Name: Jim
Ages: 5

The reason I used diapers instead of a catheter:

I'm writing this so that I don't have to explain each time about how 
started using them, my early experience of wearing diapers and anything 
else that someone might want to know but was afraid to ask.

I think that I need to qualify couple things. One thing is that diapers 
are not just for babies, there for people who need them or others that 
feel the want to use diapers as a relief from the stresses of everyday 
life. I am not an adult baby or a diaper lover. I'll also express that 
I'm CHASE meaning that I do not believe in homosexuality or adultery or 
any sexual fantasy about diapers. I love my wife and would do nothing 
jeopardize my marriage, I will not bring references to God into this 
document because if a person quotes a part of a scripture and not the 
whole chapter or book it might mean something completely different then 
if I quoted just a part or if it. Or if I quote something and the 
meaning is wrong and someone else could bring up another scripture that 
is different than mine where I could also contradict them with still 
another scripture, so no scriptures.

I believe it's a shame when I see parents threatening their children 
with diapers as a punishment for misbehaving or for having problems 
with the control of their bowel or bladder either in the night or at 
anytime,(especially when they are referencing it to being a baby),; I 
was, and this made my life miserable when they were the best 
alternative for my active life style, since using a catheter would mean 
that I would also need a collection device such as a leg bag to hold 
the urine. Remember I lived an active life style by bicycling, playing 
racquetball, running and other sport activities where a collection 
device would get in the way; the catheters would also rip my skin off 
no matter how long I tried using them,(the qualification is letting my 
body get use to them), especially when I have an active life style 
before I became more sedimentary. I believe that children and adults 
should view diapers as something that be needed and should be used with 
love and not ridicule. That the children or adults should not feel that 
because they have problems with the control of their body functions the 
wearing diapers does not make them a baby in anyone's eyes.

It seems kind of funny about our memories that we have when we where 
babies some memories are there and not forgotten but actually do exist. 
I guess my earliest thought about diapers was when I was an extremely 
young baby and my mother was putting me to bed, I remember having a 
bottle and that she was changing my diaper; it seems kind of weird to 
have that kind of memory but I do. Maybe this was just my imagination 
or maybe it is true.

My next encounter about diapers was when I was about two and a half 
years old and my mother was potty training me she spanked me and made 
me sit on the toilet for a while; she put a new diaper on me and 
redressed me and sent me back out to play. My cousin who lived next 
door to us was exactly one month younger than I was; we were both 
outside where she was hugging me and trying to make me feel better.

The next time that I remember diapers was when I was about three and 
one half or four years old; I guess I must have been a bed wetter all 
this time because I remember waking up wet all the time. My mother was 
taking care of some one else's baby and there was a crib in the master 
bedroom. One night my mother gave me a bath and took the two of us, the 
baby and I to the master bedroom. One to get changed and put to bed; 
and as to what I thought for me was just to get dressed for bed. She 
told me to go to the other room and get two diapers; I thought it was 
strange to get two when one was all that was needed but I did as told 
and gave them to her. She proceeded to change the baby's diaper and put 
her to bed.

During this time I must have been naked, this must not have bothered me 
since I was so young, and this was a normal thing to do with children 
of my age. I remember after this was done she unfolded the other diaper 
and told me to get on, of course I cried because I was told throughout 
my life that diapers were for babies. I got on the diaper and spread my 
legs out because I knew how diapers were on, I actually remember crying 
an awful lot at this time because of being put into a diaper. My mother 
told me I see you still know how to do this, (meaning how to get 
diapered), and she pulled the diaper up between my legs it was a 
different feeling but I remember this feeling to this day. This is a 
time when disposable diapers were just coming out any they needed 
diaper pins to hold the diaper on. They did not have tapes on 
disposable diapers when they first hit the market; of course she put 
baby powder on me, which added to my embarrassment. After she did this 
she stood me up and put a T-shirt on me.

Since she put the diaper on me while I was on the master bed I was able 
to see myself in the mirror after she stood me up; I remember looking 
in the mirror seeing myself and not liking the baby look; that look 
made me feel even worse. My mother then asked me to go say goodnight to 
everyone in the living room; she told me that she was going to hold me 
and that nobody would know that I had a diaper on, I knew better, I 
guess I would have gone out there and said goodnight to my father but 
my uncle was there and I was sure that he would say something about the 
diaper and make some joke about it. So needless to say I refused to go 
out and say goodnight to anyone. To add to my embarrassment I was 
forced to go to bed at the same time that the baby did, and because 
there was plenty of room in the crib she put me in the opposite end 
crib, I knew that cribs were strictly for babies! My bedtime was about 
half an hour latter and I remember making a fuss about having to go bed 
at this time, my mother told me that all babies go to bed that this 
time, this infuriated me. I started kicking when she put me down in the 
crib. She told me if I did not stop kicking that she would give me a 
spanking and a spanking meant a spanking, which I knew, would hurt so 
the threat of being spanked was enough to make me stop.

The next thing I remember was getting up in the morning and climbing 
out of the crib. I remember looking down and seeing that I had a diaper 
that was wet and for some reason I was glad my mother had put me back 
in diapers so that I wouldn't be wet any more. For some reason it must 
not have bothered me to be put back in a diaper for the first time in 
quite a while, even though my sister and cousins were playing in the 
living room where I also went to play. I must have been in diapers for 
quite some time after this both in the day and night for a long time 
because I remember her changing me during these times.

The embarrassment of wearing diapers must not have been there anymore 
since I remember my mother dressing me to go out and do the normal 
shopping and stuff like that. I don't think that the diapers showed 
much if at all when I was that young and out to the places we went. I 
know that they were cloth diapers most of the time. I suppose that some 
time latter I must have stopped wetting my pants and bed since I was 
out of them by about the time I was about five and a half.

One of my cousins wore diapers at night because I remember seeing him 
get changed on the living room floor when they stayed over at our 
house. I never did tease him or say anything about this to him even 
though we were both about ten at the time, I do not know why I never 
teased him or said anything to him about the diapers. I guess I 
considered that he had a problem and I accepted it as normal.

What I am trying to say is that parents should not use diapers as a 
punishment or the threat of being put into them for any reason what so 
ever because this makes things very hard for children and adults later 
on in life when they are confronted with control problems and need to 
wear diapers again. Just think of all the names that manufactures' call 
diapers just so that the name, "diaper", isn't used.

I was in the Marine Corps Air Wing for about nine years. After about 
two and a half years after my enlistment I married, it was about this 
time I was starting to experience bladder control problems, along with 
a few bowel control problems. I attributed this to strain from working 
on some heavy equipment. I thought that this would go away in a short 
time. In order to conceal this problem I would wear a very thin diaper 
when stationed at home and would starve myself when out on board the 
ship or away from home; it was nothing for me to loose 30 to 50 pounds 
during these times, because I was to embarrassed to seek medical 
attention. I believe because of the thought of having problems like 
this and using diapers, that I was the only one with this sort of 
problem. At home I refused medial attention even though I fell off an 
airplane once and hurt my neck about midnight that caused me to loose 
all of my feeling and the ability to use my arms and legs for about 
twenty minutes. I my feeling and enough strength came back enough so 
that I was able to use my arms and legs again, but my strength still 
wasn't all there for a long time. My neck hurt to the point where I 
could not hold it up correctly and my physical strength was very weak. 
This problem lasted for about a month; I was still able to do the work 
that was assigned to me. My neck problem happened about a year and a 
half before the end of my enlistment. I finally regained my normal 
strength. As it turned out instead of getting better my bowel and 
bladder control got worse; I was very lucky that my wife accepted the 
problems I was having. This took an extreme toll on my mental state of 
being.

I couldn't understand why sometimes my stamina and strength did not 
seem to be like it should be and yet other times the power that I was 
used to was there. I didn't know that anything physical was wrong with 
me; I also experienced mental swings such as almost laughing at times 
when something serious happened and at other times I would almost cry 
when something funny happened. I had behavior problems where I would be 
aggressive with very little provocation from other people.

All of this time I was still experiencing the control problems with my 
bowel and bladder. I still attributed my loss of control problems due 
to physically working on heavy objects.

I was offered a job working with a well-known company. So at the end of 
my enlistment in the Marine Corps I chose to work with this company. 
Although I was given a physical when I left the Marine Corps I didn't 
tell the doctor about my control problems because I still believed that 
they were caused by physical stress that would go away. I did not know 
that I had multiple sclerosis at this time.

Even though I was still experiencing the bowel and bladder control 
problems, I passed the physical given by the company Dr. before being 
hired, I didn't lie on any forms which I filled out because I truly 
believed that things would get better.

I was still on terminal leave from the Marine Corps, (this is because I 
had more vacation time saved up than I had time left to cover my days 
in the service), I started having visual and dizziness problems due to 
multiple sclerosis which I didn't know I had at the time. At the urging 
of my wife I went to the doctor to find out what was wrong. I still 
didn't confide in the doctor about the problems I was having with my 
bowel and bladder control, this was because I was too embarrassed to 
say anything. Throughout all this time I played racquetball and rode a 
bicycle over 50 mi. every day.

My worst fears were that someone would find out all my diapers; these 
fears caused me to have nightmares about somebody finding out. It seems 
that each time that we go to see the doctor that the symptoms I was 
having always disappeared; I guess that I am not alone with things like 
this happening. It seems that a person could be running 103-degree 
temperature just a couple hours before seeing the doctor but once the 
person walks into the doctor's office that temperature reverts back to 
normal and a person wonders what they're doing their. The doctor 
examines the person and can't find anything wrong him or her. As soon 
as soon as the person leaves the office their temperature rises and 
they feel bad again. This is what happened with me in that the doctor 
would examine me find nothing wrong. One day I was reading my bicycling 
magazine about a person who had multiple sclerosis and each symptom 
that was described in the magazine fit me to a "T ", and this was not 
my mind over exaggerating about what I read. I then went back to the 
doctor explained what I thought I had; my doctor set up an appointment 
with a neurologist; and all of the symptoms I was having with my eyes 
and the dizziness disappeared the couple days before I saw him. He 
examined me and found nothing wrong; my reflexes and vision was normal. 
Of course a few days later the symptoms started up again. Again I went 
back to the neurologist and he still couldn't find anything wrong with 
me. My wife called the neurologist and told him about my control 
problems; the neurologist set up an appointment with an urologist. He 
examined bladder couldn't find anything organically wrong with me. It 
was about this time that my walking and speaking started to 
deteriorate; the neurologist set up an appointment to have a CAT scan 
done on me. The doctor that did the CAT scan asked me if I knew what 
they were looking for, I said yes and he told me that although he could 
not tell me directly abut the results of the scan that what I thought 
it was, was right. He told me that my neurologist would speak to me 
about the results, my neurologist confirmed these results over the 
phone and gave me no support or told me about any organizations to help 
me.

I was still able to work with this company even though the problems 
were increasing. Is still road a bicycle back and forth to work and 
played racquetball along with other types of physical activities. I 
seemed to be physically fit for the most part except for that bowel and 
bladder control problems. I would wear a thin disposable diaper in the 
racquetball court; and nobody seemed to notice. When I would go to work 
I would wear thicker diaper to absorb the urine in any possible bowel 
problems. Since I rode a bicycle I had a bicycle bag that I kept a 
spare diaper to change into at lunchtime. I always made sure what 
bicycle bag was zipped up and put away.

Still nobody in the shop that I worked in knew about my control 
problems; except for my speech and walking that was getting worse as 
time went by. One day unbeknownst to me one of my co-workers went into 
my bag and told everyone about the diapers I had in my bag. About two 
weeks latter while working on some equipment I told two of my best 
friends at work about these problems; they told me that they knew about 
the diapers. When I found out that this person had done this thing I 
was upset with him; although I did not bring this to the attention of 
my superiors, they gave him two weeks to find another job not do the 
fact that he had gone into my bicycle bag but that his job performance 
was very poor.

So my worst fears were open and much to my surprise my friends accepted 
my problems it was only the jerks in my shop that joked about me behind 
my back.

 The company that I work for wanted to speak to me long before this had 
happened. I kept finding excuses not to see her because of my workload. 
One day my superiors told me to go see her "NOW" so I went to see her 
and we spoke about all my problems. Up to this time I was paying for 
the disposable diapers without reimbursement, the doctor at the company 
wrote out a backdated prescription for the disposable diapers that I 
was paying full price for. I received about a thousand dollars from my 
company due to this. So I guess my worst fears were belated and no one 
after this thought anything bad about this problem. Now I am able to 
speak to anyone having to wear diapers without the fear of being 
embarrassed.

It seems that every time somebody does something to hurt me mentally or 
physically I always wind up having good things happen to me.

Because the multiple sclerosis I started to get worse to the point 
where I needed a cane, I very much resisted this until the point that I 
knew I had to use this. About four or five months latter I needed to 
use Canadian crutches; I seem to accept this a little bit better 
because I knew I needed them. The Doctor for the company I worked for 
called my wife and told her that I needed a wheel chair. It was about 
this time that the wheel chair was a relief to me. Since I was in the 
Marine Corps the Veteran's Administration helps in obtaining any thing 
I need all my expenses are paid for.

I now use the V.A. for all my medical needs such as any kind of Doctor 
you could think of, and any equipment I may need.

 More to come about 4 years worth and how some nurses try to make you 
wear a cath. Caths are bad for people eather the foly or external. I 
read that 1 out of 25 adults suffer from bladder control problems,(that 
is what is known, not what is projected). Why I can't understand that 
nurses have such a hard time with putting diapers on corectly, why 
nurses have such a hard time with cloth diapers, and what the proplem 
is with nurses about sometbing as simple as diapers. This should be 
only about 3 more pages worth.



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