Tis the Season: Halloween Part 2

Be sure to read Part 1 of this story. Better yet, go all the way back and read the very first entry in the series!

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You lay on your back freshly taped into double overnight diapers trying to control the emotions you’re allowing to show on your face as your partner holds up the Halloween costume they chose for you. A year ago, before you went back into diapers at your partner’s, you didn’t have the confidence – or desire – to dress up as a superhero for Halloween. You couldn’t even recall the last time you dressed up at all for Halloween, and whether it’s embarrassing for an adult to dress up or not is far from the point. In normal underwear, the lycra bodysuit is far too revealing for your modesty and insecurity. No need to be concerned about that now; people won’t your body. They’ll be scrutinizing your diaper. Diapers, actually. You try to close your legs more and are reminded you’re wearing two, the ones you wear to last through the night with not 2am changes.

You know the jeans your partner bought you, the ones a size too large and cut loosely, fit over double overnight diapers but can’t hide them. And that bodysuit is, well, a bodysuit. It’s skin-tight. It will stretch to fit over your diapers, and they’ll bulge around your hips leaving nothing to the imagination. You may as well go as a baby superhero.

“Up up,” your partner says excitedly. They’ve been looking forward to Halloween and trick-or-treating with you and your nieces and nephews. They put thought into the costume, knowing that if you’d chosen for yourself, you’d have defaulted to your long-running fallback – person-who-forgot-to-wear-a-costume. Not that it isn’t a classic costume – or perhaps more like a classic excuse, and the subtle eyerolls you’ve received as the pooper or numerous parties were well worth the prize of not embarrassing yourself – but it wouldn’t make for the memory-making night of trick-or-treating your partner wants with the niblings.

You stand up, unsure what to say. You’re never quite sure what to say at times like these anymore, when you want one thing and your partner wants another. Ever since going back in diapers, your partner has made more decisions for you, put more rules in place (without ever saying so), and become much more proactive in correcting your alleged misbehavior and bad choices. It’s as though the clock is being wound back with many subtle changes and some sudden changes in your relationship and your roles within it, and in your relationships with others. From your mom diapering you last Christmas Eve, which she hadn’t done since you were still wetting the bed in high school; to having your diaper changed by sister and sister in-law, even your brother in-law – even a friend at a New Year’s party; to finding yourself over your partner’s lap seemingly every week for one misdeed or bad decision or another; to not being allowed to go for a walk in the park alone; to being changed out of a very messy diaper in the mothers’ room at church. Much of the time you feel like a seven-year-old with no continence and an especially doting, protective, and strict single-parent.

And none of this is being hidden from family and friends (except for the discipline, but a few know about that too), and a lot of it is public knowledge. You concede your partner was smart to proactively tell family and close friends. That took away the stress of hiding your diapers, or at least hiding the fact that you wear diapers again. But it must be that same openness, you think, that has led everyone in your life to treat you being diapered as no different from anyone else not yet potty-trained. It’s not just in the way they are about your diapers – thinking nothing of discussing them and the state of your continence openly as if you’re not in the room; family volunteering and sometimes insisting on checking and changing you, often making it seem like a favor for your partner rather than for you; and the seemingly irresistible urge, judging by how often it happens, to pat your bottom – but the way they are about the rules your partner has set for you; the way they don’t bat an eye when you’re being gently scolded like a child; the way they talk about rules and discipline like those are normal in an adult relationship, agreeing with your partner that you thrive best on structure and accountability; the way they’ll even enforce those rules, like last week when you had dinner at your parents’ house alone and your father took a glass of Coke out of your hand because your partner doesn’t let you have caffeine after six; even disregarding your nudity, as though the site of your bare butt or even your genitals during a change is no more worthy of remark than if the person on the changing pad were still nursing.

Even your accidents don’t register for what they are anymore. Before you were back in diapers, an accident in front of family or friends made the room awkward (and sometimes empty), and people cast their eyes down and stopped talking, a failed effort to reduce your embarrassment that made the situation even more uncomfortable. Now, though, you can noisily fill your diaper at the dinner table, and after a respectful few minutes during which everyone keeps chatting (you suspect they’re waiting to make sure you’re done and hope against hope you’re wrong) until someone playfully says, ‘Someone’s got stinky pants and I know who it is.’ Your partner always replies for you, like they do essentially everything else associated with your diapers, ‘Guilty as charged. We’ll change you out of your poopy pampers right after dinner.’ And everyone – to your consternation and amazement – keeps on talking and eating as though the source of the scent is an infant asleep in a bouncer who wouldn’t mind waiting for a change even if they were awake.

Against all that, how can you be sure what to say? There’s so much to say, so many acts and words and assumptions to counter. And there’s the conflict inside you between resentment and appreciation. You resent being treated as and talked about like a little kid, and yet you appreciate the gentleness and kindness that goes with it. No one laughs; no one treats you as a cautionary tale about what the future may hold for them, something to be ignored because it makes them afraid and uncomfortable. There’s no distancing, no drifting apart, no awkward encounters as though you’re disabled or ill and people don’t know how to talk to you anymore. If anything, you get more attention, all of it well meant.

You can’t imagine your pre-diaper days without your partner having been there to help and protect you when your accidents became so frequent and bigger, and you know you’d have never been brave enough to go back into diapers without them. It’s equally impossible to imagine your life now without your partner and the devoted care they give you. You appreciate them and love them so much. The other people who’ve taken an active hand in helping you deal with your condition – your mom, your sister, and your sister in-law especially – you appreciate and love so much.

How can you tell them no? How can you tell them to stop treating you like a child while still wanting their help with your diapers when your partner isn’t around? Not just want, but need; you’ve never changed yourself almost year after being put back in diapers. What’s the alternative? That they ignore it, pretend it’s not happening and leaving you to wait until your partner can help you? Or treating you instead like you’re sick, like something that happens an average of six times a day is sad and lamentable and depressing? You could ask your partner to show you how to change yourself, of course, but for some reason you can’t articulate even to (especially to?) yourself, you don’t want to take on the responsibility.

So there you are standing at the foot of your bed in double bedtime diapers coming up with no words to tell your partner that you don’t want to wear the costume they put together for you. You don’t know if you have a choice; for that matter, you don’t know how to tell them that you’re an adult and always have a choice. You don’t know how to assert your adulthood anymore. The only time you ever feel like an adult anymore is when you’re working, and even then, because you both work from home, you never feel quite like an adult. Not when your partner comes into your office to check your diaper, to say nothing of your scheduled noon to one break. Your partner just put it on your work Outlook calendar without asking, every day in perpetuity – ‘DO NOT SCHEDULE’ – an hour to have the lunch they make for you, get your diaper changed if you need a new one, and take a quick nap before returning to work. People at work respect that time; you’re not sure if they know what happens during it, but you do know your manager didn’t bat an eyelid when your partner, after respectfully waiting five minutes for a call to wrap up, stepped right in front of your camera, put their hands your shoulders (almost like they were taking you back from her), and interrupted your manager with, “Sorry. They need a little break. They’ll you back at one.”

You blushed, but so did your manager, who chuckled knowingly and replied, “I’m so sorry. I lost track of time. I’ll make sure to let them go on time from now on.” Not only did you not get chewed out by your manager when you called them back at one, but they apologized again, made a vague mention about your ‘needs,’ and promised once more to keep an eye on the clock for you. And they really do: twice since then, if they see you’re active on Teams at 12:01, they ping you to remind you it’s break time and shoo you away from your desk. You cannot fathom what being back in the office would be like or even the logistics of it.

“What do you think,” your partner asks with an almost lyrical lilt as they hold the bodysuit up by its hanger.

“I, um, I …”

“And I haven’t shown you all of it yet,” they interject in their excitement. It’s clear your partner is emotionally invested in the costume they assembled just for you, that they chose it thoughtfully believing you’d be equally excited to dress up as your favorite superhero. They lay the bodysuit on the bed and practically hop to their dresser, opening the underwear drawer and coming up with a pair of cardinal red, form-fitting, lycra underpants. “Ta-da!”

You’re wondering why that seems to especially excite them – do they think you’ll be excited to wear underpants again, even over your diapers? And what difference do underpants make to a costume? – when it strikes you: they’re not going under anything. In true superhero style, your partner expects you to wear those underpants on the outside, a blaring red cover for your diapers sure to draw even more attention to your padded backside as if the bulge and the inevitable waddle – no way will you be able to close your legs any more than you already are, which is only about halfway, when your diapers get wet – wouldn’t make you stand out from two blocks away.

“I can’t wait to see you in this,” your partner exclaims. In a flash, they’re holding out a pair of clear plastic panties for you to step into, saying something a-mile-a-minute about being extra safe and protecting the costume so you’ll always have it – that you don’t catch all of.

“Honey,” you say.

“Zips in the back,” they say as they inspect the bodysuit, “like those jammies your mom made for you. Did you know a lot of women are actually wearing what they call bodysuits, but they’re really just onesies. Not one-piece pajamas, but like your diaper shirts with snaps at the bottom. Like high fashion invented it and not moms; isn’t that funny?” Before you can respond, they’ve already rolled up one of the legs and are holding it open for you. “Here.”

Even if you never had accidents and were never put back in diapers for them and weren’t the junior partner in your relationship, you wouldn’t know what to say at this point to avoid putting that costume on. But all those things are true, you don’t know how to speak up about it for so many reasons, and now you’re afraid you’ll hurt your partner’s feelings if you tell them you don’t like the costume. As you do when they hold open plastic panties for you or help you with your pajamas – in the parlance of your house these days, jammies, jammers, jimjams, PJs, footies, and warm-fuzzies – you put your hand on their shoulder for balance and step in.

A mere moment later, and they’re zipping you up in back. It fits like a glove.

“Now for the best part,” your partner says in the silly, rough-and-tumble tone they use when getting your niblings hyped up for a family football game. You haven’t had time to look at how much your diaper bulge is on display, and they’re holding out the underpants, that matador red the same material as the bodysuit, the lycra giving off a slight sheen.

“We are gonna take so many pictures,” they say, impatient for all the fun the two of you will have this evening. “Go look in the mirror, and I’ll be out in a second with my costume on.”

The only reason you agreed to dress up was because your partner said they would to. It wasn’t a compromise on their part either; they were excited for dressing up and for the whole evening. Their excitement and the fact you wouldn’t be the only adult wearing a costume was enough to get you to say yes. Your costume is so simple – a unitard and a pair of underpants like your favorite superhero wears – but so much thought went into choosing it, you can tell, another among countless examples of how much they think about you. They must have something even more special for themselves.

You work up the courage to look in the mirror above your dresser first, where you can see from your stomach and up. Much more form fitting than you’d ever wear, but given your new normal, that doesn’t matter at all. You swallow and turn around, looking into the floor-length mirror that hangs on the closet door.

It’s just as you thought it would be: your diapers stand out for all to see, and the red underpants may as well be the circle of light at the end of a beam from some unseen spotlight announcing like an event that you’re an adult back in diapers.

How to get out of this? Even at a literal level, you need your partner to let you out. You couldn’t reach the zipper if you tried, something you learned when trying to take off the Christmas pajamas your mom made you. Your partner chuckled in good fun while watching you try before stepping in.

During your diapering, you’d already tried to beg off going to your sister in-law’s house. It hadn’t worked, and you had no new arguments to make. Your partner wanted you to go and looked forward to trick-or-treating with you, even saying out loud how great it would be to get to experience something they wish they could’ve done with you back when you were kids, had you known each other then. And your niblings were looking forward to it. You were committed, or maybe more like volun-told, but committed just the same.

You could put your foot down, simply refuse. You do that sometimes, and sometimes it ends with your partner telling you to not get so worked up, that all you have to do is say so and that they didn’t realize how strongly you felt. Other times, it ends with your partner folding their arms across their chest, giving you ‘the look,’ and telling you to calm down before they put you in a timeout to calm you down.

And still other times, you put your foot down a little too loudly, which always ends the same way: a reminder that they never raise their voice to you and that raising your voice is unacceptable, your pants coming down, getting turned over their knee, your diaper getting untaped, and your ‘bare little bottom’ – as they always call it in the moment – getting soundly spanked. And like every spanking, that’s followed by cuddling until your tears stop and you’re sniffling quietly enough to listen to a short lecture about why your choice was a bad one, a trip to the bathroom to wash your face, a new diaper, and an invitation to try again – ‘calmly, this time’ – to state your position again. Thing is though, if they feel so strongly about it, they’d have given in way before you raised your voice. You say your piece, they gently but firmly explain why you’ll be doing what they want anyway, which you then do with a sore, red bottom under your diaper.

Your track record of knowing when they feel strongly about something isn’t great, and your track record of gauging how far you can push back before crossing the line into consequence territory when they do feel strongly is even worse. This time, though, you know they feel strongly about it.

Not just that, but they feel strongly about it because they want to spend time with you and do something special, and they want that because they believe you’ll enjoy it, just like they believe they hit upon a jackpot idea for your costume. Standing up for your right to decide what to wear and whether to go someplace as an adult would be a valid choice even if they don’t think it is. But being an adult comes with responsibilities as well as rights, and that means sometimes doing something you don’t want to do. It means doing it with a smile on your face for the benefit of others. It doesn’t matter if you almost always end up doing what they want you to; tit-for-tat is a terrible way to go about a relationship. You know all that. This is important to them. But you really, really don’t want to go out in public wearing double sleepy time diapers under a unitard and bright red underpants.

“What do you think,” your partner as when they come out of the bathroom. They’re wearing a pair of floppy dog ears, and they’ve painted the end of their nose black and drawn a few whiskers. That’s it. That’s their costume. The one you hoped would draw attention away from yours.

You try to smile, to make your whole face brighten up, to match the excitement in their tone, but there’s all of a sudden this ball in your throat that cuts off any sound you try to make as your lip quivers, your eyes fill with tears, and you sniffle.

You’re used to the furrowed brow, the pursed lips, the expression your partner makes when they’re concerned. It looks a lot like when an adult crouches down to say to a very young child, “Aww, tell me what happened,” arms wide to embrace the little tyke who needs a booboo kissed or a hurt feeling patched up. Usually the adult is just humoring the child, but sometimes that look of concern is unmistakably sincere. Excepting when you’re over their knee, you’re not a crier, and when your partner sees those tears spill over and run down your cheeks, their look of concern, even of alarm, is unmistakably sincere.

“O my goodness,” they say and take two quick steps across the room, wrapping their arms around you. “What happened?”

Your response is to let out a sob.

“Shh shh shh,” they coo, “sit down with me.” The two of you sit on the bed, and you bury your face in their chest, hugging them like they’re a life ring keeping you afloat. “What’s wrong, huh?” You say nothing, and they rub your back.

“Can you try using your words to tell me?” You say nothing, and they stroke your hair.

“Alright, honey. You just go ahead and cry all you want. I’m right here,” they say with so much loving kindness when you don’t answer. They don’t shush your tears. They just gently rock from side to side, holding you tight and rubbing and patting your back and diapered bottom.

You end up laying on your side with your head in their lap, still crying, quietly now except for when a cramp in your diaphragm steals your breath for a moment. Your partner is worried but not concerned anymore. They can see nothing physically wrong, and they’re there for you and all your feelings. Their fingers keep stroking your cheek, brushing your hair away from your face. When you seem ready, they ask you, “Sweetheart, can you tell me why you started crying so hard?”

You can, but not intelligibly. It all comes rushing out in a garble accompanied by fresh tears: “It was all okay for a while and thenstardid happuhnenagenund accidents justowufnoairlikmjussababy and kept wetting myself and erytingsoembrssing and pooping my pants uniciidnelpit undeverwunjuss and you made me wear diapers undimntbaby undipersrfurbabies and you told everybody undowunseesmelik adult anymore and I am too a grown-up undicunmakmownchoyses and I don’t like getting spanked and timeouts undtherulsrstuid and talking about me like I’m toddler who can’t understand what people are saying undnoseacritsjussritoutair erywuncnsee naked evrying undowunkairs like I’m not an adult anymore undilikmyholoween unddntwungo costume shows everybody my diapers and you said you’d wear a costume so I wouldn’t be embarrassed and all you did was put on doggy ears and I look like a little kid who doesn’t know how to use the potty and everybody treats me like a little kid and is so nice to me and I don’t even know what to feel cuz I know they all love me so much and I love them so much and I love you so much and waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!”

You clutch at your partner, pulling yourself as close as you can, and you feel them shift as they fish their phone out to text their sister. All the while, they keep stroking your hair. You’re feeling very tired.

When you’re only sniffling, your partner whispers, “Can I get up?” You lift your head off their lap, and they slide out from under you. They bend over and plant a long kiss on your temple. “I’ll be right back, baby.” You’re laying almost in the fetal position on the bed in your superhero outfit. It’s not a superhero outfit and diapers; that’s redundant. Every outfit you ever wear and ever will wear includes ‘and diapers.’ No need to every say so.

You’re starting to feel aware of yourself and your surroundings again as you listen to the water run in the bathroom. Your partner returns with a damp washcloth and pauses to pluck a few wipes from the container that permanently resides on your dresser.

They sit back down next to you. “Can you look up for me?” You do, and they gently wipe the tears from your cheeks. Your eyes are red and puffy; the lay the washcloth over them for a few seconds, then pressed it against the back of your neck, then lay it across your forehead. “So many big, yucky feelings to get out. Do you feel better?”

You don’t know. Nothing is resolved, and your sinuses are full and giving you a headache.

“Do you want to talk about any of those feelings right now?”

You shake your head.

“What can I do to make you feel better?”

You turn your face back into their shirt and snuggle in.

They don’t say anything. They just pat your back a few times as they think about what to do next. “I’ll call and let them know we can’t make it after all.” You don’t know that for the briefest of moments, they considered whether you staged that to get out of trick-or-treating, and even if not, they considered whether canceling would teach you that you can get your way if you cry hard enough. But no, those are fleeting thoughts. They know your distress was genuine and just want to make you feel better however they can, as quickly as they can. If that means missing out on a much-anticipated evening, that’s what it means. No regrets at all.

“No,” you say, your voice muffled by their shirt.

“No?”

“Mmm-mmm.”

“But I thought you didn’t wanna go.”

“But you wanna go. I don’t wanna ruin your evening.”

“Awww, such a sweet little thing. Don’t you know by now that nothing can ruin my evening so long as I’m with you?”

“But you wanna go.”

“I do, but I wanna stay here and take care of you even more. I’m not gonna leave you alone when you’re so upset.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“You sure?”

“Mhmm.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“I can drop you at your mom and dad’s. I’m sure they’d love to see you in your costume.”

“I wanna stay with you.”

“You know that means going trick-or-treating?”

“Mhmm.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Mhmm.”

“How come you wanna come now?”

“Cuz you want me to, and I wanna make you happy.”

They don’t say anything. A second passes. Another one. “You make me so happy,” they say at last. “So happy. All the time and every day. Don’t you ever worry about making me happy. Just knowing you love me makes me as happy as I’ll ever be.”

“So can I go trick-or-treating with you?” You don’t even notice you’ve subconsciously flipped the script from ‘do I have to” to “may I.” You want your partner to have fun, your partner who loves you and takes care of you and dries your tears, your partner you don’t want to be away from tonight even for a few hours because you love them and need them and want them.

“Of course you can. Did you just need to get all those yucky feelings out before you were ready to have fun tonight?”

Did you? Are you humoring your partner, or is that exactly what needed to happen? You don’t know. And you decide it’s not important to know. A lot of big feelings came out all at once, and you have a lot of big feelings still inside you. It’s all very confusing, but you know you don’t have to solve it tonight. It took a big cry to make you realize that.

“Are you worried people will make fun of you for wearing a costume?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And because it makes your diapers stand out?”

“Mhmm.”

“Has anyone ever made fun of you since I put you back in diapers for your accidents?”

No, actually, which is part of what makes it all so confusing and stressful. You’re always primed with anxiety anticipating being made fun of, and it never happens. The opposite happens, a different anxiety in anticipation of being condescended to; that’s a kind of making fun, but that’s not what it is because it’s never malicious. You want to get mad anyway, lash out, but you can never bring yourself to get assertive, much less angry, when people are trying so hard to be nice to you. All those feelings bottle up, you don’t know how to deal with them, and that leads to a temper tantrum that hardly makes you seem more mature to anyone. But sometimes, you learn tonight, it doesn’t lead to a temper tantrum. It leads instead to a sobbing meltdown, a big, ugly cry.

“No one makes fun.”

“No, never, and if they did, I’m right there always to protect you and keep you safe. Do you know that? That it’s my job to take care of your and keep you safe and make you happy?”

“Mhmm … But it’s still embarrassing, and people …” You’re still more worried about hurting your partner’s feelings than about making yourself understood. You choose your words carefully, and use the generic ‘people’ to not directly accuse your partner. “People treat me different. They treat me like a little kid.”

“They treat you like someone they love very much and care about very much. They want you to know that yucky diapers never, ever mean that you’re yucky or that being with you is yucky. They want you to know your potty problems aren’t a big deal and that they don’t even mind them cuz those problems don’t change anything about you and how special you are and how they feel about you. They want you to know that they accept you and that they want to be with you and want to make sure you always have everything you need inside and out.”

You’ve been bottling up your feelings, and your partner has been bottling up that monologue. You want to ask why they haven’t said all that before, but it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps the better question is why you couldn’t figure it out on your own. Now, having heard it out loud, it makes sense. You’ve been so wrapped in your problem for so long, you forgot to put yourself in their shoes. Why do they treat you the way they do? Because they want to make you feel dumb, incompetent, infantile? Of course not. It’s because they love you.

“So I have an idea,” your partner says. “Are you ready to hear it?”

“Mhmm.”

“Don’t be embarrassed anymore. Just push that feeling away right now and never let it come back. That’s Part 1.”

“There’s more than one part to your idea?”

“Mhmm. You ready for Part 2?”

“Mhmm.”

“Let everyone love you in their own way, and accept that love for what it is and the wonderful place in their hearts it comes from.”

“Just accept it?”

“Mhmm. Just accept it. Can you try that for me?”

“I’ll try,” you promise. You wish you’d thought of that a year ago. It seems so simple. Hard, but also simple, and it will get easier the more you try.

“No one loves you more than me,” they remind you.

“I know.”

“You’re my little superhero. So brave.”

“I’m not so brave.”

“Yeah you are. One of the bravest people I know. You never let your potty accidents stop you from living your life. That was so brave.” You could’ve been both brave and smart if you put yourself back in diapers, but bravery and denial worked well enough for a long time.

But you don’t feel very brave anymore. “Maybe, but only cuz I have you.”

“I’ll be brave for you whenever you need me to be, even if that’s forever. So sweet and precious.” Their hand slides down your side and pats your diaper. What is it about diapered butts, you wonder, that makes everyone want to pat them? And why does it feel so good when they do? You decide to just let it feel good. To let all the care and attention – even when it’s too much and even when it’s unfair and even when it means a trip over your partner’s knee for breaking some rule you don’t even need – to let all the care and attention feel good the way care and attention is supposed to feel

“Now let’s go trick-or-treating,” your partner says, putting back on the excited tone, trying to lighten the mood and get you excited to go.

They lead you to the bathroom, where you let them wash your face. You let them hold the tissue while you blow your nose. You let them put your shoes on. You let them give you kisses all over your face for no reason and let yourself giggle. You let them pack the diaper bag with those babyish diapers they think are so cute and a pair of pajamas to change into when you get back to your sister in-law’s house.

You let your sister in-law put a plastic pumpkin bucket in your hand, and you let your partner tell you it’s okay for you to knock on doors too, and you let your youngest niece, thinking you don’t know how to trick-or-treat, show you how it’s done, and you let the people who answer the door tell you how awesome you look in your costume, and you let yourself believe them.

You let your sister in-law, the moment she plops down into a chair with a glass of wine while her husband deals with bedtime upstairs, get right back up when she spots you looking through your candy haul on the family room floor and say, “I bet you’re ready for a fresh diaper and your jimjams.” You let your partner sit right there and watch, not asking her to intervene or do it instead. You let your sister in-law unzip your superhero outfit, peel down your plastic panties, untape both your diapers, wipe your bottom clean of the little mess you made, and tape you into one of those cute diapers with the lion on them.

“So adorable in those,” she says, and you let yourself blush the good kind of blush. “Ready for jammers?”

“You know,” your partner says, “you sleep in your costume if you want.”

You hesitate, glance back at your smiling sister in-law, and let yourself indulge. It’s your favorite superhero. Your partner chose perfectly.

“You gonna have superhero dreams,” your sister in-law asks as she zips you back into your costume and pulls up the shiny red underpants.

“Yeah,” you reply, and let yourself smile.