All My Mother's Rules (Ch. 70 & Epilogue - 2/13/24)

[JustaFoxGirl]

4 hours ago, spark said:

The fact that Mom ran is a sign that Mom knew she was wrong.   If they know the license plate, she is in trouble.

That was something I've mentioned before too. If her mother was delusional, she would have tried to argue that she can raise her kids "however she wants". Instead she fled and took Emilia with her.

 

What was interesting is the anonymous tip said Sarah was being beaten and unfed, and CPS apparently sprang into action as soon as possible. They didn't do much investigating since they didn't know anything beyond Sarah's father not being in the picture. I think it's pretty clear who made the call, but I guess the remaining question is, why did they take so long to take action? I'm very intrigued to see how that pans out.

 

And if the caller was who I think, I also feel like that is the answer to where Sarah ends up. But we'll have to see.

[spark]

52 minutes ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

When I was putting together that backstory for LIsa, I did have the thought of what if this was the Mom's backstory instead, which could have been an interesting insight into what could be driving her behavior, but ultimately I decided I wanted to use Diapers Never Lie to tell Lisa's story. There isn't any relation between LIsa's mom and Sarah's mom.

You've meshed out a great narrative.  Some side plots didn't seem to advance the plot and ultimately played a bigger role than I thought at the time.  Even your Red Herring with the whole Claire thing advances the plot.  The Sleepover/Black Friday bit seemed like a Red Herring, but I think Samantha's discovery played a role in Sarah's brainwashing

FTR- I don't think it would make sense for both families to be related because there isn't much in common between the two women.

52 minutes ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

I think this chapter answers part of that. I don't think there is really a lot of research on that, but my best guess is it messes with your digestive system, so that switching back to a regular diet (and in this case, greasy fast food, could cause some bowel issues while re-adjusting)

Hospital food would be the first step.   Healthy 15-year-olds don't poop much more than once a day. Did mom come by at lunch to feed and change Sarah, as she promised, or did Sarah stay in her poopy diaper from when Mom left to when she came back from work?

36 minutes ago, JustaFoxGirl said:

What was interesting is the anonymous tip said Sarah was being beaten and unfed, and CPS apparently sprang into action as soon as possible. They didn't do much investigating since they didn't know anything beyond Sarah's father not being in the picture. I think it's pretty clear who made the call, but I guess the remaining question is, why did they take so long to take action? I'm very intrigued to see how that pans out.

I can wager a guess, but I'm not 100% certain.   An anonymous tip doesn't meet mandated reporter requirements.

There is no way that anybody would any known the truth.  Lisa might have sensed something was going on after the weird exchange at the mall, especially if she noticed that Sarah was in a diaper.  But it took two months for CPS to act.    Maybe that's what it took for Lisa to say before she could somebody to act on it. Lisa was physically locked in a room and had to hide in a closet because her mom was going to beat her with a tire iron.   I don't think she was fed regularly either.

PS- the release of this chapter was 2nd best thing to happen to me today.  Until 5 o'clock, this was a hard win, but then I sent myself into timeout because I was whining too much.  Things looked a lot better after I came out of time-out😁

For non-American Football Fans, I'm a big football fan and I live in the SF Bay Area.

[JustaFoxGirl]

30 minutes ago, spark said:

There is no way that anybody would any known the truth.  Lisa might have sensed something was going on after the weird exchange at the mall, especially if she noticed that Sarah was in a diaper.  But it took two months for CPS to act.    Maybe that's what it took for Lisa to say before she could somebody to act on it. Lisa was physically locked in a room and had to hide in a closet because her mom was going to beat her with a tire iron.   I don't think she was fed regularly either.

Yea, absolutely. Lisa was the last person to see her, and the way Sarah acted was a huge red flag. For how long it took, maybe her friends just thought Sarah was having a bad time of everything and needed space. Maybe Lisa and the others went to Sarah's house and tried to see her, and something her mother did or said tipped them off.

As I've mentioned before, when the truth of Sarah's abuse becomes known to her friends, I wonder how that affects established relationships. I'm hopeful for an ending that is hopeful itself, but the story is extremely realistic and I know real-life doesn't always go in a positive way.

[spark]

15 minutes ago, JustaFoxGirl said:

Yea, absolutely. Lisa was the last person to see her, and the way Sarah acted was a huge red flag. For how long it took, maybe her friends just thought Sarah was having a bad time of everything and needed space. Maybe Lisa and the others went to Sarah's house and tried to see her, and something her mother did or said tipped them off.

As I've mentioned before, when the truth of Sarah's abuse becomes known to her friends, I wonder how that affects established relationships. I'm hopeful for an ending that is hopeful itself, but the story is extremely realistic and I know real-life doesn't always go in a positive way.

We've already speculated on the chances that she return to her High School.  If this were real life, it would be viral.  My school is huge, and students would still figure out who she was.  That would be a nightmare for Sarah because kids are a-holes.  Of course, we know from real-life examples, that adults are a-holes as well.

I think the 4 girls have a solid friend group, especially after their experience at the sleepover.  If one of the girls reported it, there would be a life bond between them

Question: how long would the mom have followed through with this?   The Austrian dude kept his daughter in a dungeon for 20+ years.

[JustaFoxGirl]

9 hours ago, spark said:

We've already speculated on the chances that she return to her High School.  If this were real life, it would be viral.  My school is huge, and students would still figure out who she was.  That would be a nightmare for Sarah because kids are a-holes.  Of course, we know from real-life examples, that adults are a-holes as well.

I think the 4 girls have a solid friend group, especially after their experience at the sleepover.  If one of the girls reported it, there would be a life bond between them

Question: how long would the mom have followed through with this?   The Austrian dude kept his daughter in a dungeon for 20+ years.

I don't know if she can return to school anytime soon. Unless the media simply doesn't get involved, she'll have to face a horrible time and that won't do her any good. Not just from what kids say, but being fully incontinent and potential babyish behavior? Just seems like too much for her right now.

 

I couldn't even begin to guess how long her mother would have done this. She always asked Sarah if she liked/wanted to be a baby each time she was punished that way, but it's pretty clear her mother set her up to fail during the single "big girl" day she had.

[spark]

MW posted the remainder of this chapter on Wattpad today and shared that this story now has over 200,000 words.  I looked up the lengths of novels and it's longer than all but one of the Harry Potty books.   That's impressive.

PS- The writing is stronger as well, but that's just my opinion.

[BabySofia]

5 minutes ago, spark said:

200,000 words

That was actually reads... Which I'm impressed by on WattPad! This has been a well-written tale, looking forward to the concluding chapters!

[Nat]

Just read all chapters and that mom was a bitch, she pissed me off. I wonder if it was Lisa that tipped her uncle off and he called the police for a welfare check because of lot of absences and bag grades and her sleeping in school, then disappearing. I wonder if they will ever reunite again and Sarah comes clean about her medical issues. 

 

I do not see this as a ABDL story, I see it as a thriller or drama or suspense because it involves incontinence and child abuse. I can see the author threw in a TBDL character to justify this being a ABDL story but that is just a reference. Plenty of vanilla shows have done it like Rugrats, Cow and Chicken, Tom and Jerry. 

[AdultInnocence]

9 hours ago, Nat said:

Just read all chapters and that mom was a bitch, she pissed me off. I wonder if it was Lisa that tipped her uncle off and he called the police for a welfare check because of lot of absences and bag grades and her sleeping in school, then disappearing. I wonder if they will ever reunite again and Sarah comes clean about her medical issues.

MW has said that it wouldn't have been due to not being at school as she was properly enrolled for homeschooling. The latest chapter did touch on that by saying it doesn't look like she has been doing schoolwork (if I am remembering that right.) I do think it was Lisa or family that tipped them off. They used false pretenses which they then discovered the other treatment.

[Nat]

4 hours ago, AdultInnocence said:

MW has said that it wouldn't have been due to not being at school as she was properly enrolled for homeschooling. The latest chapter did touch on that by saying it doesn't look like she has been doing schoolwork (if I am remembering that right.) I do think it was Lisa or family that tipped them off. They used false pretenses which they then discovered the other treatment.

Lisa may have realized the BS from Sarah and recognized she may be a victim of abuse because she went through the same thing and couldn't tell others. Especially how shut down she was and defensive. Her mom couldn't be bothered to take her to a doctor either for her wetting issues. 

 

Sarah realized she truly had no bladder control and all the exercises she was doing was useless. I think she learned learned unhelplessness so she totally gave up and accepted diapers and baby treatment. She was defeated. Only thing she needs right now is therapy before they start working on her regression because right now she is doing that and wants it due to her mom's brainwashing and abuse. I think right now everyone should just let her wear them while they run tests and figure out the cause and have her do therapy before pestering her about her underwear and toilets. 

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 1/29/2024 at 9:11 AM, JustaFoxGirl said:

I don't know if she can return to school anytime soon. Unless the media simply doesn't get involved, she'll have to face a horrible time and that won't do her any good. Not just from what kids say, but being fully incontinent and potential babyish behavior? Just seems like too much for her right now.

The media does tend to be pretty good about not identifying information about minors. They might report that the mother was arrested for abuse, but they wouldn't include Sarah's name or the exact details. While still not ideal for school, I don't think she will end up being known as the girl who got treated like a baby for a month.

On 1/28/2024 at 10:24 PM, spark said:

Hospital food would be the first step.   Healthy 15-year-olds don't poop much more than once a day. Did mom come by at lunch to feed and change Sarah, as she promised, or did Sarah stay in her poopy diaper from when Mom left to when she came back from work?

The Mom has been consistent with coming home from work to feed/change Sarah at lunchtime. I think she'd have much worse issues with rashes by now if that weren't the case. Staying in a diaper for four hours without a change is on the long end, but not super terrible. But going nine+ hours during the day would be problematic, especially over the course of a couple of months.

15 hours ago, Nat said:

I do not see this as a ABDL story, I see it as a thriller or drama or suspense because it involves incontinence and child abuse. I can see the author threw in a TBDL character to justify this being a ABDL story but that is just a reference. Plenty of vanilla shows have done it like Rugrats, Cow and Chicken, Tom and Jerry. 

I think the ABDL is a fairly broad category of stories. I've never viewed it as just limited to having protagonists who are a DL or AB. It can encompass characters who are incontinent, but don't like or enjoy having to wear diapers, or characters who are forced into wearing diapers or being treated like a baby against their will. They may come to like/accept diapers later or find themselves cured of the need for them.

For me, an ABDL story needs to have a character who is wearing diapers/pull-ups in an atypical situation (i.e. they are old enough to where they wouldn't need them outside of a medical condition) and the diapers have to be a central component of the plot, not a one-off gag. That doesn't mean that an ABDL story can't be in other genres, like a thriller, or drama, or sci-fi, in fact, those stories tend to work better because the "protagonist begins to wear diapers again and is treated like a baby" gets old pretty quickly unless the plot is compelling for other reasons.

In that case, I wouldn't consider Rugrats to be an ABDL story. But there are certainly cartons, like Tom and Jerry, that have episodes that might be classified as ABDL.

[Nat]

28 minutes ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

The media does tend to be pretty good about not identifying information about minors. They might report that the mother was arrested for abuse, but they wouldn't include Sarah's name or the exact details. While still not ideal for school, I don't think she will end up being known as the girl who got treated like a baby for a month.

I have seen media saying things like how a kid was found in a bed in a soiled diaper or something. I just assume that kid was special needs and they were neglected or why else would they be wearing a soiled diaper, a kid with IC issues would change it themselves unless they were incapable so special needs is a reasonable assumption to make if the kid was 15. 

[JustaFoxGirl]

31 minutes ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

The media does tend to be pretty good about not identifying information about minors. They might report that the mother was arrested for abuse, but they wouldn't include Sarah's name or the exact details. While still not ideal for school, I don't think she will end up being known as the girl who got treated like a baby for a month.

Yea, media wouldn't name her, I'm mostly thinking about my own experiences where other kids figured out I was incontinent from "clues" they picked up on. Like others have said, kids can be assholes and they're very attentive when it comes to finding ways to be bigger ones lol. Your reply makes hopeful Sarah won't have to deal with any of that, though. great writing as always, MW.

[spark]

3 hours ago, Nat said:

I have seen media saying things like how a kid was found in a bed in a soiled diaper or something. I just assume that kid was special needs and they were neglected or why else would they be wearing a soiled diaper, a kid with IC issues would change it themselves unless they were incapable so special needs is a reasonable assumption to make if the kid was 15. 

Returning to another school wouldn't necessarily be a problem.   I don't know if they would give her another name, but that is common in cases where a long-term kidnapping victim is saved.  

The media wouldn't identify Sarah, especially because she is still alive.  However, the details of how she was found would be presented, especially if there is a trail.  If there is a trail, the media will also release Mom's name.    They also would likely identify which part of town where Sarah was found.

Students would know that the person found in a soiled diaper would be a student at their school.  Social Media is a bitch for cases like this because all it takes is one kid to realize that Sarah's sudden departure from school coincided with the timing of the abuse, and now she is no longer living with her mother.  Especially if somebody realized that Sarah needed diapers or Pull-ups.  If she returns to the school, she will be asked where she was and what happened, and I don't think that would be best for Sarah.

[BabySofia]

29 minutes ago, spark said:

If she returns to the school, she will be asked where she was and what happened, and I don't think that would be best for Sarah.

The only world in which that would work is if there is a total gag order on the information on the case. If mom immediately pled guilty and spared her the trial, that might help that. She does have friends there which would be the only positive thing to return there assuming she lives with Lisa after that. (Assuming they salvage things after learning the horrors she went through. I like to think most teenagers like them would be empathetic to a friend in that situation). 

I personally think another city would be safest, but then she has zero support system, so that will be a double edged sword. 

The one thing we know is that the poor girls life has been completely upended here. Hope we get a new chapter tomorrow at the same time as the WattPad chapter? I have to work late, it'd be nice to come back to one! 🙂

[spark]

25 minutes ago, BabySofia said:

The only world in which that would work is if there is a total gag order on the information on the case. If mom immediately pled guilty and spared her the trial, that might help that. She does have friends there which would be the only positive thing to return there assuming she lives with Lisa after that. (Assuming they salvage things after learning the horrors she went through. I like to think most teenagers like them would be empathetic to a friend in that situation). 

I personally think another city would be safest, but then she has zero support system, so that will be a double edged sword. 

The one thing we know is that the poor girls life has been completely upended here. Hope we get a new chapter tomorrow at the same time as the WattPad chapter? I have to work late, it'd be nice to come back to one! 🙂

You hit on the real tragedy, and that has to be what Sarah is thinking at the point where we are in the story, which is sleeping in a hospital room likely 4 hours after being rescued from her crib.   She probably isn't thinking of school.  She is smart enough to know that her mom won't be part of her life.  Does she want to see Lisa, Desi, and Samantha?  

You're right about teenagers.  I witness it every day, most teens are empathetic, wonderful young men and women.  One-on-one, they are great.  They just don't want to be the runt when they are in a group and can be ruthless.   FTR- adults can be jerks as well, and they have the benefit of experience.  Trust me, the worst kid ain't got nothing on a power-hungry adult.

it's a huge testament that we are trying to think this through as though Sarah is a real person, and not just a character in a story.  Sadly, it's a real situation.  I don't think there has ever been a case in which an able-bodied teenager was kept as an infant by a sadistic mother (serious- changing poopy diapers every four hours to prove a point😬).    The real-life cases are worse than what @MinnesotaWriter wrote.

[JustaFoxGirl]

55 minutes ago, BabySofia said:

(Assuming they salvage things after learning the horrors she went through. I like to think most teenagers like them would be empathetic to a friend in that situation). 

I have no doubts her friends will be supportive, the "issue" there is that Samantha likes being babied, and Lisa was fully on board with that. When they find out what happened to Sarah, how they react will really determine the rest. One of the really tricky parts, though, is Sarah currently doesn't hate having been babied. Yes, she's been broken down mentally and is still unwilling to accept her mother did anything wrong after a lifetime of that kind of "parenting", but in the chapter CPS found her, she was thinking about how being a baby means no stress, and how she enjoyed it, which isn't entirely related to "diapers = baby". She simply enjoyed not having anything to worry about.

 

Obviously it's not right what happened, but I don't think anyone here can fault her for how she felt about it by the end. It was just very much the absolute worst way to come to that conclusion. Jane, however, doesn't want her to be a baby and instead is telling her that being in diapers doesn't mean she's a baby, but that may conflict with Lisa and Samantha. Lisa doesn't want to be in diapers, so she's not a baby according to what Sarah's mother has instilled in her. Samantha on the other hand DOES want to be in diapers so that makes her a baby, which is what she wants. That puts Sarah right in the middle as she both needs diapers, and (thanks to the abuse) wants to be a baby (although she's currently struggling with that as well). If she does end up hating it, how will Samantha and Lisa react? It's easy to say Samantha gives it up out of respect, but, once again, I think many of us can relate to how that isn't so easy.

[spark]

25 minutes ago, JustaFoxGirl said:

Obviously it's not right what happened, but I don't think anyone here can fault her for how she felt about it by the end. It was just very much the absolute worst way to come to that conclusion. Jane, however, doesn't want her to be a baby and instead is telling her that being in diapers doesn't mean she's a baby, but that may conflict with Lisa and Samantha. Lisa doesn't want to be in diapers, so she's not a baby according to what Sarah's mother has instilled in her. Samantha on the other hand DOES want to be in diapers so that makes her a baby, which is what she wants. That puts Sarah right in the middle as she both needs diapers, and (thanks to the abuse) wants to be a baby (although she's currently struggling with that as well). If she does end up hating it, how will Samantha and Lisa react? It's easy to say Samantha gives it up out of respect, but, once again, I think many of us can relate to how that isn't so easy.

@MinnesotaWriter has confirmed that he was influenced by Redemption, which touches on that theme. 

I don't think mine comes from trauma, because I had it before my mom passed away.  But my push got a lot stronger after my mom died.    Others among us can trace their push to trauma, so we know that can happen.  

I'm going to assume that the four will be reconnected, which I think is a good thing for Sarah.  I don't know enough about Samantha, but I wonder how the three will react to each other.  I think there is a reason MW went through the whole sleepover narrative.

[JustaFoxGirl]

12 hours ago, spark said:

@MinnesotaWriter has confirmed that he was influenced by Redemption, which touches on that theme. 

I don't think mine comes from trauma, because I had it before my mom passed away.  But my push got a lot stronger after my mom died.    Others among us can trace their push to trauma, so we know that can happen.  

I'm going to assume that the four will be reconnected, which I think is a good thing for Sarah.  I don't know enough about Samantha, but I wonder how the three will react to each other.  I think there is a reason MW went through the whole sleepover narrative.

I looked up that Redemption thing and I can see the similarities. A lot of questions about that movie but this obviously isn't the place for it lol.

 

Mine comes mainly from bullying since my parents were always supportive. not much to say there.

 

And yea, they should all end up together again. I mentioned before, but the private chat Lisa and Samantha had must have been pretty deep for Lisa to do a full 180 on Samantha after catching her stealing diapers.

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 67: Decision Time

The bed was dry when I woke up the first morning in the hospital, but just barely. I found that the diapers provided by the hospital were not nearly as high quality as the ones Mom had purchased or I had borrowed from Lisa.

I was curled up tightly in a ball when I awoke. I guess I had become so used to not being able to fully stretch out while sleeping in the crib that my body had subconsciously contracted while I was asleep. I remained in that position for a while. My thumb again found its way inside my mouth. There was something in the back of my mind trying to tell me that I should remove it, but I didn’t feel like doing so yet.

I eyed the button that was on the wall next to the bed. Amanda had said that she would bring a nurse if there was anything that I needed. What I needed more than anything was a diaper change. Amanda had very much been encouraging me to wear a pull-up during the day, but I didn’t see the point of that. I had no desire to deal with any forced and pointless attempts at potty training today.

I pressed the red button. It lit up. Someone must be on their way.

I rolled over onto my back and stretched my legs out underneath the covers. That felt quite good. I didn’t have to wait long for a nurse to respond to the button.

The nurse who came in wasn’t one that I recognized. But that made sense. There were probably a lot of them at the hospital, all working in different shifts.

She introduced herself as Debrah and didn’t seem the least bit surprised when I calmly told her that I needed help changing my diaper. She left for a few minutes and returned with a bag of diapers, along with wipes and powder, which she placed inside one of the dresser drawers.

Unlike Amanda, Debrah knew exactly what she was doing when it came to changing me. The diaper was replaced with a clean one methodically, in a manner that suggested Debrah could have handled the whole process in her sleep.

With a dry diaper on and no more worries about any more leaks or accidents, Debrah left me to get dressed, promising that she would be back with breakfast in a little while.

I eyed the clothes that Amanda had brought for me. None of it seemed quite right. I then checked the tiny dresser where she had retrieved pajamas for me the night before. There were some pairs of gray sweatpants in various sizes, one of which was the right size for me.

The baggy pants worked well to hide the diaper from view, but if I had thought other diapers I’d worn before had been super crinkly, I was sorely mistaken. The sound the plastic made from each step I took around the room was insanely loud. I hoped that was just because I had a quiet room to myself and that the noise from the hospital would drown it out some.

There were some plain blue T-shirts provided by the hospital., but I instead went with one of the Fortnite shirts that Amanda and Jodie had brought along for me from home. I felt a sudden desire to play video games as I eyed the graphic on the front of the shirt. I had just slipped it on when Debrah came back with a breakfast tray.

She took a look at my shirt. “You like to play video games?”

“Yeah.”

Debrah set the tray down on the desk before heading back toward the door. “I can probably get you something to help pass the time.”

It was a feast. French toast sticks and a cup of maple syrup to dip them into. Orange slices. Yogurt. Chocolate milk. I sat down at the desk to eat my meal. I was nearly finished when there was a knock, followed by Amanda opening the door.

“Good morning,” she said, looking at my breakfast. “Nice to see that you are up already. Did you sleep well last night?”

I nodded. My mouth was too full of French toast to give an immediate reply.

“You really should get changed when you get up in the morning. Do you need me to help?”

I didn’t immediately understand what Amanda was getting at. Then it made sense. I looked down at my waistline. The telltale white plastic of the diaper was sticking out over the top of my sweatpants in a spot where my shirt had gotten bunched up. She could tell I had a diaper on but was thinking that it was because I hadn’t changed at all after getting up.

“It’s all dry.”

“That’s great. Did you make it through the night without an accident? Why don’t you go use the toilet then, and we can get you changed into a pull-up.”

She had completely misunderstood what I had meant.

“It’s dry cause Debrah came and changed me this morning.”

I could tell that Amanda wasn’t exactly thrilled about that answer. But she seemed to accept it, even if not all that willingly.

Amanda sat down in another chair and explained what we would be doing today. I had a follow-up visit with Jane, the urologist. Then, I was going to be spending the afternoon with a therapist. The police might want to ask me some additional questions, but this time, it would be with a detective more familiar with these types of cases.

I asked if there was any news about Mom or Emilia, but Amanda shook her head. I tried to imagine where they could be or what they would be up to now. That convinced me that Mom had indeed seen CPS on the baby monitor. But her first instinct had been to grab Emilia and run, completely abandoning me. Why?

Amanda had brought a smaller drawstring bag so I could bring some stuff to change into while we traveled around the hospital for the appointments. I put a couple of diapers, wipes, and powder inside it, along with a change of pants, just in case. At her insistence, I also tossed in two pull-ups, but I had no intention of wearing them today.

---

Jane was waiting for me in an open room. This time, Amanda dropped me off, saying there were some other things she needed to do today but that a nurse would come along when I was done with Jane to get me to where I needed to be next.

I was worried about what Jane would say in response to seeing me in a diaper. But I didn’t face any judgment from her.

“There isn’t anything wrong with wearing a diaper right now if that is what you need and feel most comfortable with,” she said. “I understand how embarrassing it can be to be dealing with leaks.”

Even with the knowledge that Jane was wearing a pull-up, I couldn’t tell that she had one on. The baggy scrubs were a perfect camouflage for whatever lay beneath. It was comforting to know that she had been in my place before.

I asked right away about the test results, only to have Jane tell me that there likely wasn’t going to be any news for a week or two, at a minimum. In the meantime, she wanted to talk with me about how to manage my incontinence. Most of the additional advice I received from her wasn’t new. In fact, it only seemed to confirm my suspicions that she was the source of most of the medical information that Lisa had on managing incontinence.

The first thing I did was get a lesson on how to tape on the diapers properly. Jane had a bunch of them in the office and didn’t find it wasteful that we went through a half-dozen as she helped with learning how best to tape the diaper on while sitting and standing. It felt good to know that I wasn’t going to need anyone else to assist with changing me anymore.

After I was done meeting with Jane, a nurse led me a short distance away to an adjacent section of the hospital with doctors who specialized in bowel issues. I wasn’t thrilled that it was a male doctor I had to speak with about that issue. But, like Jane, he was understanding and non-judgmental. He agreed with my theory that the change in diet was the cause of those complications and sent a note to the nurses responsible for bringing my meals to make a few adjustments that would assist in helping my bowels return to their normal routine.

Then, there was a long journey back to my room. That was followed by lunch, which was interrupted by a rather urgent need to poop. That’s where having a private restroom came in handy. I was able to rip the diaper off in time to avoid what would have been a big mess to clean up.

I still had some time before the therapist appointment that afternoon, so I took advantage of that to hop in the shower before putting on a fresh diaper.

The therapy appointment wasn’t like anything I had expected, but my only prior experience had been what I’d seen on TV shows.

There were so many questions that I felt like I was back being interviewed by the police officers, except that this time, I wasn’t being judged for my responses. The only good thing was that the therapist seemed to have been fully informed about everything that had happened so far. I got the impression that Amanda had spoken with her for a while.

But we didn’t spend time talking about much of that. She made note of my T-shirt, and we spent quite a while talking about what video games I liked to play. I told her about how I had been on the e-sports team at high school.

From there, the conversation drifted to other topics. My sister. School. Friends. What TV shows I liked to watch. Favorite foods. The time passed quickly. The therapist told me that she had set up appointments for each afternoon this week. By the time I was walking out the door, I realized that she hadn’t asked a single question about my diapers.

I had a surprise waiting for me when I finally made it back to my room before dinner. A Nintendo Switch was set out on the bed, with a few games and a note from Debrah.

I inserted a game cartridge and powered the device on. A wave of memories washed over me as I did so. The controls felt foreign after having not used them for months, but the re-adjustment didn’t take long at all.

As I lay on the bed, the gaming system held above my head, I thought back to my worries from last night about the uncertainty as to what the future might hold for me. For the first time in a long time, a new day had exceeded expectations.

---

The next week was a blur, but not in the same way that the last two months had been. I settled into a routine. I had the occasional doctor’s appointment in the morning. Time with the therapist in the afternoon

It wasn’t a bad life. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were brought right up to my room. And I had the evening free to play video games as long into the night as I could stay awake.

But a week later, I still had no news about Mom and Emilia. Still no update from all the tests they had run on me when I had first arrived at the hospital. What had been the point of getting poked and prodded like that if they weren’t going to tell me what it meant?

Jane had told me to be patient, as lab results could take some time to return, and even then, she would need to look at all of them carefully to try to see what conclusions she could draw from that data.

During the first few days, I’d had a couple of close calls with having a messy accident. But with a private toilet set aside for my own use, I’d been able to avoid a repeat of the disaster that had taken place during the police interview. But aside from going number two on the toilet, I was using the diaper for everything else.

Debrah had discreetly restocked the dresser a couple of times with additional diapers for me. I caught sight of the pull-ups each time I reached into the dresser to grab a clean diaper, but I could never bring myself to grab one of the pull-ups. It still felt wrong, like something I was forbidden from doing.

After a comfortable first day of getting to know each other, the conversations with the therapist delved into the uncomfortable details of what had transpired in the past six months. She didn’t pass judgment on any of the decisions I had made. She mostly asked questions and, in doing so, forced me to think about things in ways I hadn’t previously considered. It wasn’t as though I couldn’t tell that she was trying to direct me to certain conclusions, but she shied away from directly telling me what they were.

And then there was the discussion about diapers. The topic didn’t get brought up until the middle of the third day I had been seeing the therapist. We had danced around it before, but it had yet to be brought up by name at that point. Like Jane, the therapist didn’t actually use the word diapers. Her preferred euphemism was protective underwear. It didn’t catch on for me.

She didn’t address the medical side of things. But we talked about separating diapers from being treated like a baby. I wanted more than anything to get her opinion of Samantha’s behavior, but I was too nervous to bring it up. What would she have made of that?

That wasn’t to say the conversations hadn’t helped. By the evening after the fourth day of therapy, I managed to fall asleep without putting my thumb in my mouth.

A number of other things became clear during our conversations together. For one, I learned an important new word: narcissism. That is what the therapist used to describe my mother’s behavior. Mom hadn’t loved me. She wasn’t capable of loving me. And the way she had treated me had been horribly wrong even before my incontinence had begun, with arbitrary rules and punishments, designed not for my own well-being, but to protect her own self-image of a successful parent.

Everything Mom had done had been in service to and in preservation of her own self-image. That was the essence of narcissism. Everything that had happened had been about her. Her need to be in control. Her need to shape me into what she wanted to be. She saw my imperfections as a reflection of herself and, therefore, sought to remove them and, in failing to do so, to punish me for them.

That didn’t quite explain the difference between how Emilia and I were treated, but the therapist explained that it wasn’t uncommon for a narcissist to play favorites with their children. To have a so-called golden child and a scapegoat.

But it was one thing to be told all of that and process it intellectually. That wasn’t the hard part of the process. It was at the emotional level where I struggled to re-write all the feelings I’d experienced during the fifteen years Mom had raised me.

I wanted to be angry, to hate her, but I found it difficult to hold on to those feelings for long. There was too much shared history between us. And not all of it had been bad, either.

So, I ended up hating myself instead.

Being told that what my mother had done was wrong should have made me feel better. But instead, I often felt the opposite. How had I been so incapable of recognizing that things weren’t right? Why couldn’t I have stood up for myself instead of letting Mom continue to take control until there was nothing left to take? Why had I been so resistant to seek help from friends who would have been more than willing to assist me?

The increased awareness of what had gone wrong only succeeded in making me feel as though I had failed somehow in continuing to allow it to occur. And now Emilia was stuck with Mom for who knew how long. That was my fault, too.

It was a lot to take in, and after the seventh session, I wanted nothing more than to get back to my room and lay down in bed to think it all over.

---

Amanda was waiting for me in my room when I returned from the latest therapy session.

“I have some news about your mother,” Amanda said.

“What is it?”

“They found her trying to drive into Canada, of all places. She’s been arrested, and your half-sister is safe. Your mom will be transported back to here to be arraigned. Emilia is in foster care. But they’ve found some info about her biological father. Apparently, your mom never told him she was pregnant.”

I hadn’t been quite up to speed on the whole birds and the bees thing when Mom became pregnant with Emilia. She had always been my sister. And that stayed true even when I realized she was just technically my half-sister, that just wasn't a phrase I had ever used when thinking of her. That her father was out of the picture was something that just wasn’t questioned. It wasn’t a topic Mom had ever brought up. It must have been a one or two-night fling, as I couldn’t recall her ever going on any dates. She certainly had never brought anyone back to the house.

The same was true for my dad. He’d passed away when I was young before I’d even turned six months old. Another topic never discussed. But in some ways, because I’d never known him, it had never felt as though something was missing from my life. It had always been Mom and me, and then Emilia. That was all I’d ever known.

“So, he had no clue?”

“None whatsoever. It was a one-night fling. He met someone else and is now married. They have an infant, but are willing to take Emilia in.” Amanda paused. “They’ve also said that they would be happy to have you come and live with them in Wisconsin as well.”

That was a lot to take in all at once. For starters, how had Mom managed to get all the way up to Canada? And now my sister, half-sister, as this situation required me to think of her, had a new family lined up already? What was most stunning of all was the offer to take me in.

“Do they know?”

“Know about what?”

“About everything. About this.” My hands slid down between my legs. I think Amanda realized what I was referring to then.

“All they know is that you’ve been in a really tough situation the past couple of months and have some catching up to do with school and medical issues that need to be managed. They said they would be happy to take you in and were willing to make whatever adjustments were needed for that.”

I was too flabbergasted to speak.

“There is another option,” Amanda continued.

“There’s a local family that has been foster parents for us a number of times in the past that’s been specifically asking about you. I haven’t shared any of your information with them yet because that would violate your privacy, but they seemed to know you and had some awareness that there were things you were going through.”

Who could that possibly be?

“Under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t place you in foster care with someone that you previously knew. However, if that was something that you specifically wanted and were comfortable living with them, that is an option that would allow you to stay in the area and be with your friends.

“Who is it?”

“The last name is Higgins. Is that familiar to you?”

My heart stopped. I nodded.

If they had been asking after me, that could only mean one thing. Lisa must have told her aunt and uncle about me, but how would they have figured out I had been taken in my CPS... unless.

I finally managed to put two and two together. There had been an anonymous call to CPS, but one that hadn’t correctly identified what was happening in the home. Someone had wanted to make sure that CPS checked on me no matter what. Could it have been Lisa who had made that call?

“May I ask how you know them?” Amanda asked.

“I was friends with their niece, Lisa, at school. Her uncle was my history teacher. Lisa already knows a bit about, um, the bladder things I’ve been dealing with.”

“That would be more unusual for you to stay with them, but if that was your preference, and you were comfortable with it, it is something that could possibly be arranged.”

“Are those my only two choices?”

“No, we could try to set you up with another foster family, but you would likely end up in a group home for quite a while before we find one. There aren’t nearly as many families willing to take in a teenager.”

“So my best choices are either the Higgins or Emilia’s family?”

“Yes.”

That was a lot to consider all at once.

I could go live with Emilia’s family. But that would mean entrusting the secret of my incontinence with people that I barely knew. It was one thing for them to take in Emilia, but for me, there wasn’t any direct relationship.

On the other hand, it would be a fresh start. Somewhere where no one knew me or my mom, somewhere where I could begin again completely anew.

But did I want that?

That would mean leaving Lisa, Samantha, and Desi behind. Would I even get a chance to give them an explanation? Would I want a chance to give them an explanation? Could I handle the possibility of never seeing them again?

But if I stayed? Would they accept me? Had the way I had pushed them away ruined things between us forever? But could I accept leaving Emilia behind?

Amanda placed a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to make a choice now. Why don’t you get ready for bed, and then you can sleep on it?”

That sounded as good a plan as any.

Tomorrow, I would have a choice to make.

[A note for this chapter: I've left the dad situation for Sarah/Emilia unanswered for quite a while. They were always intended to be out of the picture, but in hindsight, an explanation toward the beginning of the story would have been a good idea. But rather than go back and add that in retroactively, I figured it would be better to wait and include that information at a time when it was relevant]

[JustaFoxGirl]

I'm glad we finally get an explaination of Sarah's father. I had wondered where he could have gone after the mother was pregnant with Emilia, but this revelation makes sense. Hopefully Emilia and her mother being found will allow Sarah to have less guilt about everything.

As for Sarah's choice, I do not envy her in the slightest. At least Emilia can easily have a fresh start and potentially forget most of this happened, if not everything. My own memories of being three are fuzzy at best and if you told me something had happened during those years, I wouldn't be able to doubt it. But choosing to leave Emilia or leave her friends is such a heavy decision for a fifteen year old to make, especially after everything. The idea that Emilia's foster family would be farther away never really crossed my mind. This is a heck of a twist.

[GQLF]

Emotionally speaking, for a 3-year-old child who suddenly leaves her familiar environment and everyone, she should feel extremely uneasy. Moreover, Sarah and Emilia do not have any estrangement. In this case, if they separate their sisters, they will be alone in the world. I think if it were me, I would not choose to open the end of sisters.

[AndTheChips]

I think for me this is kind of the best case scenario I ever saw for Sarah. That Emilia would find a loving hone. That Emilia’s family would accept and hopefully even love Sarah one day. And that Sarah would have the ability to choose and potentially live with Lisa as a kind of sister.

 

She can visit Emilia. Maybe spend some holidays or summer time there. The space may also help Emilia forget things a bit. And help the NATURAL feelings of resentment that could come up for Sarah or self-hate (why did mom love her but not me? Why does she get to have a real family but not me? Why am I so horrible as to ask this, she’s my sister I love her I should be happy for her I’m a monster, etc.). 
 

And if mom gets out in like a hot second as she probably will (depressingly), she would likely move to WI to be near Emilia and try to get visitations/eventually try to get custody unfortunately. I mean I hate to say best case for everyone would be if she would just cut ties and go live somewhere else and pretend she was a perfect person there away from the kids. Bc realistically her BECOMING a better person I don’t see at all. 

[AndTheChips]

58 minutes ago, GQLF said:

Emotionally speaking, for a 3-year-old child who suddenly leaves her familiar environment and everyone, she should feel extremely uneasy. Moreover, Sarah and Emilia do not have any estrangement. In this case, if they separate their sisters, they will be alone in the world. I think if it were me, I would not choose to open the end of sisters.

Oof yeah but they DO have estrangement. They were treated so differently and Emilia was used as a tool in Sarah’s abuse. How could she not see her sister and have thoughts of, “why did mom love her not me-what’s wrong with me? Why does she get to be with her dad. Why does she get a real loving family the white picket fence, new baby sister? Why am I horrible she’s my sister I love her why wouldn’t I want that for her?! And on and on”. And honestly? Emilia having a more loving and involved family with a real life baby sister in a new place? She’ll adapt quickly. Sarah would be constantly feeling like the odd man out. Even if they’re the best she’d feel like the only not REAL child.
 

Her weird behaviors and trauma issues? Not likely she will find friends so true and deep there and even if she did doubt it’d be quick. Her trauma and recovery? Exhaustive for anyone to help with and a family with a new baby who just found out dad has a 3 year old they’re taking in? They could be as amazing as humanly possible and EVEN if they magically are not human and don’t ever feel even a hint of frustration with ALL of Sarah’s issues and probable isolation and appointments and expenses and on and on, SARAH is a bright girl with a tendency to blame herself and question how others must think she is horrible and resent her even for things beyond her control.  And she’d definitely think that she was making things so much harder for their otherwise seemingly perfect life.  I’m not saying she should. Im not saying it’s right, I’m saying she does and that’s a natural and expected outcome. So it just wouldn’t be a good fit, honestly IMO. For EITHER child. 

[spark]

Great Chapter. and boy is that a tough decision

The poor girl has a long way to go and needs a lot of time.

There are so many questions.  I'm glad Emilia has a family to go to, and a 3-year-old would transition to her father's family fairly quickly.   She will love being an actual big sister, and there won't be much of a gap. 

Emilia wouldn't recognize that she was treated as the golden child, but Sarah might have some hidden resentment.  She has two choices because a group home would be brutal, and no chance of getting adopted.   The Higgins could give her a home, and there is a support structure in her house.  It wouldn't mean that Sarah would totally abandon Emilia.  She would be able to visit her from time to time, especially after she is college.

There is a life bond between Sarah and Lisa.  I don't think Sarah quite sees that she was worth being saved, but she will realize that Mom tried to destroy her life.

Just FTR- this was all because Sarah bought herself some Pull-ups to keep herself from wetting her pants!  I spent the last last three years screaming "Sarah, tell somebody what is going on, Please!"  Now it is, "Sarah, your mom turned you into a baby for two months because you bought yourself some Pull-ups to cover up incontinence.  You know that there is a medical reason that you peed your pants."