About me

Hi everyone,    I'm new to this site and thought I'd just write a little about myself for anyone who happens to come by and read this.  I came to this site because I still struggle occasionally with wetting the bed at night.  I'm 30 years old now and have been a bedwetter as long as I can remember.  As a kid I wet just about every single night until I was 12 years old.  My parents were mostly supportive about it, at least they didn't punish me or anything, but it was always a huge concern for them and I was dragged in to countless doctor visits to try to find out what was "wrong" with me and how I could be "fixed".  I was poked, prodded, subjected to all sorts of tests, had my urinary habits discussed in front of me again and again... and the only thing the doctors could ever do was tell me that my bladder was smaller than it should be for my age, and that I would "grow out of it" one day.  (Anyone else ever heard that one before?)  Because of the small bladder I also had to go to the bathroom very frequently during the day (which is still true of me, to some degree!) and I had several traumatic experiences as a child as a result of not being able to make it to the bathroom and wetting my pants at school, or in other public situations.     At about the age of 11 or 12 I started having my first dry nights, and was inconsistent for awhile, but by the end of my 7th grade year I was pretty reliably dry about 95% of the time.  My bladder was still small for my body and the daytime situation was still difficult, but most nights I was able either to wake up when I needed to use the bathroom or just barely hold on until morning.  I was 14 and a freshman in high school when I had my last accident at school that I can remember.  Also around that age I remember wetting the bed one night and telling my mom about it (I had been washing my own sheets since I was about 7, so my parents didn't even know when I wet most of the time anymore), and her being really worried and freaked out and starting to talk about taking me to doctors, etc. all over again.  Well, at that point I decided I was going to hide any accidents from my parents at all costs, and I did that throughout high school, which wasn't too bad as I was only wetting maybe once every 1 or 2 months or so.    I went away to college at age 17 with literally no one knowing that I still had accidents at night.  I was really good at cleaning up quickly and discreetly when it happened (had a lot of practice by this time!) and so I got myself a waterproof mattress cover and a couple extra sets of sheets, and just took care of it discreetly when it happened.  I did pretty well for awhile (just having rare accidents, like in high school) and then the stress, lack of sleep, and increased caffeine consumption that came with the student life started affecting me more, and I started wetting the bed more often -- maybe twice a month or so, and more during really stressful times (finals week!).  Then during my junior year I came down with mono, and with the extreme fatigue and extra water intake I started wetting pretty much every night.  That lasted about 2 months (thankfully my roommate had dropped out at the semester break and I had a single room at the time!), and after that it seemed like it took a long time to get my bladder control back to where it had been before I was sick.  I would be fine and dry at night for 2 or 3 weeks but then have a week where I would wet 3 or 4 times in one week.    At really stressful times it got hard to keep up with the laundry and I ended up buying Goodnites disposable underwear to get me through some of the roughest times.  Wearing the Goodnites helped me to sleep a little better (and not have to worry about laundry so much) but I also noticed that when I got in the habit of wearing them every night, my body would get used to sleeping through and wetting the bed (because I didn't feel myself getting wet with them on) instead of waking up when my bladder was full and using the bathroom.  After a few weeks of wearing them I would be wetting 4-5 nights a week instead of once or twice.  So eventually I decided to go back to the mattress protection and laundry method of coping, and just kept a pack of Goodnites around for really stressful times (like finals weeks, etc) when it got hard to keep up with the laundry.       Not another soul knew about my continued bedwetting problems as an adult until I was about 25 years old and in grad school, and finally decided to open up to a roommate I thought I could trust.  As it turned out, he was AMAZINGLY understanding and supportive, and he and one of my other best friends (who I told shortly afterwards) were a big help to me in accepting myself with the struggle I had, just because they accepted me.  I began to realize that my "problem" was much less of a big deal to my friends than it was to me -- to them it was just a medical condition I had, no different from wearing glasses or having allergies or any of those other things that are no big deal.   I never really dated anyone until I was 27 years old because I was too scared to reach the point where I would have to share intimate secrets like this.   At that time, though (with the encouragement of my friends who knew about my problem), I met an amazing girl who turned out totally understanding and supportive just as my friends were... and to make a long story short, we've been happily married for 6 months now. :)  I still experience wet nights occasionally, and she is completely fine and understanding about it -- we just change the sheets, wipe off the mattress cover, and move on.      Thankfully my wetting has gone down a bit since I finished grad school a couple of years ago, and my stress levels went down and my sleep patterns became a little more normal again.  I also gave up drinking coffee during my 2nd year of grad school and that helped a lot, especially with my frequency and urgency of needing the bathroom during the day.  I'm still not really happy about the fact that I wet the bed, and am still sometimes really frustrated and depressed when I wake up having had an accident -- but I'm learning to deal with it, a little more every year it seems.  It's still not an easy thing to accept about myself but I am at least very grateful for my wife and all of my other friends who know I have this problem and accept me for who I am.   I'm very glad to have found this group and am more than happy to share stories, tips, ideas, or just talk about anything at all, whether related to bedwetting or otherwise.  If any of you would like to talk, feel free to send me a note!