattern suggests it happened on my side.

After this lock-down finishes, I am resolving to drink less.  Until then, I may reconsider the requisite state of my night attire before repose.

[Stroller]

Oops!  Can't believe you got away with that.  There but for fortune...

I'm drinking too much at the moment too, & have every intention of cutting back again once the pressure's off again.  The combination of a wife going through chemotherapy and the Covid restrictions makes a glass or 3 of wine in the evening the only way to get through it for me.  Luckily for me I'm not the addictive type, & I'll be OK keeping it under control.

So far at night I've kept the bed dry, but its only a matter of time I suppose.

[Little Sherri]

4 hours ago, oznl said:

Peeing featured in these dreams: not something that typically happens these days.

This basically never happens for me anymore; when I was a kid there was a time when, if I had a dream about relieving myself, whether in an effort to extinguish some fire, or, if my dream featured just me in a bathroom, doing what non-dreaming people often do in a bathroom, I would invariably awaken in a wet nappy. Yet now, when I have dreams that feature nappies at all - which is infrequent - I have not ever been using them in any way, I am just wearing them in some unfortunate or inconvenient circumstance. I have had one or two dreams lately where I was wearing a nappy, and that seemed to be a side-note - whatever transpired, say, wandering through a haunted wood, or riding on the back of a unicorn or whatever - my nether-wear was of no consequence. My interpretation is that my subconscious is getting used to wearing diapers, so that perhaps one day they will become unremarkable, such as, for example, when in dreams we take for granted that gravity generally works as we expect it does. Although I cannot recall ever, in a dream, bothering to breath, either, so I guess if diapers really ever truly become par for the course, maybe I won't dream about them. I haven't dreamed a lot about socks, so far as I can recall. But I must have been wearing socks in most of my dreams, mustn't I?

How are they handling rental obligations during Covid-19 down where you are? In a rare stroke of accidental prescience, we sold the rental we owned in a university town about 60 km from where we are, right before any of this was on the horizon. Here, they have suspended evictions, and commenced government aid to both tenants and banks, so that the landlords end up being the only disposable component in the system. My tenants were both precariously employed, and while they were great while we had them, I have no doubt that they have been impacted by this economic undoing, and that they would have probably stopped paying me, whereas, if I wanted to maintain my credit rating, I would not have been able to choose to stop paying my bank. In another stroke of luck, I was born a prolific procrastinator (I mentioned I wore diapers at night until I was 10....), so, I had not yet invested or tax-protected any of the proceeds when the market went to hell. Hurrah for foot-dragging on major decisions. 

[oznl]

1 hour ago, Stroller said:

 Luckily for me I'm not the addictive type, & I'll be OK keeping it under control.

No, I'm not the addictive type either but I am rather prone to developing bad habits that prove difficult to shift...  I won't finish up an alcoholic. 

1 hour ago, Stroller said:

So far at night I've kept the bed dry, but its only a matter of time I suppose.

My experience suggests it's going to happen and you'll continually underestimate it.

42 minutes ago, Little Sherri said:

How are they handling rental obligations during Covid-19 down where you are? In a rare stroke of accidental prescience, we sold the rental we owned in a university town about 60 km from where we are, right before any of this was on the horizon. Here, they have suspended evictions, and commenced government aid to both tenants and banks, so that the landlords end up being the only disposable component in the system. My tenants were both precariously employed, and while they were great while we had them, I have no doubt that they have been impacted by this economic undoing, and that they would have probably stopped paying me, whereas, if I wanted to maintain my credit rating, I would not have been able to choose to stop paying my bank. In another stroke of luck, I was born a prolific procrastinator (I mentioned I wore diapers at night until I was 10....), so, I had not yet invested or tax-protected any of the proceeds when the market went to hell. Hurrah for foot-dragging on major decisions. 

Here in Queensland there was emergency legislation proposed that was basically lethal for landlords, allowing tenants to self-declare fiscal duress (without proof) and cease paying rent.  Landlord obligations continued.  Evictions are also verboten (I'm ok with that), property inspections are out (maybe...) and lease extensions automatic (well, if I know my property is ok, then ok..).

There was some moderation after the Government worked out that most landlords were just folk like myself who had their own fiscal obligations to uphold and could not withstand indefinite rent holidays which would likely be invoked by all.  There is now an obligation for the tenant to prove their hardship and some limits on how much rent relief can be obtained.  Everything else stands.

My tenant is solidly employed (spoke with him at length last week) and making noises as though he wants to stay which suits me down to the ground.  He's a history of playing hardball though so it will be interesting to see if he proposes a rental reduction (even though I know he doesn't need it).  Tenants are hard to find right now but I like that house so much I'd probably rather live in it myself anyway.

My superannuation (pension fund which is stock) and other investments (stock) have been hit hard.  I've basically lost 10 years of savings effort in 10 weeks and it's looking doubtful that I'll have years of employment or even investment time to recover the loss...  I'm still marking time to find out if I will remain employed so basically, a bit of a sh1tsh0w...  I hope that bat tasted GOOD...

[oznl]

17 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

This basically never happens for me anymore; when I was a kid there was a time when, if I had a dream about relieving myself, whether in an effort to extinguish some fire, or, if my dream featured just me in a bathroom, doing what non-dreaming people often do in a bathroom, I would invariably awaken in a wet nappy. Yet now, when I have dreams that feature nappies at all - which is infrequent - I have not ever been using them in any way, I am just wearing them in some unfortunate or inconvenient circumstance. I have had one or two dreams lately where I was wearing a nappy, and that seemed to be a side-note - whatever transpired, say, wandering through a haunted wood, or riding on the back of a unicorn or whatever - my nether-wear was of no consequence. My interpretation is that my subconscious is getting used to wearing diapers, so that perhaps one day they will become unremarkable, such as, for example, when in dreams we take for granted that gravity generally works as we expect it does. Although I cannot recall ever, in a dream, bothering to breath, either, so I guess if diapers really ever truly become par for the course, maybe I won't dream about them. I haven't dreamed a lot about socks, so far as I can recall. But I must have been wearing socks in most of my dreams, mustn't I?

Mostly it's been a similar story for me.  Early on (as blogged), there were loads of nappy dreams but gradually, the role of nappies in those dreams changed and retreated as they became part of my everyday "normal".  The themes seemed to descent through usage, discovery/exposure, simple ambient fact, gone.  Pee dreams came and went too.  They were back with a vengeance on Friday though.  I'm wondering if that is because I was truly asleep during wetting as opposed to slight wakefulness that I can't recall the next day.  I clearly certainly didn't manage my night nappies well on that occasion.  Last night I clearly remember waking and using my nappy in bed (well, once at least) so it's still not an every night thing.

[oznl]

Tired of bland corporate Zoom meetings all day and bored with the episodic, constrained interactivity of posted communications on DD, I decided that some real-time human communication outside of work-space would help me.  Undismayed by @Little Sherri's experience, I broke with my usual habits and dived into the shallow, pee-infused pool that proved to be the DD “chat” forum.

Conscious of being the newbie in the field of chat, for some time I simply observed from the sidelines.

I was NOT expecting the internet’s answer to the Oxford University’s debating club.  This was just as well.  At no point was I challenged by thought-provoking ideas or left reaching for a dictionary.

 

Maybe it was a bad day or more likely, a bad time zone (too early for Europe, too late for the US).  Maybe, more meaningful conversations were happening in private chats that I couldn’t see, like dolphins mating underwater.  The view from the surface however was pretty bleak.  In between protracted periods of inactivity, single word interchanges were nearly normal:

“Wassup?”

“Sharted!”

“LOL!”

I suspect that some degree of one-handed typing may have been occurring.  Sometimes there wasn’t even interchange.  Some users would just repeatedly issue announcements (usually related to what they intended to, or just had put into their mouths, diapers or both).  These announcements may or may not be responded to by other users.  It didn’t seem to matter.

It made me think about a brace of ducks, socially-distanced from one another in a foggy field, periodically quacking.

Occasionally, bursts of actual discourse would occur but there seemed to be little actual discussion, more a series of parallel monologs centred on a common topic.

Animated GIF images would appear periodically, the contents of which may or may not relate to anything nearby.

Eventually, a hitherto-silent member of the chatroom asked a question.  It was a coherent question, using words, and related to managing the practicalities of being permanently diapered, something that I have some experience with.

So, I answered.  I used prepositions, nouns, verbs, adjectives, some punctuation, the whole shebang really.  It helps that I am a rapid typist and use a full-size keyboard to punch out full size words.

This led to a follow-up question:  Huzzah!  Interaction with another human!  I answered that too.

“This is boring” announced a farting girl (an attribute she had earlier announced)

“meee isssh shleeepy byeeee!” proffered pastel-unicorn-princess-47 (names changed to protect the innocent, words twisted only slightly for dramatic effect) before similarly departing.

“good poop feels messy” opined another.

Thusly, the weak flickering flame of chat sputtered and died.

Peace and tranquillity restored after a perilous brush with the actual exchange of meaningful information, I watched rainbow-pony-miniature turds of speech fragments plopping dully at two or three second intervals from the remaining couple of active users into the chat space.

And then the “conversation” turned to teachers and classes and I realised that I was the unwanted creepy parent at a teen slumber party.

I left.

What ho!  It occurred to me that I’ve just entered my 14^th month of continuous 24/7 nappy use with around 16.5 months since December 2018.

[BlakeJordan]

Oof Oznl! Yeah that’s rough. There’s certainly a disparity between talking, texting and communicating. In my experience that has only gotten worse between the extremes, the chasm between an empty void.

 

It’s sad that even in the best of times and under the best conditions many aren’t interested in communication, but rather echoing in a chamber where new and dissenting opinions thoughts and ideas are non existent. No need to explain oneself as everyone already knows and agrees with what you’re about to say. It’s easy, it feels good, the dopamine hit is addicting.

 

I do wonder how impacted one’s ability is to absorb and process written information is under all these stresses. One would think that in a day and age where most everything is important, that needs to be shared is documented, put to words on paper or on the screen would help.

 

In my experience though it seems the platform really has just changed and habits carry over and become the default pattern under stress when the prefrontal cortex is comprised and the limbic system is on the hunt for danger. Most people I know never learned how to communicate effectively. Nobody really teaches to listen for understanding and intention rather than waiting for the earliest chance to jump in with your own thoughts or ideas. It leads to the talking over, seeing and hearing only what you want and a lot of frustration.

 

I too have been surprised how little gets processed, even or especially when I make an effort to articulate my words. In these days where I communicate almost entirely through text and the communication is

Is asynchronous I would guess that only about 10% of what I actually write actually gets processed and given any thought.

 

Alas, I’m stubborn and was converted to nuance years ago.

 

Who knew? Words matter? They matter not because they are proper grammar, proper English but they matter because it’s the best we’ve got. Yes words fall so incredibly short of the qualia each of us actually experiences. Words rely on context, background of the subject and framework, not to mention frame of mind. Too often they are misconstrued.

 

I wish I could be blunt, factual, to the point but too often that clarify is muddied by the mind, it’s not enough.

 

As far as we’ve come in using written language to communicate across time and space, most have never learned the most basic concept.

 

AGI: Assume good intentions

 

If this was a universal rule we might feel better understood, we might be able to get to the point or not be overwhelmed by the amount of information we have to go through. Who knows we might even not need to skim or speed read. The long wordy stuff could be saved for topics and subjects that really are that complex or require nuance for understanding of the subject and narrative. They could be saved for storytelling, for teaching and learning, for actual conversations rather than distribution of facts and information.

 

But...that’s asking too much.

 

Instead we are stuck with the void and those shouting into it, and those whispering from the other side, Berger to be heard except by those who need not hear it.

[oznl]

13 minutes ago, BlakeJordan said:

Oof Oznl! Yeah that’s rough. There’s certainly a disparity between talking, texting and communicating. In my experience that has only gotten worse between the extremes, the chasm between an empty void.

It’s sad that even in the best of times and under the best conditions many aren’t interested in communication, but rather echoing in a chamber where new and dissenting opinions thoughts and ideas are non existent. No need to explain oneself as everyone already knows and agrees with what you’re about to say. It’s easy, it feels good, the dopamine hit is addicting.

I do wonder how impacted one’s ability is to absorb and process written information is under all these stresses. One would think that in a day and age where most everything is important, that needs to be shared is documented, put to words on paper or on the screen would help.

In my experience though it seems the platform really has just changed and habits carry over and become the default pattern under stress when the prefrontal cortex is comprised and the limbic system is on the hunt for danger. Most people I know never learned how to communicate effectively. Nobody really teaches to listen for understanding and intention rather than waiting for the earliest chance to jump in with your own thoughts or ideas. It leads to the talking over, seeing and hearing only what you want and a lot of frustration.

I too have been surprised how little gets processed, even or especially when I make an effort to articulate my words. In these days where I communicate almost entirely through text and the communication is

Is asynchronous I would guess that only about 10% of what I actually write actually gets processed and given any thought.

Alas, I’m stubborn and was converted to nuance years ago.

Who knew? Words matter? They matter not because they are proper grammar, proper English but they matter because it’s the best we’ve got. Yes words fall so incredibly short of the qualia each of us actually experiences. Words rely on context, background of the subject and framework, not to mention frame of mind. Too often they are misconstrued.

I wish I could be blunt, factual, to the point but too often that clarify is muddied by the mind, it’s not enough.

As far as we’ve come in using written language to communicate across time and space, most have never learned the most basic concept.

AGI: Assume good intentions

If this was a universal rule we might feel better understood, we might be able to get to the point or not be overwhelmed by the amount of information we have to go through. Who knows we might even not need to skim or speed read. The long wordy stuff could be saved for topics and subjects that really are that complex or require nuance for understanding of the subject and narrative. They could be saved for storytelling, for teaching and learning, for actual conversations rather than distribution of facts and information.

But...that’s asking too much.

Instead we are stuck with the void and those shouting into it, and those whispering from the other side, Berger to be heard except by those who need not hear it.

I think you're on the money when you reference texting.  The zeitgeist of the chat zone was that of a texted conversation.  I never really "got" texting even though I'm gen-x.  As if email wasn't already impoverished enough as a nuanced communication medium.

I don't mean to be rough on the chat participants, don't get me wrong there (well ok, I had *some* fun there).  Firstly, they were the ones on that day, there will be other days and other chat participants (so all chats may not run the same way).  Secondly, even if all chats were the same, it's ME who was the odd one out, not them!  They were perfectly happy with this.

It was also became blindingly apparent that I was a generation behind them and that I simply shouldn't be there.