How did you come to terms with being an AB/DL?

Hey there everyone. I've made a few posts on the forum about various subjects so far, but I feel like it's time I stop putting it off and finally talk about the main reason I signed up for an account here. To get right to the point, I've never been comfortable with the fact that I like wearing diapers and occasionally doing light AB role-play in bed.

There's no reason I shouldn't be comfortable with it. I have a really supportive wife who has encouraged me to explore my interest in diapers and AB play for the last 4 years and she's totally happy to do those things with me whenever I want, and I have several friends both online and in real life who are either into AB/DL actives themselves or are supportive of it. And yet, in spite of the support and encouragement of everyone around me, more often than not I kinda hate myself and wish I didn't like the things I like.

Some days are better than others. There are days when I feel totally happy and comfy sitting around in diapers all day and really enjoy it in both sexual and non-sexual ways. It's weird but on my good days my favorite thing about wearing a diaper isn't anything sexual at all, it's that it just makes me feel really relaxed and at ease when I'm wearing one. It's a peaceful and comforting feeling that I can't quite find a reason for, but it feels nice. Like I stress out and worry a lot less on days when I'm all padded up, and when life doesn't go as planned I don't get bent out of shape about it. I guess it's kind of an unusual way to relax, but it really does help me de-stress a lot.

But those days are the minority and most of the time I just feel sad and ashamed of myself when I think about wearing diapers or doing anything remotely AB related. I know there's no reason I should feel that way, because wearing diapers and doing AB play is a totally harmless activity that hurts no one; and I didn't have a religious upbringing so I can't think of any moral reason I should feel bad about it either. I don't know why I feel this way, but so often it makes me feel deeply sad and makes my stomach do flip flops when I think about these things that I like; especially AB play. The diapers I can deal with liking sometimes, but the idea of sucking a pacifier or sitting around in a playpen or anything like that… I hate it and I hate thinking about it, and yet part of me also knows that I'd enjoy it.


I know these are likely problems best handled by a sexual psychologist, but at this point in my life I'd really rather not meet with a therapist and have to explain all of this to them along with all my other weird but totally harmless kinks (plushies, furries, babyfurs, scat, rimming, etc.) so I thought I'd try reaching out to the AB/DL community first to see if anyone else has had problems coming to terms with their kinks and how they remedied it.

I know that we can't change the things we like sexually any more than we can change the color of our skin or stop the sun from rising and setting, so the only thing I can really do is try to accept myself and learn to be okay with who I am, but I've been trying for years and years and in spite of the total support of everyone around me I just can't seem to do it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

What personally helped me was simply thinking about what wearing a diaper actually meant. And that’s absolutely nothing. Literally just underwear.

I was afraid to wear in public because I suppose I figured everybody would engage their xray vision and see my ABU Preschool under my baggy jeans and sweatshirt. So I wore in public. I never dreamed of the day I’d make social interaction with another ABDL, so I took a road trip in a diaper to an abdl store. (I had to cross international borders too. Yikes!)

I came to realize doing things like that, that it really isn’t all that big of a deal. It’s just different underwear. Big deal. We’ve ALL seen worse!

Maybe a small part of you will always think it’s weird. But soon enough, you’re gonna get tired of thinking like that. You just gotta do what you wanna do with this side of you (so long as you don’t ‘push the envelope). Eventually, you’ll say ‘eh, it ain’t really a big deal. Maybe it is weird, but who gives a damn?’ Who WOULD give a damn and why should they? No one elses business anyways!’

Good luck!

I embraced that it is weird and that it's okay. Making friends in the community was instrumental in seeing the good in it. I was already over the purge feelings and focusing on enjoyment but until I had ABDL friends, I still would have made it go away if I could. It's a unique part of you and it's something you craft yourself. It's worth the indulgence.

The only time I really struggled with it all was when I was a teenager. Eventually I just realized: "This isn't something I can kill or destroy, I can't make this go away so I should embrace it." Making friends with this interest really helped as well. I still talk to all the ones I met in my teenage years.

I've still not come to terms with it fully. I struggle sometimes wondering if I'm a sick person for being an ab/dl. I look around my collection of ab/dl items and think to myself "This isn't normal." For the most part I've accepted it, it's not something I can change. However, after around February or March when I had a big falling out with someone who was like a "Daddy" to me it brought back all of those feelings of "This isn't normal" Just over the way I felt about my relationship with said person and certain aspects of it. I'm over that specific person now but some of the feelings I have in regards to being an ab/dl and my interactions with the people around me because of it still bother me.

I am very grateful however that I met Snow Blitz, if it wasn't for him I probably never would have been able to explore being an ab/dl without probably stumbling over myself and doing some pretty stupid things. Still the best BBBFF ever. EVEN IF I CAN'T GET YOU TO SHAT YOUR DIAPERS LIKE THE LITTLE YOU ARE. I tease. (That's also an in joke) But no seriously Snowy is the reason why I joined Adisc in the first place as well, as well as being the reason I'm able to cope with my negative feelings towards the fetish. I'm very much a hypocrite with ab/dl things and he's helped make me less of one lol. When I first realized I was an ab/dl I was very much weirded out by the fact that grown over 25 year old people wore diapers for fun, I now don't struggle with that as much, probably because I've gotten older and mostly because Snowy helped me realize that it's not weird and that I was a massive hypocrite when I was younger.

I question myself all the time. It's either when I'm wearing, or I feel guilty and start to question my life choices after the fact. I'd like to get better with myself, but it's extremely difficult for me, since I always bottle up my emotions. I don't recommend doing that!

So no, I haven't come to terms, but one day hope to.

Thank you for all the kind and thoughtful replies everyone, it's kinda reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who is still on the road to self-acceptance. It really comes and goes for me, like much of yesterday I was feeling pretty down about it all then late in the evening I got padded up, felt totally happy and comfortable with it, and went to bed in diapers without any negative feelings about it at all.

But I also know that it seems to vary depending on the other things going on in my life, like the amount of stress I'm under, how the budget is doing, and all those annoying real life problems adults have to deal with. When life in general isn't going terribly well it's easy to get down on myself, but I'm hoping that having a community of other AB/DLs to interact and talk with might help me gradually get more comfy with myself.

This is a little personal and uncomfortable to talk about, but I think the biggest reason I've had trouble accepting myself is that about 14 years ago I was in a romantic relationship and moved in with someone who was a hardcore AB. His entire bedroom was decked out to look like a nursery, he slept in a giant crib, and wore diapers 24/7. Unfortunately he also ended being incredibly emotionally abusive and controlling and the 3 months I spent living with him left me with PTSD that I spent a decade in therapy trying to deal with. And it was bad, like "I had such a severe case of agoraphobia after being with him that for 3 years I couldn't leave my apartment without having an anxiety attack and throwing up." kinda bad. I'm doing much better these days and have long since overcome my agoraphobia with gradual desensitization therapy, but I think the emotional scars from that trauma left me with some negative associations with AB/DL activities. They're something I've always enjoyed, long before I met that jerk who abused me, but I think it's been harder to be accepting of that part of myself since then.

Anyway, thank you again for your replies and encouragement everyone. You all made very good points that I will try to remind myself of regularly and just keep taking it one day at a time.

There is a good reason you feel you "shouldn't be comfortable with it". You are a social animal and part of your emotions are group related. Like others in our species we share many common beliefs about how things "should" be. Diapers serve a pretty disgusting function, so adults "shouldn't" enjoy using them. That seems reasonable and easy to understand, but then reality rears its ugly head. We enjoy something we feel we shouldn't. Two perfectly legitimate feelings, but they are in conflict with each other. Oh well, the way I see it, it's this conflict we are struggling with and reality doesn't care if we accept this or not. Maybe accepting this feeling of conflict as a natural part of our existence is the first step to resolving it and, hopefully, finding a greater level of nonjudgemental acceptance of life as it is.

I agree with Drifter on this. You feel negative emotions about loving to wear diapers because general society says you should. And sure you want to fit in and be accepted by society as a whole. Except you as a who includes loving diapers, hence feeling so torn over it.

Ultimately you need to come to the realization that general society is judging us incorrecly due to so much negative media a

As much as society judges us, we often judge ourselves more.

I have come a long way in accepting myself in these last 5 years. I still have the occasional moments where I question myself but they are much farther apart and much fewer then when I was younger.

My years of marriage were not the best for me in regards to self acceptance. In fact I questioned myself more than ever through those years. I think it was because my wife disliked my little side to the point of having me choose between it and her. The last four years has been an adventure in finding myself and accepting myself as I am.

This site was pretty instrumental in helping me accept my desire to wear diapers. It showed some pretty normal folks who happen to share the same little secret I have! Some of that was undone by my SO (she is dealing with it the best she can) but I remain confident in myself. I've also had 2 therapists agree that while it isn't normal, it's nothing to worry about

Well, here goes nothing.

Delve into your body and FEEL your emotions. Put your focus onto the bodily sensations and tune out the thoughts that accompany the emotions.
Where's the sensation? Does it tingle, burn, sting? Is it warm, floaty, heavy?
Don't zone out(dissociate), do your best to stay present with it.
The more I've familiarized myself and experienced with the bodily sensations of guilt/shame/self-hate the easier it is to acknowledge and dismiss the emotion.
It gets easier in time, and as you practice it the power of said emotion(s) will diminish.

Accepting yourself is a big deal and not very easy. I struggled with this in my teens accepting my sissy baby nature and it was hard. No one really understands it other than other ABDLs. I have (eventually) supportive family, but they still dont understand it - just accept it.

It has been a LOOONNNNGGG road for me. I've always wanted to be in a diaper. I never knew what AB/DL was when I was younger and I too felt the guilt and shame a lot of us do. When I got married my wife saw plastic pants in my bureau and asked about them. While she wasn't real keen on the situation she dealt with it but was very standoffish about it. Many years ago my nighttime IC go to the point where I had to be diapered every night and I just slowly started working on self acceptance and now years later I'm pretty much all the way there. I've been to a couple of munches with other ABDL's and that has helped too. I agree with previous post that says no one really understands us but us and you know, that's OK by me.

I don't know that I've ever accepted this side of me, and I know my wife never will.

I knew I wanted to be back in diapers at age 4, and while I did the usual 'experimenting' through adolescence, I was in my mid-twenties before someone else actually diapered me. While I find diapers a psychological comfort, they are a logistical nightmare. I am a very 'visible' person and wearing outside the home is something I can do only rarely.

Over the years, my focus has evolved from wearing to being cared for, although I have no medical need. I just enjoy having a woman 'baby' me for 2-4 hours at a time. While I've pretty much accepted my fascination with diapers, I haven't really accepted my need to be cared for. My wife likes to go to the spa every few weeks, and I liken my need for a babysitter to her need to be pampered ... pardon the pun.

Society does a real 'number' on males, because we grow up with the expectation that we should be macho, tough and able to take care of ourselves. From time to time, I need to be diapered, fed a bottle, bathed and put down for a nap. In comparison to what other people do to stay 'straight,' this is pretty tame stuff. That doesn't, unfortunately, make it any easier to accept this aspect of my personality.

As people have written, it is just underwear. Society makes a joke of having to wear a diaper.

Ask yourself if life would be better if you stopped wearing them. What other thing could you do for stress relief?

If it causes you problems with work or relationships with friends and your wife then you need to make changes. Otherwise it is just underwear. I started wearing diapers the last three winters for its kinky value. Otherwise I would be wearing panties for its kinky value. Both are just underwear.

People get into props. Beds, toys, pacifiers, onesies, plastic pants, etc. some are turned on and some are not. I'm not. I'd rather be dressed as a woman.

This is a little bit of an old thread but thought I would put my two cents in - for me, any sense of emotional outcome and resolve with my love for diapers has been purely subject to the passing of time. Moreover, I know I've had to try multiple different angles and strategies relentlessly with only minimal success in mitigating my shame each time, and it's been really confronting when trying so many psychological methods have consistently produced nonpermanent results. It's only now, after having actively tried to deal with the relentless internal conflict for years, that I'm not bothering any more because I know I can't change who I am, and now I'm in the best emotional state I've ever been in my life. We're always learning and growing each day, and especially for younger people who haven't finished developing neurologically, there's still huge amounts of room for personal growth and acceptance. The key in my experience is patience and personal observation. When you have a hit of guilt or self-disgust, rather than letting yourself be consumed by that feeling, catch yourself in the moment to take a mental step backwards and literally think 'observatory' thoughts about the situation: "Right now I'm feeling upset - that's okay." "Why do I feel upset? Is there a good reason for it?" To a lot of people this kind of mental strategy seems really silly because of how rudimentary it is, but it's actually the most effective method I've come across in coming to terms with anything in life because people consistently neglect their emotional health due to the hectic nature of daily life. Self-development takes a lot of time, and that's okay - always remember that!