Did potty training do this to us?

[Turfy]

I have been reflecting a fair bit lately on this question: How much does childhood trauma from potty training contribute to ABDL tendencies?

I recall flashes of memory from that period in my life, and I know it was very traumatic and damaging. Lots of yelling, and punishments, and emotions I couldn't sort out. My parents definitely did not do it well.... it was pretty abusive. I remember trying to steal from my little brothers diapers at some point not long later, so I know that I had BDL tendencies at that point.

Childhood trauma, especially to ADHD/ASD children, we know is a prime driving factor for ABDL; it's chasing that security and bliss we had before potty training...
What I end up wondering, however, is whether that specific trauma, really my earliest memories, was the tipping point that sent me inexorably down this path.

How big a role do you feel potty training trauma plays in ABDL development?

 

[lilithra]

Definitely makes it likely...

I don't remember struggling with removing the diapers during day, but I sure take my time with diapers at night.
My family tried all kinds of methods to stop my bedwetting, the humiliation sure is a big trauma and being forced to stay hours in the toilet before bed, the hits to the self-worth...

But that contrasting point with the confort and attention received during the times before bed that I would not had without It... Well, it's a combination that just invites to being a AB 😁

 

[Belarin]

I think what drives us to ABDL if highly individual, I myself had no trauma potty training or abuse as a child (aside from the odd bullying in school from other children mostly because I was a bit of a geek). I was also potty trained not early but not late either and had no troubles with bedwetting (aside from after I began to get these feelings and started doing it on purpose).

I mentioned before but I think the tipping point for me was at about 7 when I had an accident at the park visiting my dad, it was a one off and hadn't happened for many years and didn't happen again for many more years, but my dad kinda lost it a bit and drove me home to mum and put a nappy on me demanding she keep me in them for the rest of the weekend before storming out. This was absolutely humiliating for me at the time but was the first real exposure I had to wearing nappies outside of infancy.

My sister at the time was not even a year old so there were still nappies around the house, while I hated this event at the time within the next year is when I started being attracted to them, wanting to wear them and wetting my pants/bed on purpose.

So for me, yes the ABDL desires probably were triggered by that trauma but it was later on in childhood.

For others it probably depends a lot on how they were treated at various ages, what they were exposed to, their own personal emotional state and many other things, there is no one contributing factor that will guarantee someone becoming ABDL and what may be the cause for one person may also be what stops the desires from starting in another.

 

[Neroforte]

I dont remember exactly but I do remember the childhood trauma feeling totally insecure by my parents. From the fact that i was the black sheep and still the black sheep of the family. Yeah first DL attraction was when I found pads lol then carry to today

 

[AJFan2020]

I think being trained and seeing my younger cousins get trained definitely played a role in my interests later on (even though I usually see myself as more of a little than an ABDL (but even this varies depending on mood and stress level)).

 

[Anemone]

Not that I remember but I understand that I trained relatively straightforwardly.

Later accidents, during a difficult time, almost certainly made the greater impression upon me and so upon my ABDL.

 

[dbcl92]

I didn't necessarily have trouble with potty training, but I also think "potty training age" had a trigger for me. According to my parents, I was relatively easy to potty train around 3, however my parents got divorced when I was 4, and it was fairly brutal. I was somewhat forced to be their councilor and communicator for years. I'm not sure of the extent, but there was definitely some sort of mental anguish involved. I think it forced me to grow up too fast. I never played pretend like the other kids did. I was somewhat quiet and reserved. I could talk with adults more comfortably than with kids my own age.

From ~4-7 I wet the bed maybe once a month. Not often enough to wear diapers, I just had a mattress protector. As I got a bit older, I think I subconsciously associated diapers with childhood and a simpler time, but never really considered being diapered again. Around 9-10, something clicked and I searched for diapers online. The mid-2000s internet was the wild west, and there were quite a few ABDL websites / forums / chatrooms / etc. Back then the "18+ only" part of this community didn't really exist, and the rest is history.

I tried to "quit ABDL" many times up until ~20, but I couldn't shake it. ABDL became a deeply rooted part of me, and I'm still here ~20 years later. Self-questioning is good. Self-hatred doesn't help anyone. Now I advocate for self-acceptance.

 

[geka]

I don’t remember potty training, my early childhood I only remember using the toilet. When I was in kindergarten 4 or 5 years I remember finding a old pair of pp and wearing them most of the day, got caught when I was taking them off by my sister she just told me I wasn’t a baby anymore no big deal. Never thought about diapers or pp growing up.
It wasn’t until I was 22-23 I was looking at the sears and robuck catalog and saw adult diapers never knew they were a thing but it had an immediate affect on me…. Forty years and counting!

 

[Nowididit]

I don't remember any of my potty training. None. So I can't say for sure what caused me to be an ABDL.
All I know is at a very young age (4 or 5) I saw this box of Kimbies diapers at my aunt and uncles house and something like a switch flip on and I couldn't flip it off.
I don't know what caused that switch to flip on but it's been on ever since.

Was it a negative potty training experience?
Physical abuse?
Mental abuse?
No motherly love?
No real father figure?
Hell idk and quite frankly I really don't care anymore. I stopped asking.

Do I really want to know?
No.

Why?
What if it's something that happened in my life that was so traumatizing that I subconsciously suppressed as a survival skill? What if it's something that I just couldn't live with? Something that sends my life spiraling out of control?

My ABDL tendencies are of the unknown and they can stay in the unknown.

 

[KarmaBaby2]

Potty training I have two different views … mom tells me I potty trained myself at 18 months and had no accidents and done after a few weeks. But I found my journal and nope … she decided when I was 18 months once I was dry for two naps it was time to start. I apparently had trouble figuring out for wetting so I started to wet, then would go to potty So my training pants were always wet. But it worked and just under a year I was 100% done. So I wonder if it was a constant struggle and that’s why mom pretending it was good? But I don’t know so still put no issue.

then dad died when I was 4 1/2 …. I apparently tried to be a baby after that because I told daddy would come back. Mom finally figured it out and told me it won’t work and apparently it stopped after that. Mom only let me sleep with her (not willing) for a month and then I had to be back in my room alone. This is where I think it came from. I never got any therapy because I was too young for all groups, mom has zero emotional knowledge and be being a bit empathic … I had no help on dealing with my emotions and I pick up emotions from other people. Pretending I’m a baby allows me to release emotions anywhere (pretending different situations … not allowing everythwhere) because toddlers don’t have a filter for their emotions And strong emotions can be from tiny things.

so yes to childhood trauma causing ABDL but no, not just around potty training.

 

[TeddyBearGirl]

For me, I recall having a deeper connection and desire to wanting to be babied than just wearing diapers from a younger age. I remember wanting to be babied from about the age of 5. I would hide pacis and baby blankies and use them hiding in my closet. When little sister was born I would lay in her crib or play pen when I could and pretend I was a baby. Diapers aren’t nessacarily a sexual thing to me but my interest in them didn’t come until around puberty. I was potty trained early but don’t know there was anything traumatic about. I had some bladder and bowel issues as a kid though

 

[foxkits]

We are individuals but with a lots of us. We may be similar there has been many that had no abuse good family life . Mine comes from being put back into diapers at first or second grade. Don't remember how many days I had to wear them.
In my time they would diaper for shaming you into keeping your pants dry . Please understand that parents were looked down on kids in diapers after 21/2 years. We were considered lazy if we still wet our selves. Most parents raise there kid like they were raised.

 

[dogboy]

When threads like this come up, the responses tend to be different from one another. As we've read, some members had an easy and calm experience being potty trained and for others, it was difficult or even traumatic.

I was still wearing diapers when I was adopted at the age of two. I can remember my mom putting a diaper on me and I can remember potty training, nothing in great detail but I can even remember my potty seat.

For me it wasn't upsetting, yet at age 4 I wanted to be back in diapers. By age six I acted upon the desire and by the time I was 12, it was something I did constantly.

Since so many of us have different experiences, I don't think liking diapers is necessarily caused by one event but maybe by many events. Potty training directs one's mind to not just using a toilet, but also the constant attention to diapers. As I kid I'd see cloth diapers hanging on neighbors' clotheslines along with plastic pants. I had friends who had younger brothers or sisters who were in diapers. I think it is the constant sensory interaction to diapers when we are young that has an effect on how we observe diapers. For some of us such as myself, I was always aware of diapers and it didn't take long before I wanted to be back in diapers. This leads us to brain imprinting, attachment theory and others. For some reason, people such as ourselves (AB/DL) are effected differently by the diaper as an object than other people. At the end of the day, I have a feeling the reasons are many and complicated.

 

[Happy2BeInNappies2]

I don't quite remember my potty training as such, but I do recall years later, being told by my parents, how hard I was to train.

This was back in the late 1950s in the white terry towel nappy and plastic pants, days.
As the first born (and only son) I must have really enjoyed using my nappies as I (so I have been told) resisted very strongly any use of the potty, compelling my mum and dad to take drastic measures.
Apparently, I was made to wander in the house naked from the wast down, for about two days, until I finally gave up, when my body made me use the potty chair waiting in the dining room. (I am sure I was punished if I had gone anywhere else, once my nappies were forbidden).

Even today, I have a clear picture in my mind of that potty chair, not because I remember using it, but only because it was there for years later for my younger sisters to train on.

My age at the time (late 1959) would have been about 2 years and 8 months at the most. I can understand why my parents decided to train me at that age.
ONE: Before I turned three, their second child was born and mum sure did not want to be washing nappies for both of us.
TWO: At three years of age I would attend the first of my two years at pre-kindergarten (covering 3 & 4 year olds), where little children toilets were to be used.

As my earliest childhood memories always consisted of: a fascination with nappies; an attraction to plastic pants; a very strong desire to wear dresses, (because my younger sisters were allowed to wear dresses, use nappies, be girly, etc..) and having a great thrill from the feelings I got, from having a warm bum, (say when quickly sitting on a seat that a girl had just left), all these could be from the effects of not being allowed to use my nappies anymore.

I definitely am the 'black sheep' of my family, as all my younger sisters grew up normal. As far as I know, I am the only one who wants to be a baby girl and be treated as such.

In conclusion, I think that the trauma of potty training before I was ready (if I ever would be ready, that is), must have contributed greatly to, my desire to be a girl, to wear dresses and use nappies instead of the toilet.

Whatever the cause, some understanding and self acceptance, have come to me late in life largely in part to the wonderful support I have received here on ADISC.
Thank you everyone.

 

[BabyBluePup]

I don't remember my potty training as much, so I don't think it really caused me to love diapers so much. I think it was me being in diapers for so long that I could remember being changed at certain times. That alone probably got me into diapers, along with some other things that I can't 100% confirm since it happened while I was still a toddler.

 

[babyjoe698]

yes. I was forced to be potty trained when I was not ready. Punish for accidents

 

[LittleJ123]

I was around two year old according to my parents. They offered me toys if I would give up diapers. According to their account, I simply agreed, and that was the end of that. It's funny though, because a couple years later (around four years old), I was "playing baby" with my older sibling, and my parents allowed me to wear actual diapers for our game. I had an "accident" in them one day when I held it for way too long because I wanted to keep playing baby. Parents got rid of all the diapers at that point, but it was too late...I was hooked. So, answering the potty training question: I don't think so, since I was potty-trained rather quickly. But the unexpected re-introduction of diapers only a couple years later is definitely where I think all of this started for me.

 

[Cottontail]

I doubt potty-training was a factor for me.

I'm told that I potty-trained very quickly and easily. I was almost three years old. Mom had been waiting patiently for me to show interest, but it just wasn't happening. She finally decided to sit me on the toilet and bribe me with candy. I was trained in less than two weeks and had zero daytime accidents after that. Mom said she felt very silly and wished she'd done that a lot sooner. I don't recall anything of it myself, but Mom was fond of telling that story. I do remember watching her potty-train my younger sister and there were no threats or punishments. Nobody ever seemed upset.

My parents were a couple of easygoing former hippies, serious when the needed to be, never overly serious when they didn't. I generally reflect on my childhood with appreciation and gratitude. I don't think my interest in diapers and being babied stems from any trauma.

 

[lilithra]

I doubt potty-training was a factor for me.

I'm told that I potty-trained very quickly and easily. I was almost three years old. Mom had been waiting patiently for me to show interest, but it just wasn't happening. She finally decided to sit me on the toilet and bribe me with candy. I was trained in less than two weeks and had zero daytime accidents after that. Mom said she felt very silly and wished she'd done that a lot sooner. I don't recall anything of it myself, but Mom was fond of telling that story. I do remember watching her potty-train my younger sister and there were no threats or punishments. Nobody ever seemed upset.

My parents were a couple of easygoing former hippies, serious when the needed to be, never overly serious when they didn't. I generally reflect on my childhood with appreciation and gratitude. I don't think my interest in diapers and being babied stems from any trauma.

Candies, the answer to all 🤣

 

[Frungie]

I don't remember my potty training but I think it was uneventful and accomplished within normal limits without trauma of any kind. My mother was very loving. What I do remember is occasionally watching a neighbor or relative's mother change their child and thinking to myself how gentle and loving the diaper changing was. Then there was a playmate who frequently wet and messed his pants and I wondered to myself what that was like. We never talked about it, it was more or less, simply accepted and Gerry's mother would call him in to get changed. Again, I thought how nice and gentle his mother was. I started experimenting without my parents or sister knowing, and well here I am in a wet and messy diaper this morning. Fetishes start with experiences that are pleasurable at either an emotional and/or physical level. I wasn't sexually aroused when I had the occasion to watch a mother change their child nor was I when the playmate wet or messed his pants. The feeling was more of curiosity and interest. But when I began experimenting with my own wetting and messing, the feelings were intense and sexually arousing. I then started going to a store and bought the largest pair of baby plastic pants I could find and wore them over my underpants and intermittently wet without flooding because obviously my underpants were not diapers. Like many I went through periods of guilt resulting in a purging cycle until I accepted my affinity for diapers as just one part of the totality of my humanity. I'm successful, Ph.D., married, wonderful family, and I just happen to like to wet and mess my diapers. I wear diapers all the time and wet without anyone knowing but messing is done in the privacy and solitude of the early morning.