Alternative Therapies - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The pleasant chirping of birds in the garden woke me up from my dreams the next morning. Only two weeks ago I had finished my final school exams and it was still unusual for me not to be woken up by the annoying melody of my alarm clock. Finally, I was free, I was no longer forced to adjust my sleep rhythm to the early morning school hours. I could get up and go to bed whenever it suited me. Of course, I was aware that once I started to go to university, the morning sleep-in would also come to an end, but for now I was going to enjoy every moment of my temporary freedom.

Unfortunately, this freedom was still quite lonely. As soon as I had finished my final exams, my mother, my younger sister, and I moved from the city to the countryside. My mother had long dreamed of a small cottage, and she took the opportunity provided by the end of my school years to start a new life in a more idyllic place. Admittedly, the old house and the surrounding countryside were beautiful, but it didn't change the fact that it now felt like we were living at the end of the world. There was no club or bar in the immediate vicinity and nothing else to pass the time as a young person. Without a car, you were completely helpless here and I had neither a vehicle nor a driver's license. As a city child, I had never seen the need to waste my time with tedious driving lessons when you could get around more quickly by bike or public transportation in an urban area. But in the end, it didn't matter that I was not mobile here, it didn't matter that I didn't know anyone my age yet, because in no time at all I would be moving far away to England, the location of my new university.

I was about to drift back to sleep when I suddenly realized something was amiss. The area around my buttocks felt uncomfortably wet. Had I sweated excessively in my sleep, causing the mattress to become soaked? But why did only the area around my buttocks seem to be wet? I wondered if I had gotten my period, but it was hard to imagine that the little bleeding I normally had could have caused such a mess.

I quickly realized what had happened as I lifted my bedspread and discovered a circular, yellow stain around my buttocks on the otherwise pristine white bedsheet. I had clearly wet the bed, even though it seemed surreal at that moment. After all, I had enough experience finding Sophie's mattress in a similar state when we tried letting her sleep without a diaper at night, to know what such a mishap looked like.

Repulsed by the wet, already smelling urine that now also stung my nose, now that the bedspread no longer trapped the odor, I rolled out of bed and immediately stripped off my pajama pants, which were also soaked with urine. No one was ever allowed to know about this mishap. I was 19 years old, not four like my sister. There was no excuse for such an accident at my age. I couldn't even imagine what my mother or friends would think if they found out. I could already picture the rumors spreading through my social circle and my new village. "Have you heard, Emily still wets the bed at 19 years old."

I had to act fast. I quickly thought through my options. If I threw my bedding into the washing machine before anyone saw it, no one would ever know about my accident. I quickly took off my sheet from the mattress and also removed the covers. However, now that the mattress was uncovered, my mistake was even more obvious. The big yellow stain in the center of the white mattress was unmistakable and would immediately reveal what had happened to anyone who saw it. I had to turn the mattress over to completely hide the urine stain, but just at the moment I was about to start, there was a knock at the door.

"Emily?" I heard my mother's voice. "Please don't come in," I panicked, but as usual, she had already entered without waiting for my permission. "I told you not to come in! You always come in without waiting for me to say it's okay," I yelled at my mother while desperately trying to position myself so she couldn't see my bedding and bed. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to quickly ask if you could unload the dishwasher later, after all, you shouldn't have much to do otherwise," she explained apologetically, but didn't make any effort to leave my room and instead looked curiously inside.

She must have just been about to leave the house to go to the kindergarten and then to her office, since she was already holding my little sister at her hand. "Why isn't Emily wearing any pants?" my little sister innocently asked my mom when she saw me. I blushed. Out of sheer fear that my sheets and my bed could be seen, I had forgotten that I was standing half-naked in front of them, giving them an optimal view of my uncovered vulva. I couldn't recall the last time my mother had seen me this exposed, but regardless of when it was, it must have been before I hit puberty.

"Uh, I was just about to change", I stammered and quickly brought my hands down to conceal my privates. "Why did you make your bed so early?" My mother wondered as she noticed that my sheets were lying behind me. "Did you get your period and is there some blood on the bed?" "Uh, yeah, that's right” I lied, grateful for this plausible explanation. Unfortunately, it didn't have the desired effect, and she didn't leave me alone. "Is there any stain on the mattress too? You need to act quickly if you want to remove it completely," she explained and before I could do anything, she stepped further into my room and looked at my exposed mattress.

She appeared stunned. "Did you wet the bed, Emily?" she asked, clearly in disbelief. The question was rhetorical, she didn't need a response to know what had happened. I was speechless. I stood there, my face red, covering my nudity with my hands and hoping it was just a nightmare from which I would soon wake up. Unfortunately, it was not a dream, and I had to confront the unpleasant truth. To my shock, my mother reacted in the same way she always did when my younger sister had an accident. "Oh Emily, it can happen to everyone," she comforted me in a loving tone.

Most people would probably argue that my mother's sensitive and considerate response was a positive thing, something to be happy about, but I would have preferred if she had screamed at me from the bottom of her heart. By reacting to my misfortune in the same way she reacts to my little sister's, I felt like she was equating me with a toddler who was expected to wet the bed once in a while and could therefore not be blamed.

"We really have to go now. Are you okay?" my mother asked me with such a soft and concerned voice that I almost started crying. Her caring and considerate demeanor only made me feel that the whole thing was even more of a disaster than I had initially thought. I could only nod silently, as I knew that one more caring word would finally make me cry. "Just put the sheets in the washing machine and let the mattress air out before putting on new sheets," she instructed as she was already walking out the door. "Don't worry Emily, it's probably just a one-time thing. We'll see you tonight," she said finally and in the next moment she was gone with my little sister.

Hardly had I been alone when I could no longer hold back my tears. For the rest of the day, I was occupied with crying my eyes out. Why did this have to happen to me and why was I so stupid to get caught as well!?