I’ve journaled about this in some very scattered thoughts, but I’d like to bring everything together for myself, and hey! who knows, maybe one of you relates or something 🤷
Diapers, and especially, Age Regression, has been incredible for my mental health, and I’m very grateful to have found this out for myself. In the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the “whys” of this lifestyle, and especially how it interacts with, and is influenced by my Autism and ADHD.
In addition to a plethora of other things, my biggest AuDHD struggle is definitely sensory management; I frequently get overstimulated by different sensory inputs, and this quite often leads to meltdowns (NOT a tantrum, to be clear. For me, a meltdown looks like being unable to process new sensory inputs, an inability to have rational thoughts, introduction of potentially destructive thoughts and overwhelming anxiety.)
When I’m experiencing a meltdown, outside of waiting it out, which can take hours, or sometimes even days, there are very few things that work as effective tools to help bring things back into control:
- Listening to music
- Adding physical stimulus (wrapping myself in blankets, or even just wearing a hoodie sometimes)
- Going for a drive (Once I’m in a functional state. to be clear, I am not going out of my way to drive during meltdowns)
- Eating comfort food
- Diapers and Regression (The one you all care about!!!!)
For about a year (2024), I didn’t really get why all this helped me so much, but after some very lengthy conversations with my Therapist and Counsellor, I think I have a pretty good idea; A big, lets say, feature, of Autism is this thing called “Masking.”
Masking is the act of consciously or subconsciously suppressing autistic traits to appear neurotypical. It is a coping mechanism, and it takes a LOT of energy to maintain in daily life. Typically, an Autistic person only “unmasks” in safe environments, such as with family, friends or in private spaces like their homes or bedrooms.
For me, these spaces are quite hard to come by; I have my office, bedroom and car (if I want to go somewhere). But my bedroom and office exist in a house where family can bother me, so on their own, they aren’t always places that I can be “off” or unmask in. (there’s some nuance and other things, but it isn’t super relevant, so I won’t get into it)
Anyways, back to the actual stuff. I’ve found that when I’m in littlespace, I can unmask with almost zero thought or effort. I’m able to just be me, and in the context of agere, it makes a lot of sense; I have a “childlike wonder”, I hyperfixate on tasks or interests, I have comfort stuffies, etc.
The things that I would normally have to tone down to fit in can be let out!
Going back to what I said earlier about sensory inputs, this is where the diapers come in. They are a physical stimulus; a tight fitting garment that is soft. They also send another unmasking and control signal in my brain; Letting go.
I often struggle with maintaining a healthy bathroom schedule in my daily life; I wait until I’m about to wet or mess myself to go to the bathroom. In my brain, I would rather continue whatever I’m doing than stop for 5 minutes to relieve myself. And this takes a lot of physical energy as well as subconscious mental energy to do (even though it’s a terrible habit if I’m being real.)
But with diapers, I can quite literally just not deal with holding it in, and my brain associates wearing diapers with this “let go” response, so even more of my energy gets freed up.
If you haven’t noticed the pattern, it’s about the energy it frees up in my brain and the ability to just be. This stuff works wonders for me, and I’m never going to give it up, even if I do hit some pretty wild binge/purge cycles (4 weeks of nonstop self care, followed up by 6 months of refusing to even look at it).
Since breaking this all down in my head, I’ve genuinely felt so much better about regressing and wearing diapers in general. I feel like I get asked a lot about what my life would be if X or Y thing was different, and when I think about my quality of life without ABDL in it, I think it would genuinely be so much worse.
Anyways, if you’ve read all this. Thank you! I’d love to hear about why all of this helps you, if you’re comfortable sharing, that is!