To Tell, or Not?

[bixie]

When I was about 14 I told my dad that I had been looking at pictures of adults wearing diapers online and that it was sexually stimulating for me, if for no other reason than I didn't really know what to do with those feelings and wasn't sure if I wanted them. He took it about as well as he could, trying to explain "well a lot of adults have certain sexual fantasies..." but obviously it weirded him out. I approached the subject again with him a couple of times soon thereafter and eventually got him to set up a therapist for me, which didn't lead to much on the fetish front at least. After that I never brought it up again and neither did he. These days I wish I hadn't told him, and it's one of my few genuine regrets in life because I know he still remembers that despite having not talked about it in the almost 20 years since. How could you forget? And to this day I don't know if he ever discussed it with my mom, though I have to imagine he did. But my parents are generally awesome and supportive so it hasn't been a wedge between us or anything, but I wish I had sooner come to the conclusion that I don't need to tell anyone besides a romantic partner about my diapers or my interest in them so I didn't have that additional mental baggage.

Speaking of romantic partners I told my ex-boyfriend way too late, soon after we moved in together, but I didn't push for even my participation in it at the time, I really just wanted it off my chest and thought I could keep those feelings bottled up. I brought it up again a couple years later and asked if I could wear a diaper from time to time and he shut it down immediately, but that relationship was doomed almost from the start for many unrelated reasons.

 

[Sythy]

I've found that ABDL is absolutely not something one should feel the need to "come out" with, the way that someone may for reasons relating to sexuality or gender identity, since it's not something that will affect those people's lives. That being said, oftentimes family will find out regardless of whether you really want them to or not. It's best to prepare for it as an inevitability in my view.

 

[PassiveRenegade]

The only person who knows about my abdl is my mistress and partner. In fact she was the one who first suggested I try dipers to help with another issue. From then I fell more into being a little and diper user. It was strange at first but we both grew on it and my mistress encourages it now. She adapted dipers onsies ect into our bondage play as well.

 

[JohnSnow]

It's difficult but it's important that somebody else know specially if youre more AB than DL

 

[Omg301]

I'm unique in that I told my parents shortly after fully accepting my ABDL side. I still live with them as well but I buy and wear freely whatever AB/DL things I'd like. It's not for everyone or most to do what I did but I was in a dark place and willing to deal with any consequences. Over the past few months since I told my parents, they've both asked more things which I've told them about, and I've told them more as well because I feel comfortable they will be understanding and accepting. I even told my Mom some of my remaining secrets that had been holding me down for so long like that I've been messing myself since I was a kid and never really wanted out of diapers.

And no, it doesn't change the dynamic at all. But, it does help her understand my situation and why I am how I am. I'd say I'm an extreme case. I never touched diapers until a few months ago despite being ABDL for over 21+ yrs. I never was caught messing my pants either. My parents respected my privacy and rarely if ever just barged in, and they never snooped. I never got caught with ABDL stuff at all except for a brief moment that I brushed off with an internet search bar thing as a kid.

And, I told my parents directly rather than 'being caught'. I read about it in the book "You're Not Broken: A Guide to Self Acceptance for AB/DLs" by Dr. Rhoda. It mentioned how if you were to tell someone directly, you can control the tone and narrative rather than being found out and having to explain from a negative point. It led me after a lot of internal thinking, debating in my head if my parents might be able to accept this side to myself, and severe insomnia to decide I will tell my parents about this side of myself. I didn't have any other 'real life' tangible friends (none) or partner (never) to tell this to so my parents were the key ones. I'll tell you, it felt great to let it out. I was relatively calm as well.

If anyone else told their parents or partner and thinks that person may benefit from a support group, feel free to DM me. I started a support group discord server for parents and partners of ABDLs for my Mom and she's actively looking for more people. She wanted to do this and I support her 100%.

 

[StrawberryPan]

It kinda depends on how the ppl you know are.. My parents accidentally found out a few years ago when I forgot a diaper in the bathroom when I got out of the shower and they were really demeaning about it. I wish I could tell someone who'd understand, but anyone I know/knew already knows and found out on accident and despite in some cases trying to explain it has never understood it. My parents I didn't even bother explaining, they are so quintessentially 'normal' they could never comprehend it and probably just think I'm a weirdo. I had 2 friends find out too, one time I had someone sleep over and evidently during the night I took off my pants without knowing and was above the sheets in my diaper and when I woke up they were gone and stopped talking to me after that, another person again slept over and when I fell asleep he read my journal on my desk (what a jerk!!!) and next time I saw him around town actually made fun of me for it and then I told him to never talk to me again.. Both people no longer want to be friends bc of me being in diapers and its just ridiculous, I tried to explain it to them both and they didnt care at all. People suck..

Anyways I'm so jealous over ppl who get to have a person to talk about this to who would understand and accept it. I don't really care anymore at this point though. After all that stuff I realized its just pointless to care what other people think. I'm fairly committed to being alone forever now anyways, so it's just whatever I guess.

 

[LilPaddedBunny]

I was thinking about telling some of my close friends about my AB/DL side for a while now but ultimately decided against it. On one hand I thought it would be great to get this off of my chest and have someone to talk to about it. On the other hand I figured they probably wouldn't want to talk about it, and they may even make fun of me or tell others about it. I decided it wasn't worth the risk.

I went through my whole life so far without anyone finding out. I am very good at hiding it. I suppressed my AB/DL feelings as much as I could while I was in a relationship a while back. I never told her either but I'm glad I didn't now. We broke up from unrelated reasons and at least now I don't have to worry about her telling others.

Now I live by myself and in the last few years I really started exploring my AB/DL side more. I know now that I am actually happier by myself with the freedom to indulge in my little side in the privacy of my own home. Still, if it was more socially acceptable I would love to talk to someone in person about my AB/DL side, or even act more like a little in public without getting strange looks.

 

[Turtle]

Do not even be abdl because looking for Mommy can expose you just like they did me a mommy blackmailed me and told my family

She hacked my Facebook
She got contact information with my family
She told them

I was embarrassed my family wants to disown me but I have nowhere to go they forbid me to be even abdl now my mom has even took a hammer to my iPhone because she caught me talking to a mommy I have even met the real scam yeah she was a real person but she also used that we met against me so she could get money and never come I didn't know at the time when we met she was a mommy I started talking to her a month later I didn't even know her on Facebook

 

[Turtle]

Everybody that says their mommy and her daddy is a scam I hate this community but I love it as well but it's not even a real community do you understand that I've been trying to join for 17 years it should not be hard if it was a real community they would have let everybody in

 

[bigbaby]

i told 2 frinds once both of em wouildent leave it alone thy where cool with it but due to the fact we live togather i thought deep down was a bad move so i told them to forgot i told them so far it has never come up again ill be honest id rather keep it hidden the reason i was worried it has the power to change rep it still sits on the back of my mind wondering if its going to create chaoes alltho im proud to be abdl/little at the last min tho there was some fear of what might happen but thanks to cost of liveing im kinda stuck hopeing this never gets out i wouild never tell family tho

 

[Deleted member 73206]

Nobody. None. Nope. Nada. Unless they're also into it, and thankfully I've developed the social skills to know when someone is genuine or not anyway. Having a narcissistic father makes you very very atuned to red flags.

...If I ever do find a partner, I'd find them in the kink community anyway, and I'd make sure to seek out someone who is already openly a DL in the first place anyway. If I didn't meet someone through the kink community, I would make sure to very very slowly admit it and ramp up to it. I'd probably tell them I was into watersports first, which is a very common and honestly not extremely shamed fetish unless you're full vanilla, and someone I'd attract wouldn't be anyway.

Basically, yeah, I live alone so I can just do solo play to my hearts content.

 

[Diapered247inSLC]

Even though my mom diapered me before school then changed me when i got home. This was in 1972-74, 3rd and 4th grade, no one else knew. Until about two days ago. I told my sister. She had no clue

 

[Diapered247inSLC]

Also been thinking if getting a personalized license plate. REPAID, Think anyone would notice?

 

[DiapAuthor]

Nobody. None. Nope. Nada. Unless they're also into it, and thankfully I've developed the social skills to know when someone is genuine or not anyway. Having a narcissistic father makes you very very atuned to red flags.

I can absolutely resonate with this. My dad is absolutely narcissisti! More so since my mom died.

If I ever do find a partner, I'd find them in the kink community anyway, and I'd make sure to seek out someone who is already openly a DL in the first place anyway. If I didn't meet someone through the kink community, I would make sure to very very slowly admit it and ramp up to it. I'd probably tell them I was into watersports first, which is a very common and honestly not extremely shamed fetish unless you're full vanilla, and someone I'd attract wouldn't be anyway.

I can also resonate with this too, at least some of it. If I ever begin a relationship with a woman, I would hope that she would at least be interested in diapers or be an ABDL herself. It would be a great stress reliever and would get an elephant in the room out of the way.

For me, it would be incredibly difficult to tell a potential girlfriend that I wear diapers. It would be almost impossible to tell her that I like them and like regressing! Unless she was interested or did the same herself.

Although relationships shouldn’t be based on this alone, it would be a huge relief if we share this!

Your introduction by saying you’re into watersports is probably a good idea, before going into saying that you like diapers. If I ever date, I shall have to remember this.

Anyway, best of luck in your quest for a partner, if you’re on one. I currently don’t live alone, I live with the aforementioned father.

 

[pupizu]

Debating with myself to talk about it on my bluesy account. (Bluesy is a twitter lookalike that is actually doing pretty well, considering it's invite-only.) None of my friends follow me on there (yet), and I'm in the furry community which is overall more accepting of stuff. (But there still is a stigma in some parts of the fandom.)

 

[BobbiSueEllen]

My experience:

• Friends: Don't have many, most know I'm an Adult Baby; most of those who know that know I'm a toddler girl. They're okay with it. Most of them are "Sympathetic Muggle", the rest are members of the AB/DL community. One person who I thought was a friend found out by illegally breaking into my room, rifling through my effects...and using their discovery as blackmail against me. I countered that successfully. I have no plans to tell others in the friendship realm about my status, would rather not.
• Family: (a) Parents & siblings know. Mother & older sister are okay with it, father and younger sister look the other way. (b) Some relatives know. Namely, my female cousin and her son, who has autism. They're both okay with it and support me morally, which is just fine. (c) Descendants...not entirely sure. We're not talking anyway, for different reasons. I have no desire to tell others in the family, regardless of degree of relationship.
• Romantic relationships: Wife knew, was ambivalent about it. Our divorce was for many reasons, not sure if this factored in. Girlfriend after that was involved in the AB/DL community, definitely okay with it. Since 2006, I have not had a relationship beyond mere friendship and I neither seek nor want one. I'm finished. That relieves me of a great amount of stress I do not need and allows me to focus on my everyday life among the Muggles...and my Adult Baby Girl life. I'm very content exactly where I'm at. No need to worry about who I'll tell or not tell in this realm.

What's the big factor in all of this? I firmly believe it's my autism. I was "field-diagnosed" on December 14, 2018 and have accepted it. I wonder how many so-called 'normal' people would want to be into this...to struggle with internal conflict of social ethics & morals, to battle Binge-Purge Syndrome, to endure constant self-consciousness about it all.

I began to suspect there could be somewhat of a causal relationship between AB/DL and autism after someone here wrote their topic "Found out I'm autistic. I guess that explains the diapers...", which is something I told myself weeks after my own diagnosis and well before the topic popped up. Not sure the ratio of people here with AB/DL and autism but there are lots of us. It seems we've almost all of us felt we were considered "damaged goods" by all we knew as we grew up and older, and thus our ability to trust is damaged. AB/DL, autism...one or the other, or both together. We may never know and all we can do to make sense of it all is just keep going. Even when we've been written off by not only much of the Muggle world...but friends, family and +1s and SOs. It all really does damage our ability to trust.

But autism or no, we've all taken the dive into blind trust here & there, telling others. Sometimes it pays off and we find support among the Muggles...and most of the time, we strike out: more often than not, badly. It could be out of a mild sense of desperation we tell others, I don't know. We all here have very constricted social networks, inside or outside of AB/DL. Nobody likes to be lonely and most of us are; we resign ourselves to it. But that doesn't make it suck any less.

We can't go backward and we can't unring bells we've rung. So...we carry on. Together. All we can do. Birds of a feather...

 

[DiapAuthor]

Debating with myself to talk about it on my bluesy account. (Bluesy is a twitter lookalike that is actually doing pretty well, considering it's invite-only.) None of my friends follow me on there (yet), and I'm in the furry community which is overall more accepting of stuff. (But there still is a stigma in some parts of the fandom.)

Bluesy, do you mean BlueSky?

 

[Babyboyneedssomehaalp]

My experience:

• Friends: Don't have many, most know I'm an Adult Baby; most of those who know that know I'm a toddler girl. They're okay with it. Most of them are "Sympathetic Muggle", the rest are members of the AB/DL community. One person who I thought was a friend found out by illegally breaking into my room, rifling through my effects...and using their discovery as blackmail against me. I countered that successfully. I have no plans to tell others in the friendship realm about my status, would rather not.
• Family: (a) Parents & siblings know. Mother & older sister are okay with it, father and younger sister look the other way. (b) Some relatives know. Namely, my female cousin and her son, who has autism. They're both okay with it and support me morally, which is just fine. (c) Descendants...not entirely sure. We're not talking anyway, for different reasons. I have no desire to tell others in the family, regardless of degree of relationship.
• Romantic relationships: Wife knew, was ambivalent about it. Our divorce was for many reasons, not sure if this factored in. Girlfriend after that was involved in the AB/DL community, definitely okay with it. Since 2006, I have not had a relationship beyond mere friendship and I neither seek nor want one. I'm finished. That relieves me of a great amount of stress I do not need and allows me to focus on my everyday life among the Muggles...and my Adult Baby Girl life. I'm very content exactly where I'm at. No need to worry about who I'll tell or not tell in this realm.

What's the big factor in all of this? I firmly believe it's my autism. I was "field-diagnosed" on December 14, 2018 and have accepted it. I wonder how many so-called 'normal' people would want to be into this...to struggle with internal conflict of social ethics & morals, to battle Binge-Purge Syndrome, to endure constant self-consciousness about it all.

I began to suspect there could be somewhat of a causal relationship between AB/DL and autism after someone here wrote their topic "Found out I'm autistic. I guess that explains the diapers...", which is something I told myself weeks after my own diagnosis and well before the topic popped up. Not sure the ratio of people here with AB/DL and autism but there are lots of us. It seems we've almost all of us felt we were considered "damaged goods" by all we knew as we grew up and older, and thus our ability to trust is damaged. AB/DL, autism...one or the other, or both together. We may never know and all we can do to make sense of it all is just keep going. Even when we've been written off by not only much of the Muggle world...but friends, family and +1s and SOs. It all really does damage our ability to trust.

But autism or no, we've all taken the dive into blind trust here & there, telling others. Sometimes it pays off and we find support among the Muggles...and most of the time, we strike out: more often than not, badly. It could be out of a mild sense of desperation we tell others, I don't know. We all here have very constricted social networks, inside or outside of AB/DL. Nobody likes to be lonely and most of us are; we resign ourselves to it. But that doesn't make it suck any less.

We can't go backward and we can't unring bells we've rung. So...we carry on. Together. All we can do. Birds of a feather...

Hi would you be okay with talking about how you told them? I'm trying to find a good way to tell my friend and I don't really know how to go about it.

 

[JamisonFTM]

Hi would you be okay with talking about how you told them? I'm trying to find a good way to tell my friend and I don't really know how to go about it.

So I just told my friend about wearing diapers. She knew I was little sometimes, and we have often talked extensively about kink, so I knew she was well aware of the bdsm dynamic and abdl in general. We have a very open and honest relationship, and I hated feeling like I was hiding this from her.
So I told her I was little the other night and what that meant to me, and that it sometimes involved me changing into diapers. She was very accepting, and I encouraged her to ask questions and I explained how they helped me relax and de-stress, and relive my childhood as the little boy I always was.
She said that she was happy that I had found something that helped me relax and asked if there was anything she could do to help me as my friend.

 

[CorPornosnor]

Hi would you be okay with talking about how you told them? I'm trying to find a good way to tell my friend and I don't really know how to go about it.

I think it’s also important to consider if your friend can accept that side of you. My two best friends and my parents don’t mind (although my step father doesn’t really like talking about it but that’s okay) but not everybody is like that. I don’t know your friend so that’s up to you to figure out.

In case you’re wondering. I told one of my friends when we were both incredibly drunk after he told me that he would accept me no matter what (I really don’t remember how we even got to that point), so I put it to the test and told him I was into diapers. He was the first person I ever told that I was wearing diapers for fun and this was way before I got into the ABDL community. I told my other friend and my parents after I got way more active in the community and also started to attend meetings and visit other people from the community because I didn’t want to lie whenever we talked about how I spend my weekend. So when the question came up after I attended one of my first meetings I told them about the meeting and that I like wearing diapers.

Hopefully this helps a bit.