Sexual Trauma

Hey guys (and girls)! This is my first post on this group but I signed up to be around others that can somewhat relate to me. I've been with my wife for over 10 years (married for 8+) but diapers are a serious point of contention in our marriage. If we were ever to get a divorce (we don't want/are on great terms currently) it wouldn't be over the "typical" stuff like money, raising kids, or religious differences, it would be over diapers.

I'm just curious how many people on this site were subjected to sexual trauma as a child. Myself, I was raped and molested by my uncle a few times and coupling that with my some psychological abuse as a kid, it led to a diaper fetish. I have no desire to act like a baby or really engage in most stuff that others like to do on this site, although I won't knock any of it, it's just not my thing...other than being a diaper lover. I'm sure that I'm not the only one here that wishes they could get rid of this fetish and just be "normal" but have failed to achieve that for quite some time. I guess what I'm really curious about is the psychology behind the diaper fetish. If you look at a fetish for what it is, a sexual desire towards a non-sexual object, what happened to all of us that put us on this website in the first place? Was a large majority subjected to abuse earlier on in their childhood and that's what did it? For me, diapers do have a sexual side of it but they also are tremendously cathartic for me. I spent almost 12 years in the Army and deployed 10 times (8 to Afghanistan and 2 to Iraq) and although I was far away, on some deployments I would take diapers with me and I felt really secure in them.

Can anyone else relate to any of this? Please note that I disabled all notifications that would get sent to my email so my wife does not see anything but I will periodically hop on here to check any notifications and respond.

I don't see the connection between being abused and having a diaper fetish.

I'm not a DL, but I just wanted to say that it makes sense for people with trauma / high levels of stress to latch onto any coping mechanism they find comforting. It's a normal reaction to trauma to unconsciously or consciously seek coping mechanisms that lower stress. So some people turn to drugs and alcohol. Others latch onto stuffies or in your case diapers. Maybe with a different upbringing, but the same trauma you'd be an avid collector of lunchboxes, and that would be your coping mechanism / source of comfort. Can't speak for the sexual side, but it makes sense that whatever experiences you had (maybe a happy infancy compared to what came after?) makes your mind think of diapers as comforting, and the trauma meant you majorly needed a source of comfort, so turned to that.

Just thought I'd add my thoughts on the matter. Hope you don't mind me butting in.

Not sexual, but had physical abuse I had when I was very young.

I was in PE and because I wouldn't do a backwards sommersault, the disgusting piece of shit PE teacher forced my legs over my head.

And to this day if I have to go on my back and raise my legs up, I get a full blown panic attack,extreme anxiety and extreme fear.

I never really thought about why my desire to wear for sexual satisfaction came from. I was never physically abused and was brought up in a what most would call a fairly normal middle class household. I do know I had early desires to use my moms feminine protection pads to get off on and can remember sneaking in her closet to grab one. What brought this on, I am not totally sure, but it eventually morphed into a diaper liking.
I think my mom was always embarrassing me, especially when I had early crushes on the neighbors accross the street (two houses had cute girls around my age). I could never get the guts to ask either one of them out, even though I fantasized about it often. If I saw one outside, I immediately would go out and try to strike up a conversation. But then mom would usually check on me and make some comment that would kill the moment. Several years later, my dad passed away unexpectedly when I was 18 and that kind of left me as the head of the house and sort of guilted me into staying much later than I would have hoped to living with her. I realize now, I lost about 10 years of my young adulthood without dating or developing a "normal" for my age social sex life. When I finally did go off on my own, I started to live my life, socially like a 19 year old, but I was 29. It took me several years of serious but short lived relationships and I got a lot out of my system. I also was diaper free up to that point, maybe trying a depends here and there but nothing consistant. Once I found my now wife, I did not get into diapers until my wife was pregnant. Even then it was rare. She did not know for awhile and I used it as an excuse to get better sleep or when traveling a long distance.
As a DL, I think diapers will always be part of my life. Sexually, there is something different and going back to my teens, remembering the feeling of sneaking into my moms closet for her pads, it is similar. Exciting, risky, safe and comforting all at once. Perhaps my not dating at an early age, being embarrassed by mom, and somewhat sheltered home life, led to this exciting, taboo, urge. Who knows for sure, but I do wear more today then back then and I am sure this supplements some of that desire for excitement that may be more lacking as we get older in our lives.

While the abuse question comes up from time to time, there's nothing definitive about it or any other theory that I've seen. I think we're too complicated, even as children to have a desire like this arise from a fixed set of circumstances. I would say I had a good and trauma free childhood and yet here I am with this oddness in my life.

Although it might be interesting to know for sure what caused me to have these desires, I don't think it's very important that I know. I'm happy with myself as an ABDL now and I think how we deal with it now is what's most important.

I'm sorry for what was done to you and I can only imagine how difficult it would be to come to a good feeling about what you see as the result of that abuse. I hope you will be able to see that there's nothing intrinsically bad about the desire for diapers. How you manage it and yourself can lead to joy or sadness. I wish you joy.

I never had an trauma in my childhood, although there are several factors that I think helped contribute to my diapered lifestyle. I'm a DL, so for me diapers are a comfort, and aren't as much of a sexual fetish as they ad once started out being. I grew up being visually impaired. I was born 2 months premature and while this directly led to my impairment, it also means that i had spent the first year of my life in the hospital and was there back and forth throughout my early childhood, thus creating a lot of stress and I'm also pretty sure that I wasn't out of diapers till I was 4. I can remember having incidences of wetting and messing accidents until I was about 7 yrs old, I'm not sure of the exact reasons behind these accidents, whether it was for attention or waiting too long or because of not liking using public bathrooms . I'm sure it was a combo o all 3 but the roots behind these as a are not known, even trying to anylize this at an older age. There were also some instances of being bullied in first and 2nd grade. That I can remember. Which I'm sure don't help. Anyways all this led to being put back into diapers at 7 years old and I now can see that that incident at such a young age was traumatic for me, since it was meant to be as a punishment. At least that's how I perceived it at the time and I guess the only way of coping was to turn it into something that I liked. And that's exactly what happened. Between 7 and 16 or 17. There was a long time without wearing diapers before the urges came back again and it was during high school finals time whichis stressful, so I'm not surprised at all. Through my 20s I woulddabble in diapers every so often, even while I was in college. Once I got out on.my own in my early 30s I would wear diapers a lot, especially starting around 2009. I was on my own and had a part time job at a grocery store and I was wearing diapers pretty much 24/7, as a matter of convenience. In 2012 I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and right after I went on a cpap machine I started having bedwetting issues so I just continued my nightly diaper wearing although this time I had a legit reason for needing them. It's been that way ever since. Now in the past year I've had 2 eye surgeries to re attach the retina in my only good eye, so my I'm severely low vision, and need the use of a white cane. I find that it takes me longer to get places an do things when I'm out and I can't always easily get to a bathroom in time. What I mean by that is that if I'm walking and I suddntly feel the urge to pee I can't just walk faster to get to a bathroom even if I ew where one was. I'm not always in a place where I can get to one at all like when I'm on the bus. Often times I have to pee at the worst times and I know that if I try to hold it , it won't be for more then 15 or 20 mins before the urges is so bad that I t stand it. I'd just rather not get to that point in the first place. Diapers give me the freedom to my have to worry about dealing with this. For me diapers are definitely more of a psychological ad for me but I do have an actual need for them, bedwetting and uses, and minor leaks or dribbles are real issues for me but would the rest of the work say that I need to wear all the time, no probably not, do I feel I need to , yes I think I do. I rather have that sense of security at all times then not.

For some, myself included, diapers are a way to regress back to your childhood and almost in a way, a chance to relive the childhood that you never had that was never "molested" in the first place...it's not really about the diaper but going back in time.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't mind at all, Caden. I'm curious what brought everyone to this site. As for the lunchboxes, I don't think that could be entirely ruled out. I can't personally relate to a hoarder, but all the junk that they keep really ties back into something from their past and isn't about the stuff they are amassing.

Caden said:

I'm not a DL, but I just wanted to say that it makes sense for people with trauma / high levels of stress to latch onto any coping mechanism they find comforting. It's a normal reaction to trauma to unconsciously or consciously seek coping mechanisms that lower stress. So some people turn to drugs and alcohol. Others latch onto stuffies or in your case diapers. Maybe with a different upbringing, but the same trauma you'd be an avid collector of lunchboxes, and that would be your coping mechanism / source of comfort. Can't speak for the sexual side, but it makes sense that whatever experiences you had (maybe a happy infancy compared to what came after?) makes your mind think of diapers as comforting, and the trauma meant you majorly needed a source of comfort, so turned to that.

Just thought I'd add my thoughts on the matter. Hope you don't mind me butting in.

Click to expand...

- - - Updated - - -

You know there was a psychologist that said that was is learned from action can be unlearned from action. I would talk with someone and try to revisit that. It's interesting how something so small can have such a profound impact on us.

yurguardianangel said:

Not sexual, but had physical abuse I had when I was very young.

I was in PE and because I wouldn't do a backwards sommersault, the disgusting piece of shit PE teacher forced my legs over my head.

And to this day if I have to go on my back and raise my legs up, I get a full blown panic attack,extreme anxiety and extreme fear.

Click to expand...

- - - Updated - - -

I'm really genuinely happy that you are content with yourself as an ABDL, Trevor and would actually say I'm partially jealous. My problem is that diapers sort of destroy my marital life and erodes to other areas as well. My wife will never be okay with them and to have such a strong desire for something that you can never fully or comfortably divulge in is really a bad position to be in. I don't know if you are married or dating anyone now but if you plan on having diapers as a part of your life indefinitely, make for DAMN SURE that they are truly okay with it because it can lead to serious depression down the road

- - - Updated - - -

I think if I were in your shoes and had the same story that things would be much different for me because you actually have more of a medical need for them unlike myself where I don't actually need them, just a desire. My wife seems to think that I got my attraction to the diapers from getting raped and molested and because of that it ruins everything.

theroadlesstraveled said:

Myself, I was raped and molested by my uncle a few times and coupling that with my some psychological abuse as a kid, it led to a diaper fetish.

Click to expand...

There's no way you can know that for certain. It's just as likely, if not more so, that there is absolutely no connection and you'd be a diaper lover even if you hadn't been molested by your uncle. I was never sexually molested yet I've had this fetish for as long as I can remember. Many people use diapers as an object of comfort for all sorts of psychological trauma. That doesn't mean that the psychological trauma caused the attraction/attachment to diapers.

theroadlesstraveled said:

My wife seems to think that I got my attraction to the diapers from getting raped and molested and because of that it ruins everything.

Click to expand...

I'm guessing this is also what you thought when you told your wife about your childhood sexual abuse and your diaper fetish. You created a negative association in her mind by suggesting that the abuse caused the fetish, which in reality is rarely the case. But it's difficult to get rid of negative associations once they've been established.

- - - Updated - - -
My problem is that diapers sort of destroy my marital life and erodes to other areas as well. My wife will never be okay with them and to have such a strong desire
My wife seems to think that I got my attraction to the diapers from getting raped and molested and because of that it ruins everything.[/QUOTE]

I truly think you make the situation what it is. By this I mean, if you wife "thinks" you wear because you were molested and raped, then that is because you have indicated that is why you wear. Sometimes internally replaying your past to better understand your current situation is best told to outside professionals vs. your wife. Not saying you can't share, but when your past is as serious as it has been, this is not something to be taken lightly when associated with an act (diaper wearing) that most people in our world just don't or can't understand.
For myself, I just tell my wife that I love the feel, that it turns me on and that it even enhances my sexual experience with her. I would never share that my mom may have inadvertently pushed me away from having a normal teenage relationship and that her actions may have led me down the diaper wearing road. This would immediately make her think that wearing is associated with a negative effect of past actions and therefore can't be OK or normal. That may mean to my wife, I can only cope with my sexual side wearing and it all comes off as "bad" as well as making her feel inadequate in satisfying me (which is not the case at all). Again, being open is a huge step with a loved one, especially your spouse. Sometimes there has to be point of filtering when going into something that is difficult to understand about oneself. The last thing you want to do is be so open that the wrong impression is made and then that image is ingrained in her head and not the positive reason that wearing may give you.
I hope this makes sense and can be applied to your situation. No one should be uncomfortable in their living arrangement for any reason. Now that your wife has this in her head, you need to work on changing that image, immediately.

You should look at the Wikipedia article, TRLT, and read the part about sexual Imprinting. Though the theory was formalized in the '70s if I remember correctly, it's one of the more recent explanations to why some people are sexually attracted to objects like diapers. The "why" in diaper desires has been discussed many time on this site. What one can conclude is that everyone has a somewhat different story. Some members have had very good childhoods while others have suffered from abuse.

There is no clear causal relationship other than these desires were probably formed in early childhood. I've theorized that they may go back to potty training, seeing other children in diapers when we were young, maybe between the ages of three and six or seven. Children do experience sexual desires or some sort of early stimulation, and because a child is very young, they may make associations from some sort of sexual arousal to the circumstances of that arousal, and that in this case, includes diapers and other baby/toddler related objects.

I was sexually hit on by other boys when I was 10 years of age and through college, but I knew by the age of four that I was attracted to diapers and wanted to wear them.

Unfortunately I'm afraid you've convinced your wife that your diaper desires are related to being sexually molested and now she is making that association, and it probably is an invalid connection. The bigger problem as I see it is that she is not accepting you "for better of for worse", something that should have been in your marriage vows. This is something that the two of you should be able to work around. Your wife should be sympathetic to your state of mind considering your tour of duties.

I wonder what a good marriage counselor could do for the both of you? My wife accepts me though I know our situation is a bit different. She is a diabetic amputee who is on dialysis and I am her dialysis partner. I put her on her machine as we do home dialysis. I take care of her dialysis catheter care. I help her get dressed and ready in the morning and I drive her to her many appointments. She accepts who I am and will sometimes acknowledge me as a toddler, etc. My point is that we love each other and are dedicated to one another through all our faults and the things that circumstances has thrown at us. We love each other unconditionally.

Wanting to wear diapers was thrown at you by the circumstances of your early rearing. You didn't chose it any more than someone who is attracted to the same sex chose their sexual orientation. I think you have a lot to talk about and I think a professional should be involved.

theroadlesstraveled said:

I spent almost 12 years in the Army and deployed 10 times (8 to Afghanistan and 2 to Iraq) and although I was far away, on some deployments I would take diapers with me and I felt really secure in them.

Click to expand...

No you didn't. The only way you could have taken diapers with you on deployment -- let alone 10 times -- would be if you were in very specific units that would have precluded their use due to discovery in the first place.

I don't normally do this, but you, sir, are full of shit.

Yes, I DID and I WAS in a very specific unit that could do that. The first 5 deployments I shared a room with one other person and the last 5 I was in a room alone so I was able to do that. Were you over there at all? Name something specific about Tikrit, Iraq or Bagram, Afghanistan and you can then decide if I'm full of shit.

- - - Updated - - -

I told her about both but with about a 6 year gap in between. Because I never wanted to tell her about diapers in the first place, I told it about them for a second to clear my conscious (in 2007)that "I told her" but then didn't really bring it up again because I was still embarrassed/ashamed about it. It wasn't until 2013 that I just felt guilty for some reason like she didn't know how into diapers I was...so I elaborated. Later in the conversation the molestation came up and with that in mind, she thought the diapers came "from a dark place".

The balance of evidence does not suggest abuse or sexual trauma is highly prevalent in the ABDL community. It is certainly not the only way to become ABDL - so while it may be related, it is just as likely that it is coincidental and not causal. If explaining this to your wife might help with acceptance, why not try it? It is more likely that ABDLs are "fixated" in what are normal childhood anal and oral psychosexual phases, and that fixation might result from any number of experiences - such as toilet training difficulty. I'm not sure if any of this would help your case, but I feel for you in such a difficult situation...

Squirmy

theroadlesstraveled said:

[snipped]
I'm really genuinely happy that you are content with yourself as an ABDL, Trevor and would actually say I'm partially jealous. My problem is that diapers sort of destroy my marital life and erodes to other areas as well. My wife will never be okay with them and to have such a strong desire for something that you can never fully or comfortably divulge in is really a bad position to be in. I don't know if you are married or dating anyone now but if you plan on having diapers as a part of your life indefinitely, make for DAMN SURE that they are truly okay with it because it can lead to serious depression down the road
[snipped].

Click to expand...

I'm sorry you in such a difficult position. I don't believe such a situation is likely for me at this point. I've spent enough time and energy getting right with this in my own life that I wouldn't accept someone else as a good match if they didn't at least accept and understand my needs in this area. Having been with those where it's actually a positive, it's hard for me to even concede that point of just being accepting as opposed to being an active participant.

People do change and while I don't think your desire is likely to disappear, your wife may change her stance to some degree or you may be able to find a different level of happiness for yourself with it. It's ultimately such a trivial thing to ruin lives over. We don't control what we love, only how we react to it. I wish people could be more accommodating of this harmless bit of strangeness.

It is so true about "this harmless bit of strangeness" Trevor. Unfortunately and in some ways understandably, the act of wanting to be close and contained in your natural bodies waste is just downright odd and unsanitary to most. As a dl I totally get it and the incredible, sexual, liberating feeling it gives me just completely overrides what should be considered a "dirty" act. So I totally understand people that don't wear. It is not socially and societal accepted (at least for now). That is why I respect others and keep my wearing to myself and under clothes. If it bothers the general population, why push it on them. We in this community question our actions more heavily when it involves are loved ones. What seems so normal for us is just weird for others and so difficult for most of our loved ones to fully understand. Time, patience, a deep ability to communicate (without over doing it) and listening is what is needed.

Somewhat along those lines, Trevor, of society's perception but specifically my wife, her anxiety has ruined it for me. I'm married to two people: my wife AND my wife's anxiety. Trying to rationalize with an anxious person is like trying to get Hitler to have a beer with a Jew or a KKK member having a black person over for a BBQ....it's not happening. Although I could say it until I'm blue in the face, my wife cannot get over what it is and I can't entirely rule out that she thinks it has something to do with kids. My DL attraction stooped to some pretty low lows to the point that I would masturbate with used ones from public trash cans if I didn't have any but I haven't done that in a few years. What complicates things is that we have 3 kids, only one still in diapers, but she actually asked me if I had ever used one of our kids' diapers.

Question for all: for those of you that have kids or had kids in diapers, do you or did you ever feel that it crossed some moral boundaries to use your own kids diapers, like that's where you drew the line?

No sexual or other trauma here. Over the years, I've flirted with various explanations for my fetish. It can be fun to do, as long as it doesn't stir painful memories. But I ultimately resigned myself to Trevor's point of view: This is complicated stuff, and no single thing or event is a likely explanation. Pick one, and for every ABDL who has it in their past, 99 non-ABDLs do as well.

It's kinda like the bedwetting theory of ABDL. If every year you spent in diapers was a roll of the dice, and if rolling snake eyes meant you were ABDL, then it might seem perfectly reasonable to assume that late potty-training or bedwetting into your teens was a strong predictor of your being ABDL.

But you'd probably be surprised to know that most of the muggles had different numbers of dice, or were playing cards instead.

theroadlesstraveled said:

Question for all: for those of you that have kids or had kids in diapers, do you or did you ever feel that it crossed some moral boundaries to use your own kids diapers, like that's where you drew the line?

Click to expand...

Is it wrong to indulge one's fetish using a baby product--that one happens to have because one also has a baby? Ehhh... no. I don't think so. It's one of those things that could easily be misconstrued as something more sinister, but by itself it's victimless. That said, I have two kids (both done with diapers), and while I've always been strongly attracted to baby diapers like Pampers and Huggies, having to change wet/messy ones 24x7 greatly reduced my urge to wear them, and made whatever kind of diaper my kids happened to be wearing especially unappealing, fetish-wise.

But hey! Vaginas are used for sex and then reused for birthing babies! That's like... so many orders of magnitude more wrong! :rollseyes: :giggles:

I have used my sons diapers, new ones of course. I still have about 20 or so loose ones left that I have used as stuffers from time to time. If you were referring to using your kids used diapers, then that would be crossing the line in my book for sure. What is the harm if it is a clean one? Especially since my son is long out of them and they likely would have been thrown away.