Let’s discuss spiraling

[Enthusi]

I know this has been discussed in the past but I wanted to bring it up again to learn other’s experiences with spiraling and what it tells us about untraining. 
 

Spiraling is the concept that your bladder control starts to slip a little -> You start relying on your diaper to keep you dry -> Bladder control further weakens from deconditioning  -> increased reliance on diapers as a crutch -> Bladder control worsens even more -> -> -> diaper dependence / incontinence. 

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the ability to enter the spiral is the most critical aspect of untraining. 
 

Thus, I’m very curious to hear other’s experience with spiraling.   Here are some questions that come to my mind.  Similar to @Kaliborio’s posts, feel free to answer some or all of the questions or even provide additional information that you think is relevant. 
 

1.  Have you spiraled?  If so what was it like for you?  When did it first start?  How did you feel when it happened?  Did you intend for it to happen?  Was it an abrupt onset or more insidious? 
 

2. If you started to spiral but still have bladder control, are you okay with that? How long has it been since you started? Are you hoping to spiral further? Do you feel stalled, or even regaining control? Are you doing anything to continue the spiral? 
 

3.  If you spiraled to the point of having little to no bladder control, what was the progression? Was it a smooth decent? Jagged? Free fall?  Was there anything that pushed you along?  Do you think you can spiral up and regain control?  
 

4a.  How is (was) night time wetting impacted by spiraling?  Is your nighttime bladder control congruent with your spiral?  Did sleep wetting occur as a result of the spiral, or did it jump start the spiral?  Or, if have spiraled during the daytime, but still not sleep wetting, is that frustrating?   
 

4b.  Do you think that daytime and night time spiraling are related? Is it one big spiral, or two separate spirals? 
 

5.  I’ve observed that for some people spiraling happens early and easily and bladder control plummets, while for others it’s a painfully slow process.  Would you agree? What do you think predicts the ease of entering the spiral? 
 

I think this is a fascinating topic and I can’t wait to hear others’ thoughts   If my theory of spiraling turns out to be correct, then it could be a game changer.  Instead of focusing on losing all control, we could develop a regimen that focuses on getting into the spiral and reinforcing results.  Wouldn’t that be cool?

[Stroller]

Well not really.  I found it all a bit simpler than that.  Once I started wearing full-time I stopped making any attempt to control my wetting, and also started heading straight to the toilet at the first sign I might need to poo.  So the question of losing control never came up.  Before I went full-time I still had full control.  These days I wet without thinking about it, but it took a few months to get there.  I had to learn to relax my sphincter muscles and keep them in that state, but it wasn't hard to do - it just took time and patience.  I wet more often during the day than I did when I was controlling things, maybe every hour on average.  At night I don't think frequency has changed - I wet two or three times a night.  But only when I'm awake - no idea why that is.  I may have wet once in my sleep, but I can't be sure.  I'm now 3 1/2 years into wearing full-time during the day, and I've been completely full-time for the past 2 years.  But losing control?  I don't need control - I'm in a nappy.

Not sure I've explained this as clearly as I could, but I've done my best.  It looks like there's a distinction here between wearers who control when they wet, and those who don't.  I'm less sure this is about actually losing control, other than that it's likely that if you don't use it you are likely to lose it.  So it's likely I've lost some or all control, but I've no interest in finding out, as I'm in a nappy anyway.  My inner 2-year-old doesn't want to know about control!

[Little Sherri]

1 hour ago, Enthusi said:

1.  Have you spiraled?  If so what was it like for you?  When did it first start?  How did you feel when it happened?  Did you intend for it to happen?  Was it an abrupt onset or more insidious? 
 

2. If you started to spiral but still have bladder control, are you okay with that? How long has it been since you started? Are you hoping to spiral further? Do you feel stalled, or even regaining control? Are you doing anything to continue the spiral? 
 

3.  If you spiraled to the point of having little to no bladder control, what was the progression? Was it a smooth decent? Jagged? Free fall?  Was there anything that pushed you along?  Do you think you can spiral up and regain control?  
 

4a.  How is (was) night time wetting impacted by spiraling?  Is your nighttime bladder control congruent with your spiral?  Did sleep wetting occur as a result of the spiral, or did it jump start the spiral?  Or, if have spiraled during the daytime, but still not sleep wetting, is that frustrating?   
 

4b.  Do you think that daytime and night time spiraling are related? Is it one big spiral, or two separate spirals? 
 

5.  I’ve observed that for some people spiraling happens early and easily and bladder control plummets, while for others it’s a painfully slow process.  Would you agree? What do you think predicts the ease of entering the spiral? 

1) Hmmm... maybe "spiraled", but then plateaued. Once I started wearing diapers full-time, I started using them in the way I thought (and think) gets the best mileage out of them - more frequent, smaller releases, rather than infrequent deluges. That meant that I never really "held it" for very long anymore. Within the first year, I noticed a marked decline in my comfortable cruising range; I could still go a couple to a few hours without wetting if I HAD to, but it became an effort after the first 45 minutes to an hour. Whereas before diapers, I often went a few to several hours between pitstops. But from there to here, three years on, I'd say things are basically the same. So the spiral levelled off. 

2) I've pretty much accepted my situation. Sometimes I think that it would be great to not have to "permission" every event, but I get to wear diapers 24/7, so compared with where I was, I'm living the dream. If things could happen more on autopilot, that would be great, but I really can't complain about the ground I have staked out, with much effort, so far. 

3) I haven't experienced much loss of control, but I have HAD "wetting incidents" during the day (only a few), and more so during the night, although those are very unpredictable. The biggest change I've noticed is that, when I start going, I can't stop it. It's not that it's uncomfortable to stop it, it's that, if the flow is beyond a trickle, I can't stop it, period. I have stared at it in wonder, willing it to stop, and, nothing. 

4) I wish I could just lose control at night. Being a bedwetter as a child is what brought me to where I am today, but I can't seem to get back to where I was before the age of about 10, when I wet the bed flagrantly, and unconsciously, practically every night. Now, I usually wake up at least a bit to go, but I can fall right back to sleep, and things continue by themselves. But it is annoying to have to wake up, when you're wearing a capable diaper, in order to use that diaper. I have found that going to bed wet helps a bit with occurrences that either happen by themselves, or that I can't recall allowing. Drinking heavily helps A LOT. But doing that every night in support of becoming once again reliably unreliable in terms of overnight dryness would come with costs in other areas of my life...

4b) I think that they are related. While I don't wet the bed often, before I started wearing diapers during the day, I almost never wet at night. Maybe once in a few years. 

5) Definitely, everyone's experience will be different. I have marveled at people's recounting of their becoming functionally incontinent within a few months of deciding to try. Meanwhile, I've coming up on my third year in diapers, and if I had to, I could make it at least a couple to a few hours, without a diaper on, although it would be uncomfortable, and, towards the end of the journey, risky. But I suspect that it depends a lot on how much you want to be incontinent, and how much you want to believe that you can be, or that you are. I didn't set out wanting to be incontinent, per se, although once I reached a point where I knew I was going to be in diapers for a long while, and possibly (hopefully), forever, I wanted to stop having to be involved in all events. If I could have the "best of both worlds", and dribble like a distracted preschooler most of the time, but with the ability to summon control when it's required, that would be ideal, and maybe that's what's holding me up... I haven't committed to letting go completely. 

However, I think it also has to do with the way that I'm wired, mentally... I'm a engineer. I'm not religious. I'm the type that suspects that hypnosis wouldn't work on me. I'd buy a house next to a cemetery. When things go bump in the night, I go looking for them. I am a disciple of empiricism in most of my pursuits. And I've read some things in medical journals that suggest to me that giving up on continence, at least while awake, is not a simple process (*). But I admire, respect, and envy those of you for whom this comes easily. Hopefully I can learn from you. 

* (One article in particular that centered on the improper use of sedatives and antipsychotics in the elderly, recounted a study where some bedridden seniors were weaned off of stupefying doses of various medications, and many of them became at least somewhat mobile again, and were able to cease relying on incontinence products. These were people who had been in diapers for, in some cases, close to a decade. Not all of them came back completely, but some did, which shows that those capabilities are pretty hard-wired. But the mind is a powerful thing, and one imagines that most of them didn't want to be diapered....) 

[Kif]

2 hours ago, Enthusi said:

1.  Have you spiraled?  If so what was it like for you?  When did it first start?  How did you feel when it happened?  Did you intend for it to happen?  Was it an abrupt onset or more insidious? 

Maybe?

The first time I tried untraining, I went from dry at night to wetting 4 or 5 nights per week with very little daytime awareness in a span of two months. I pursued both, so I didn't hold back at all. I wanted to lose my continence, quite a lot.

The second time, a similar process happened to maybe 75% the previous try and over 6 months or so...I was only wet every other night or so by the end of it. I wanted to lose my continence...but I also knew I really couldn't and would have to stop for SRS so while I put my focus on it I couldn't fully commit.

The physical after-effects were a bit more insidious. 

The first time around, I had stronger post-void drip than before and more urgency.

The second time around I've noticed now that I uncontrollably drip when laughing...not a lot, but the difference is it happens despite me focusing on not letting it happen.

2 hours ago, Enthusi said:

2. If you started to spiral but still have bladder control, are you okay with that? How long has it been since you started? Are you hoping to spiral further? Do you feel stalled, or even regaining control? Are you doing anything to continue the spiral? 

I started to spiral and still have bladder control. I'm dry at night and day, aside from dripping when laughing. Atm, I tolerate it...I know stopping is temporary for me, and have every intention to return to it when I can and spiral further. Not doing anything to continue the spiral, in fact I'm deliberately clenching etc to reverse it.

2 hours ago, Enthusi said:

3.  If you spiraled to the point of having little to no bladder control, what was the progression? Was it a smooth decent? Jagged? Free fall?  Was there anything that pushed you along?  Do you think you can spiral up and regain control?  

Not there yet

2 hours ago, Enthusi said:

4a.  How is (was) night time wetting impacted by spiraling?  Is your nighttime bladder control congruent with your spiral?  Did sleep wetting occur as a result of the spiral, or did it jump start the spiral?  Or, if have spiraled during the daytime, but still not sleep wetting, is that frustrating?   

4b.  Do you think that daytime and night time spiraling are related? Is it one big spiral, or two separate spirals? 

I think they're congruent / related. And, I think it is both the bedwetting pushing the spiraling and the spiraling pushing the bedwetting. Generally speaking, I advanced the more I relaxed and let things happen and did what I could to feel safe in bed...And the more I wet the bed, the more during the day I didn't noticed when I wet or how much.

2 hours ago, Enthusi said:

5.  I’ve observed that for some people spiraling happens early and easily and bladder control plummets, while for others it’s a painfully slow process.  Would you agree? What do you think predicts the ease of entering the spiral? 

I've been through both, so to speak...one happened in 2 months, one happened to 75% in 6 months.

If I had to guess, there's maybe an emotional connection (as I've noticed during high-stress I progress less), and a sense of permanence / commitment (the first time, I didn't see any barriers/reasons to stop and progressed much faster than my most-recent trials where I knew it wouldn't last from the moment I started). But, at the same time in either case I've been able to progress and while I've retrained there have been some lasting (while minor) physical changes despite the above. 

So I'd lean on some of this being in the head, and some of it being in the body...but the body changes take a long time. Lots of the folks that I've seen with full incontinence from this have been doing it several years, and I have at most 8 months under my belt...So, of course I wouldn't expect to see many physical changes. BUT, I have had them so it shows that whatever untraining I've done has had some lasting changes no matter my mood or motivation...

The way I see it, it's just a matter of time for me at least.

 

[oznl]

On 2/9/2022 at 2:05 AM, Enthusi said:

Thus, I’m very curious to hear other’s experience with spiraling.   Here are some questions that come to my mind.  Similar to @Kaliborio’s posts, feel free to answer some or all of the questions or even provide additional information that you think is relevant.

Ok, if I’ve understood you (and by proxy, @Kaliborio) correctly, “spiralling” is a kind of positive feedback loop where by a specific event might be increased in amplitude or frequency by forming a reinforcing input to future events.

1.  Have you spiraled?  If so what was it like for you?  When did it first start?  How did you feel when it happened?  Did you intend for it to happen?  Was it an abrupt onset or more insidious? 

During the day, I’m going to say “No”.  Sure, in the very early days of 24/7, I, like many others “noticed” an almost daily conga-line of new developments.  In retrospect, this was probably a combination of hyper-sensitivity to novel experiences and enthusiasm.

Looking back more objectively, I believe that I’ve experienced a decline in day continence but it has been very gradual and as @Little Sherri mentioned, featured very long, boring plateaus where nothing changes for months.

For night time, I think I am presently on a rapidly accelerating trajectory which could be described as a spiral.  I suspect that in recent weeks, I’ve “wet the bed” (nappy really) most nights.

2. If you started to spiral but still have bladder control, are you okay with that? How long has it been since you started? Are you hoping to spiral further? Do you feel stalled, or even regaining control? Are you doing anything to continue the spiral? 

For my bed wetting, I’ve allowed that to progress.  I originally thought I would stop 24/7 should something like that arise but I did not.  I am not doing anything specific to continue the spiral other than not attempting to stop it.  Positive feedback loops once initiated, require no more than the preservation of their operating environment to continue.  Other terms used for these kind of loops include “runaway” and “take off” if that helps colour my point.

3.  If you spiralled to the point of having little to no bladder control, what was the progression? Was it a smooth decent? Jagged? Free fall?  Was there anything that pushed you along?  Do you think you can spiral up and regain control?  

Whilst I haven’t “spiralled” during the day, I am acutely aware that the descent I have experienced thus far has not at all been linear.  It is filled with progressions, regressions and plateaus.

4a.  How is (was) night time wetting impacted by spiraling?  Is your nighttime bladder control congruent with your spiral?  Did sleep wetting occur as a result of the spiral, or did it jump start the spiral?  Or, if have spiraled during the daytime, but still not sleep wetting, is that frustrating?  

My situation doesn’t really fit this question.  I am continent during the day but bed wet at night.  It’s not what I anticipated.

4b.  Do you think that daytime and night time spiraling are related? Is it one big spiral, or two separate spirals? 

I’m starting to suspect the bed wetting and incontinence are very different animals and whilst bedwetting is a symptom of incontinence, not all bedwetters are incontinent.

I suspect my bedwetting is a learned behaviour and at best only indirectly related to my degraded daytime incontinence.   Think of it as "brain incontinence".  I suspect that it’s enhanced somewhat by the fact that I now experience urinary frequency.  If I did not wet the bed, I would have to wake up 3 – 5 times during the night.

The feedback loop I suspect is in play is that the more I wet the bed in my sleep (with no negative consequence), the easier it becomes to do so.  The behaviour is intrinsically self-reinforcing because it requires less effort than the alternative.

5.  I’ve observed that for some people spiraling happens early and easily and bladder control plummets, while for others it’s a painfully slow process.  Would you agree? What do you think predicts the ease of entering the spiral? 

Well, more than three years in and I can still ditch a nappy for short periods at least during the day so I guess we’d all agree that this is “slow”.  I don’t think causality questions are easily addressed when discussing feedback loops (spirals) because cause and effect are inextricably bound.  Think of it as a soggy chicken-and-egg paradox. 

Why do some people untrain quickly whilst others take years and still others never achieve this? I don’t know.

Some of the “I became diaper dependent in three weeks” stories that do float around I suspect are a bit on the optimistic side but who can explain the human brain and this is all ultimately embedded in our heads long before it is (if it ever does) embedded in our physiology.

[Enthusi]

6 hours ago, oznl said:

Think of it as a soggy chicken-and-egg paradox. 

There’s no debate. Clearly the egg came first.  That embryo had a new mutation and became a new species.  (I’m kidding! I’m just being silly.)

To your point about people claiming they made themselves diaper dependent in 3 weeks… I don’t know what to think.  Superficially, it sounds far fetched and my initial instinct is to be skeptical, but  I hear it enough that I don’t think people are lying or even over exaggerating. If I had to take a guess, the people who accomplish this are able to quickly alter their internalized image of themselves to see themselves as incontinent and diaper dependent, and in doing so they replace the conditioned reflex that they shouldn’t be peeing their pants with one that says they should be peeing their pants. And all of this happens subconsciously so the person just knows they are now diaper dependent.    Again this is pure speculation. 

[oznl]

6 hours ago, Enthusi said:

There’s no debate. Clearly the egg came first.  That embryo had a new mutation and became a new species.  (I’m kidding! I’m just being silly.)

Putting on my clear-thinking goggles and analysing it, I believe you are most likely correct.  Congratulations!  You've just solved one of mankind's eternal paradoxes and I will remember this explanation for sure (my brain works that way) ?

Unless of course the genetic mutation was evident in the egg prior to the chicken.

Oh bugger, back to ambiguity...

6 hours ago, Enthusi said:

There’s no debate. Clearly the egg came first.  That embryo had a new mutation and became a new species.  (I’m kidding! I’m just being silly.)

Superficially, it sounds far fetched and my initial instinct is to be skeptical, but  I hear it enough that I don’t think people are lying or even over exaggerating. If I had to take a guess, the people who accomplish this are able to quickly alter their internalized image of themselves to see themselves as incontinent and diaper dependent, and in doing so they replace the conditioned reflex that they shouldn’t be peeing their pants with one that says they should be peeing their pants. And all of this happens subconsciously so the person just knows they are now diaper dependent.  

I agree.  I wouldn't go so far to accuse them of "lying" (no evidence to support such a charge) so I kind of slipped sideways by describing the claim as "optimistic" but that doesn't mean that I think those folk are automatically being disingenuous.  Functional blindness is a real thing (people who are effectively blind not because they have a problem with their visual system but because their brain has decided so).  I wonder if some folk are capable of similar extreme feats of neuroplasticity with respect to their continence: they are capable of visualising a state so effectively that their brains make it real for them.  This is of course pretty much exactly what you are saying so I think we're aligned there.

Keeping my realism perspective switched on, I still think there are probably a few one-handed-typists out there with these stories though.

[Kaliborio]

Hello!

On 2/9/2022 at 2:05 AM, Enthusi said:

your bladder control starts to slip a little -> You start relying on your diaper to keep you dry -> Bladder control further weakens from deconditioning  -> increased reliance on diapers as a crutch -> Bladder control worsens even more -> -> -> diaper dependence / incontinence. 

I respectfully submit that the term I would use for this process is "lock-in," ultimately derived from vendor lock-in. To me, the verb "spiral," ultimately from graveyard spiral, refers to a loss of continence which is unusually rapid and resistant to being regulated, either objectively or subjectively.

I am definitely not a prescriptivist. If the word "spiral" now corresponds to the concept I called "lock-in," I'll absolutely go with the flow. However, it seems as if your questions about spiralling are concerned with what I would call spiralling, and people certainly seem to be answering them under the impression that that is the case.

On 2/9/2022 at 4:10 AM, Little Sherri said:

I'm the type that suspects that hypnosis wouldn't work on me.

I am quoting this in a tangential way, totally unrelated to the topic of the thread, but in terms of susceptibility to hypnosis, the strongest predictor, in my experience, is the subject's average level of dissociation. I have noted, for example, that hormonal gender transition, which is thought with high confidence to decrease dissociative symptoms in a subject, also seems to increase susceptibility to hypnosis. I first noticed this when it happened to me, but after looking around a bit, it seems like I'm not the only one.

I am also generally an empiricist. I don't think hypnosis is magic; I do think it works in some cases — not that you claimed otherwise. As a musician with an academic background, I strongly suspect that hypnosis is mechanically simply something like instrument practice or effective academic study, but in a very concentrated form.

On 2/10/2022 at 6:54 PM, oznl said:

For night time, I think I am presently on a rapidly accelerating trajectory which could be described as a spiral.

This is 100% the kind of thing I would describe as a spiral.

On 2/10/2022 at 6:54 PM, oznl said:

I’m starting to suspect the bed wetting and incontinence are very different animals

I'm getting this feeling. The untraining methodology in which I am most interested is based on the Twelve Month Diaper-Training Program (I feel like the equivalent of a street preacher for the damn thing). The Program provides and/or my experience indicates that, in that context, day wetting comes before bedwetting; both are generated by the same processes; well-established bedwetting is largely irreversible and severely undermines day wetting control; and both day wetting and bedwetting undermine messing control.

However, pretty much everyone in the world who had a different experience seems to be in this forum.  At least two people here have mentioned to me that their bedwetting control was pretty malleable. One person has mentioned being able to recover significant bladder control, but no bowel control at all. I would love to incorporate these folks' results into my understanding of the world, but I don't yet understand how they got there.

On 2/10/2022 at 6:54 PM, oznl said:

this is all ultimately embedded in our heads long before it is (if it ever does) embedded in our physiology.

I very strongly believe spiralling is heavily psychological. The psychological variable to which I personally intuitively attribute the strongest influence on continence is one's belief concerning whether one has control, which could definitely be heavily influenced by what one wants to be true, although isn't ultimately entirely a branch of it.

I think I've mentioned in this forum before that I had a pretty checkered continence history through childhood and adolescence, but was functionally continent at the time I chose to go back into diapers full-time. My progression was more or less complete incontinence and constant bedwetting —> very good continence —> light to moderate urinary incontinence, severe faecal incontinence, relatively limited bedwetting —> decent but shaky continence —> 24/7, untraining, and complete incontinence.

Five months into wearing, I was aware that my wetting control was worse, but not by a huge amount. I started voluntarily messing about 6 or 7 months in. I started involuntarily wetting the bed about nine months in. Sometime between 7 and 12 months in, my wetting control took an absolute dive without my being consciously aware; I know because 12 months in I got cold feet and tried to leave diapers but couldn't stay dry long enough, which is definitely a dramatic change relative to the 5-month mark. My bedwetting got rapidly worse after the 12-month mark. At about 1 year 3 months, I had the first messing accident I am actually sure of (there were a few occasions before that where I thought I was voluntarily messing but wasn't sure). By comparison to my wetting control, my messing control fell apart really fast; by 1 year 9 months, more often than not I simply could not make it.

I think that psychology may have played a part. I observed that my control in general seemed to collapse at a rate that was a little on the speedy side when compared to others' experiences, and I strongly suspect that might just have been because I didn't have the same confidence in my control that I might have had if I had been continent my whole life. I think that because I hadn't been a regular bedwetter since childhood, developing regular bedwetting as an adult made a significant further dent in my confidence of control.

I started thinking about this while I was losing my messing control, because at the time, while it appealed to me as an AB/DL, it absolutely scared the shit out of me on a conscious level (no pun intended). My first messing accident inaugurated a state of constant anxiety that took months and months to dissipate, and further messing accidents exacerbated it to the point of full-on hyperventilating, sweating bullets. I was desperately trying to avoid losing my messing control that whole time, but was not ultimately able to. I know at the time I didn't consciously want to lose it, so I assumed it had to be something unconscious. After several years of thinking, "confidence in one's own control" is the best guess I can come up with.

[I_am_Groot]

[PuraVidaDip]

12 hours ago, Kaliborio said:

Twelve Month Diaper-Training Program (I feel like the equivalent of a street preacher for the damn thing).

Hey Kali, did you have an update to this 12 month program? Curious on your thoughts, especially on the diet front.

 

Also, curious if you've found many people resulted in urinary retention issues due to bladder atrophy, considering the number of people you have interacted with on this.

 

Lastly, curious on your back of the napkin math on the number of people who have tried to gain continence back, and those that were ultimately unsatisfied with their decision to lose continence after a number of years.

[DLJeff52]

I wonder if there is a mental spiraling versus a physical spiraling.  I know they would obviously go hand in hand.  I have definitely noticed the mental spiral more in the first 4 months of my "untraining" journey.  There are definitely physical changes, but I believe the mental condition is what is the critical fuel to drive the physical changes.

Here's the some of my reflections on mental spiraling.

1.  Do I accept that I want to try 24/7 un-training and the implications it has on lifestyle, family, etc?  This is a process even after you start the journey as there can be a lot of binge/purge with other emotional motivators affecting the outcome.

2.  Do I expect too many results too quickly and can I just embrace the journey without setting unrealistic expectations about when my body needs to respond?  I think for me the mental expectation of nighttime bedwetting was too high when I started...this forum helped me understand the complexities of achieving his and helped reframe my goals.  

3.  Can I function outside of my home in diapers exclusively?  I now have thrown away all underwear and have onesies and diapers and it is what I wear everywhere.  However, there is a barrier to wearing socially and at work and while traveling etc. that must be crossed.  This was not so hard for me as I don't tend to care as much what others think if they find out and diapers are obviously tied to incontience which no one really seems to make fun of or care about at my age in life.

4.  Can I commit to the expense involved in this lifestyle?  Mentally other things need to be foregone in order to wear diapers 24/7.  I am fortunate to be in a position to be able to afford this choice, but it is a big one to process.

5.  Can I allow my mind to endure the periods of doubt, frustration or wanting to stop?  Like anything that takes time, there are moments that challenge our commitment to a goal and this is no different.  

6.  Can I take the steps to proactively re-inforce that I am a diaper wearer.  This mindset is so key to the constant decision to diaper up.  I have found this comes easier and easier over time.

7.  Can I sustain my commitment when the "excitement" of it all has worn off?  Like relationships, there is a honeymoon phase, then there is the reality of day-to-day interactions.  Wearing a diaper everyday is exhilarating at some level, but as you move forward, it becomes less adrenaline oriented and truly lifestyle oriented.  

Not sure if any of that makes sense, but I believe my ability to enter into physical spirals is directly related to my ability to mentally spiral.

[DLJeff52]

On 2/16/2022 at 2:14 AM, Kaliborio said:

Hello!

I respectfully submit that the term I would use for this process is "lock-in," ultimately derived from vendor lock-in. To me, the verb "spiral," ultimately from graveyard spiral, refers to a loss of continence which is unusually rapid and resistant to being regulated, either objectively or subjectively.

I am definitely not a prescriptivist. If the word "spiral" now corresponds to the concept I called "lock-in," I'll absolutely go with the flow. However, it seems as if your questions about spiralling are concerned with what I would call spiralling, and people certainly seem to be answering them under the impression that that is the case.

I am quoting this in a tangential way, totally unrelated to the topic of the thread, but in terms of susceptibility to hypnosis, the strongest predictor, in my experience, is the subject's average level of dissociation. I have noted, for example, that hormonal gender transition, which is thought with high confidence to decrease dissociative symptoms in a subject, also seems to increase susceptibility to hypnosis. I first noticed this when it happened to me, but after looking around a bit, it seems like I'm not the only one.

I am also generally an empiricist. I don't think hypnosis is magic; I do think it works in some cases — not that you claimed otherwise. As a musician with an academic background, I strongly suspect that hypnosis is mechanically simply something like instrument practice or effective academic study, but in a very concentrated form.

This is 100% the kind of thing I would describe as a spiral.

I'm getting this feeling. The untraining methodology in which I am most interested is based on the Twelve Month Diaper-Training Program (I feel like the equivalent of a street preacher for the damn thing). The Program provides and/or my experience indicates that, in that context, day wetting comes before bedwetting; both are generated by the same processes; well-established bedwetting is largely irreversible and severely undermines day wetting control; and both day wetting and bedwetting undermine messing control.

However, pretty much everyone in the world who had a different experience seems to be in this forum.  At least two people here have mentioned to me that their bedwetting control was pretty malleable. One person has mentioned being able to recover significant bladder control, but no bowel control at all. I would love to incorporate these folks' results into my understanding of the world, but I don't yet understand how they got there.

I very strongly believe spiralling is heavily psychological. The psychological variable to which I personally intuitively attribute the strongest influence on continence is one's belief concerning whether one has control, which could definitely be heavily influenced by what one wants to be true, although isn't ultimately entirely a branch of it.

I think I've mentioned in this forum before that I had a pretty checkered continence history through childhood and adolescence, but was functionally continent at the time I chose to go back into diapers full-time. My progression was more or less complete incontinence and constant bedwetting —> very good continence —> light to moderate urinary incontinence, severe faecal incontinence, relatively limited bedwetting —> decent but shaky continence —> 24/7, untraining, and complete incontinence.

Five months into wearing, I was aware that my wetting control was worse, but not by a huge amount. I started voluntarily messing about 6 or 7 months in. I started involuntarily wetting the bed about nine months in. Sometime between 7 and 12 months in, my wetting control took an absolute dive without my being consciously aware; I know because 12 months in I got cold feet and tried to leave diapers but couldn't stay dry long enough, which is definitely a dramatic change relative to the 5-month mark. My bedwetting got rapidly worse after the 12-month mark. At about 1 year 3 months, I had the first messing accident I am actually sure of (there were a few occasions before that where I thought I was voluntarily messing but wasn't sure). By comparison to my wetting control, my messing control fell apart really fast; by 1 year 9 months, more often than not I simply could not make it.

I think that psychology may have played a part. I observed that my control in general seemed to collapse at a rate that was a little on the speedy side when compared to others' experiences, and I strongly suspect that might just have been because I didn't have the same confidence in my control that I might have had if I had been continent my whole life. I think that because I hadn't been a regular bedwetter since childhood, developing regular bedwetting as an adult made a significant further dent in my confidence of control.

I started thinking about this while I was losing my messing control, because at the time, while it appealed to me as an AB/DL, it absolutely scared the shit out of me on a conscious level (no pun intended). My first messing accident inaugurated a state of constant anxiety that took months and months to dissipate, and further messing accidents exacerbated it to the point of full-on hyperventilating, sweating bullets. I was desperately trying to avoid losing my messing control that whole time, but was not ultimately able to. I know at the time I didn't consciously want to lose it, so I assumed it had to be something unconscious. After several years of thinking, "confidence in one's own control" is the best guess I can come up with.

@Kaliborio I don't know how I missed this post of yours, but I'm glad I found it.  Such an inspiration in terms of the journey and sounds very similar to my own "campaign" to untraining.  I'm at month 8 and started #2 untraining at the 6 month mark.  Can totally start to see some changes, but found your summation of your timing very helpful and inspiring.  I started with a 12 month goal and then a promise to re-evaluate and so far am very happy with the choice and lifestyle.  Is there anything else you can comment on around your decline in #2 control?  Just looking for any signs of where I may be or what experiences you had in between control and accidents.  Thank you!

[Wet Knight]

On 2/10/2022 at 3:23 PM, Enthusi said:

There’s no debate. Clearly the egg came first.  That embryo had a new mutation and became a new species.  (I’m kidding! I’m just being silly.)

To your point about people claiming they made themselves diaper dependent in 3 weeks… I don’t know what to think.  Superficially, it sounds far fetched and my initial instinct is to be skeptical, but  I hear it enough that I don’t think people are lying or even over exaggerating. If I had to take a guess, the people who accomplish this are able to quickly alter their internalized image of themselves to see themselves as incontinent and diaper dependent, and in doing so they replace the conditioned reflex that they shouldn’t be peeing their pants with one that says they should be peeing their pants. And all of this happens subconsciously so the person just knows they are now diaper dependent.    Again this is pure speculation. 

 

The answer as to which came first, "Chicken or egg", is.........................the paperwork.