Learning to Accept

It's been several weeks since I finally stopped attempting to suppress my DL side after 30 years and put on my first diaper. Since then I've been through pretty much all the text book roller coaster emotions from the AMAZING calming of that initial diaper to the "oh hell what have I done!" feeling of guilt and shame.

Over the last few weeks that roller coaster has smoothed out somewhat and I think (or hope!) that I'm well on the path to accepting this long repressed side of me. (At least after taking off a nice wet diaper I don't have that feeling of shame, more a feeling of "that was FUN! Can't wait to do it again!").

The odd thing is that since I finally told myself that it's OK, I've felt a lot calmer day to day, maybe attempting to repress this for so long really did have an effect on me. What I've also realised is that you only get to repress something like this for so long. You can only kick that can down the road, but eventually you have to address it.

Due to society, this is a tough thing to go through as you can't just discuss it with anybody, so I sat and 'suffered' alone. I'm just happy that such a place as ADISC exists. I've spent many an hour reading through old forum posts that have have both helped me with my thoughts/feelings, as well as made me laugh at situations that only people here would understand. Sometimes it feels like I've finally joined a secret club

Anyway, thanks to everybody that have helped, especially Trevor who offered me some great advice about learning to accept, advise I think about daily.

Glad things are finally getting better for you. Yes, suppressing this desire is a bad thing, sometimes very bad if we seek other 'vices' to try and fill the void.

I've been on the road to acceptance since April and have been wearing every day since then. It's my new normal and that is what I was hoping would happen. By accepting this is who I am. Owning it. Realizing it is harmless, as opposed to my "other" side that is a serious self harmer. I used to feel shame for wanting diapers and baby stuff but I felt no shame in slashing myself up. But by turning away from those inner demons that were so sure this diaper habit thing was going to come out in the open and destroy me, I've been able to stop those voices.
I've been fearful of wearing them under my clothes in public. But I take the needed precautions to be discreet and have been successfully wearing with nobody noticing ever since. I no longer feel weirded out and I no longer have uncomfortable feelings about it around my wife, who has always been supportive of me and has never put me down for my desires.
What's more, my biggest fear, the one of my nasty gossipy older sister finding out no longer scares me. I have confidence in this for the first time in my 43 years and know if she did find out and spread it around, I could shame her into the dirt for doing that to me! And what's more, with acceptance comes a bit of pride.
Bottom line is I realized I was weird, but in a good OK way. So I try to look at it in a positive way. Positive weirdness! Yeah, I'm weird as all hell! So what? It's fun and I like this life!

I have been a DL for as long as I can remember and finally diapered up when I was 13 when I found some Depends in my grandmas closet. I have been secretly wearing ever since. I definitely had those feelings of shame as you mentioned and for a while I thought I was the only one out there like this. But over the years, I found information online and learned how to accept myself. It took about 20 years, but I finally got there. I became so accepting and comfortable with myself that I thought it was time to tell my wife. Unfortunately, she took it very badly and made me feel like I was a freak and had mental issues. All that work to self acceptance went down the drain and I felt like I was a terrible person. I honestly wanted to die after the berating I got from her. That was two years ago and now I am slowly working myself up to self acceptance again.

How did you guys do? Say thing to yourself. Writing or what actions?

For me it was finally getting over the guilt/shame that I was applying to myself. When I thought about it, the reason I felt guilty was because I was perceiving how other people would look at it. When I finally decided to tell myself it was OK and that this wasn't actually BAD, then I felt I was accepting myself a little more. When I took off a used one I squashed that voice saying "OMG what HAVE you done!" and replaced it with another voice shouting "AWESOME!", knowing full well that I was going to do it again the next day ;-)

I still haven't told my wife, I don't know what her reaction will be. I'm assuming it won't be "Oh that sounds lovely! Please feel free to wear whenever you like, and I'll even wear and wet one for you! Oh and just let me know if you ever need changing".

Maybe after I tell her then my hard fought self acceptance will take a knock, the best response I can really hope for is "erm.... OK... that's weird, I don't want to get involved" and if that's it, then I'm fine with that. If it's more "You freak, get out of the house!" well, then those are my cards and I deal with it, but really we've been together for 20 years and built quite a life together, so I'd hope that it wouldn't be that extreme! Either way this feeling isn't going back in the bottle and the thought of repressing it for the rest of my life fills me with dread.

I am going to use that method in the first paragraph. FYI. Guit means I know what just did is wrong. Shame is i believe there is something. Wrong with me . Can't wait to use your method. For accepting diapers in public