In 1997 when first knew about adult incontinence pads/nappies. I was 11 years old. I just started a special needs secondary school. I was using the disabled toilet in the portacabin with classrooms attached. In the disabled toilets there was an old doctors/dentist bench, a yellow clinical waste bin and packs of Attends Contours incontinence pads, if your unfamiliar with Attends Contours the pads are mainly used to contain bowel incontinence. It turned out there was a boy a year older than me called Craig (name changed) who was totally bowel incontinent. I was so jealous of him. A side note - the following year I caught the same school bus on our routes to school and home. He used to have accidents sometimes and it become quite obvious a few times... That made me very jealous off him, surprisingly he got more grief of the bus attendant women then the kids, most of the kids where low functioning anyway.
Anyway at 11 years old I used to sneak in the disabled toilet and fill my backpack up with the Attends incontinence pads. I never knew my I wanted them - just that I did... My fosters parents soon found the used (I don't think wet at that stage) pads under my bed, they started shaming me by taking me back to school with the pads I didn't use and giving them back to the headteacher in front off me. It didn't stop me from stealing them again.. I seen a child psychologist and soon after that my foster mother started buying me Tena Slip Supers from the mail order catalogue. I first seen a prober adult nappy then at around 12 years old. I wore pretty much constantly at night from age 12 to 17.... I moved into my own flat at 17, supported housing flat and had free rain to wear whenever I wanted so wore pretty much all the time.