13-year-old Tom wets the bed more and more often.
Eventually he goes to a psychologist, actually because of his grades.
I experienced a lot of the conversations myself.
The measures were also similar
Chapter 2: WETTING THE BED
My mother woke me up in the night and took me to the toilet. I didn’t really wake up at all. I almost sat down with my pants on if my mother had undressed me in time, as she told me later.
I was dry the next morning. My mother knew this at breakfast and was very proud of me. She had checked when she got up and I was still asleep.
For the next two days, my mother also took me to the toilet before she went to bed herself. It was always a struggle until I was awake enough to follow her instructions, leave my room and take my pants off in the toilet.
Only then did I wake up. I was terribly embarrassed and sat down quickly. Sleepily, I heard my mother waiting next to me for the “releasing” sound in the bowl.
Then I usually heard something like: “You’ve done very nicely, now we’ll quickly put your pants back on and you can go straight back to your nice bed.”
Or: “Such a good boy. Now lie down on your towel. In case you have another accident.”
But even these days I was dry and my mother knew that again at breakfast and praised me. At the same time, my performance at school was getting worse and worse and I got into more and more trouble with my mother.
At dinner, my poor grades and my class teacher’s assessment on parents’ day were a longstanding topic. My mother wanted to make an appointment with a psychologist.
All the discussions didn’t help, even though I promised to study more and pay better attention.
“Honey, the psychologist can help you”, or “I think something is bothering you”, or “there are training opportunities there for learning difficulties, that will help you” and “if you’re so distracted, there must be a reason, sweetheart” were her answers.
So I went to sleep. "A psychologist, why do I need one? How will it turn out? were my last thoughts.
I woke up in the night. The light was on and my mother was trying to get me awake.
“Baby, you wet the bed. The towel is all wet. Come on, get up, I’ll change you.”
I hardly noticed anything.
Only when my mother woke me up in the morning did I slowly remember.
"Tomi, wake up, I’m afraid you’re wet again. Twice in one night! That’s worse than when You was a toddler and worse than when You started in first grade. Tom!“
She pulled back the blanket.
Oh yes, “tonight”, I thought. So embarrassing, I had wet the bed again that night. My mother changed my clothes, made up the bed again and provisionally covered the stain on the mattress. Luckily it stayed very small because of the towel.
The memories became clearer and clearer.
And now I have wet pants again in the same night?
“We probably don’t need to go to the loo anymore,” I suddenly had her words in my ear again that night.
Then she folded a towel and put it in my pyjama bottoms while I was standing up.
“There you go my baby, just to be on the safe side, sleep well.” With a pat on my now fat bottom, she sent me back to bed.
But I had only noticed it all half asleep.
In retrospect, it was so embarrassing that I buried my face in the pillow. I didn’t want to have to look my mother in the eye right now.
“This can’t be true,” I thought to myself half asleep as I lay back in bed with the thick padding between my legs. “Shouldn’t I pull the towel out of
my pants straight away?” I thought, but then I fell asleep again.
Now when I woke up, I wanted to complain what this was all about, she can’t give me a… Only then did I realize that it had happened again. Any rebellion was stifled.
“Spätzchen, you’re all wet again. I didn’t have a big towel to put underneath you yesterday, so I quickly put the small one in your pants. But unfortunately your pants are still wet. I saw it in the morning, but I didn’t want to wake you up. We really need to think about something until it gets better. What do you think?”
I got out of bed, which fortunately remained dry.
The wet towel pulled the crotch of my pants down low. I must have looked ridiculous standing in front of my bed as wide-legged as a three-year-old with my pants full.
“Look at that! Come on, I’ll help you undress.” “Mom, please don’t,” I ran past my mother into the bathroom, my bottom wiggling. "Wash the wind…, I mean
please wash your clothes in the sink. Otherwise everything will smell. Then you can throw them in with the wet pants and bedding from tonight, I’ve already rinsed them. When you’ve showered, please come and have breakfast."
Breakfast was all about “last night.”
Whether I had washed everything well, whether I didn’t feel uncomfortable lying in a wet bed in the middle of the night and much more.
When I asked my mother about the towel in my pants and again dared to say that I didn’t want it, she said: “Honey, we have to do something to keep your bed dry.” “But I’m not a baby,” I sobbed. “No, you’re not a baby just because you’re wetting the bed again, you’re my big one. Now go to school and try to do your work.”
That evening I found out that I had an appointment with a “very nice” school psychologist next week. Because of my “poor performance”, as my mother emphasized. Again, I begged not to have to go there. But it didn’t help. My mother insisted.
Then my aunt came by. She brought my mother a few things she no longer needed and stayed for dinner.
I was then sent to my room. After brushing my teeth, already in my pyjamas, I said goodnight. My mother wanted to know if I had been to the toilet before my aunt did. With a red head, I stuttered a “yes”, even though it wasn’t true, and was then allowed to go to sleep.
The freshly made bed was soaked through and through in the morning.
The mattress was put back on my balcony to dry. All the bedding was washed and the pyjamas were hung up next to the mattress again. I was so ashamed.
Before dinner, my mother called me in. She rummaged in a bag her sister had given her and put a few things to one side.
“Tom, I bought you a new mattress, it’s already in your bed. I got rid of the old one. It smelled so bad. We said we’d think of something. So before I make up your bed, please put this bedwetting protection over the mattress. I’ll prepare dinner in the meantime and we’ll do the rest after dinner.”
She handed me a folded blue plastic sheet with rubber sewn into it.
I stared at the thing in disbelief.
“Come on Tommi, take it and go,” she said sympathetically.
“But I’m not a baby!” I shouted. “It was just a couple of accidents. Things like that can happen. I promise it won’t happen again, please!”
“One mattress for two weeks is enough for me. We’ll try the protection for the next six months. The protection will stay on your bed until we know you’re dry.” “No, please I promise it won’t happen again. Where did that thing come from anyway?”
“Your aunt brought it for you.” was her reply.
I couldn’t believe it. My mother had really discussed this with her sister and who knows who else. “How could you just blurt that out!”
“I didn’t ‘blurt out’ anything. Your aunt noticed how quiet and ashamed you were, so she asked me what was going on and finally gave me Laura’s old bed pad.”
Laura! Laura has a bed topper?
“Go and get your bed ready now! We’ll discuss everything else later.”
“And what is the ‘other’ and what else has she brought with her?” I pointed to the things she had put next to the bag.
“Oh, that. A few tools that Laura no longer needs.”
“What do you mean?” I asked uncertainly.
“Panties and diapers.” was the short answer. She lifted up a pair of white plastic pants and unfolded them. You could see that they could be closed with press studs.
“Some cloth diapers and disposable diapers that Aunt Lisa recommended in case you wet a lot like tonight.” She also held them up.
“If you keep wetting the bed, we’ll put diapers on you again. Just like when you were six.”
I was horrified.
“Don’t look like that, if you stay dry we won’t need all that. But if you don’t go upstairs right now, we’ll start with the pull-ups straight away.” She held up one of the pink panties and spread the waistband wide apart with her fingers so that there was no doubt that I would fit in.
Hanging my head, I took the wetness protector and trudged into my room.
“Tighten the ends tightly over the mattress .” she called after me.
When I got to the bed, I saw the bare mattress, the new bedding on the floor next to it and a prepared sheet.
The “bedwetting protection”, as my mother called it, rustled loudly as I unfolded it. It stretched easily over the four corners of the mattress and fitted perfectly.
You could tell it wasn’t new, but it didn’t have any holes or tears. It had obviously been well looked after. A particular plastic smell now overlaid the smell of the mattress and that of my wet beds, which had begun to settle very slightly in the room.
There was my bed with the blue plastic protection. Ready for a bedwetter.
At dinner, I didn’t dare ask for a long time why Laura had such “bedwetting things”.
I didn’t want to bring the conversation back to the embarrassing topic. Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer and asked.
“Laura was a bedwetter,” was my mother’s answer.
I sat there with my mouth open. “Since when?”
“For the last five years, her bed has been wet from time to time. It became more and more frequent. The bed was often wet twice a week. She has been wearing diapers for two years now. With that and a bit of consistency and strictness, it has gotten better, says your aunt. She’s been dry for three months now.”
I was speechless.
“Eat up and brush your teeth.”
“But it’s only 8 o’clock, I don’t have to go to bed for a long time yet,” I got up. Especially today, I didn’t feel like crawling into my prepared bed with the protective cover.
“I’m not a baby anymore!”
“No Tom, you’re not a baby. But you’re not a toddler either. But at the moment you’re behaving a bit like a toddler. And I’m not talking about the bedwetting. Your cousin was also asleep by 9 o’clock at the latest, your aunt said, so that she could sleep as much as possible and relieve stress. Now finish your dinner and I’ll put you to bed.”
I swallowed and wanted to pour myself some more lemonade.
My mother stopped my hand.
“No drinks after 8 o’clock. Otherwise it’s back to bed!”
I hung my head and went to the bathroom. When I got back to my room, my mother was in the middle of pulling up the sheets. The plastic was clearly rustling. “Six months…” I thought to myself.
“Have you been to the loo?” my mother wanted to know.
I turned red. My mother just shook her head and pushed me by the shoulder to the toilet.
When I tried to close the door from the inside, she held it firmly.
“The door stays open. Today I want to hear if you’re really going. Last week you lied to me. And if you really were the day before yesterday, you probably couldn’t have wet yourself twice in one night. Now you have to get used to standing next to me, like when you were potty trained at the age of three. At least until I can trust you again. So drop your pants and sit down,” my mother was already a little annoyed.
Guiltily, I carefully pulled down my pyjama bottoms and quickly sat down with my legs pressed tightly together. I didn’t dare look my mother in the eye.
After a few minutes, I actually managed it and you could clearly hear my bladder emptying into the toilet.
For the first time in years, I peed right in front of my mother.
She praised me like a little child and I was allowed to get dressed again and slip into bed.
My mother stroked my head in a conciliatory manner and switched off the light.
Every movement in bed reminded me of my new status. With the pad, I was now officially a bedwetter again. Of course, I didn’t want this to be true and took refuge in “an accident”, suppressed the previous cases and fell asleep with these thoughts.
My mother continued to take me to the toilet at night, not without telling me the next day how difficult it was again and that she often almost couldn’t get me out of the room. Sometimes she wouldn’t even put my pyjama bottoms on and I would wake up in just my shirt.
When I got up, it was incredibly embarrassing to imagine that I had walked around naked in front of my mother again that night and had to look for my pants in the morning.
But I stayed dry for the next few days.
I only had one night where I “consecrated” the plastic mat under my sheet.
Then came the day when my mother picked me up from school at lunchtime and we drove to the school psychologist.
At the bottom of the door by the entrance it said “Kinderpsyhologische Beratung Dr Margit Löffler”
A nice receptionist greeted us. “Oh, you’re Tom! Nice to see you. I already have your details. Your mother has already told you a lot and filled out the forms, I’ll bring them in,“ she smiled encouragingly at me. ”Your mother just has to sign here. The doctor is really looking forward to seeing you. You’ll see, she’s very nice and you’ll like her. Your turn is coming up. I’ll call you then.”
There was another girl in the waiting room, also with her mother. We were both very embarrassed to be sitting here. We tried to avoid looking at each other, but we didn’t always succeed.
Then the lady from reception brought the strange mother a prescription and they left the surgery. Shortly afterwards, a boy and a girl came in with their mothers and we were called in.
The psychologist’s room looked almost like a child’s bedroom. There was a large desk with three armchairs and a seating area. But there was also a play mat with streets and houses printed on it, a shelf with building blocks, dolls, model cars and everything was very colorful. On the walls were a few diplomas and a few children’s drawings.
The woman behind the desk stood up to greet us. She was perhaps 30 years old. She was very slim and had long, thick dark hair. She was dressed in a white blouse and a short black skirt. Her high heels clattered a little as she walked across the wooden floor.
She greeted my mother first and then me, bending a little towards me and also bending her knee a little and looking at me with a friendly smile.
“Hello Tom, nice to see you, let’s sit down there first.”
She pointed to her desk.
Her assistant brought my documents and blinked at me encouragingly. I obviously looked very intimidated.
“I’ve heard a lot about you. You’re already 13 years old. You’re a real teenager,” she tried to break the ice.
“I have to ask you a lot of questions now. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes, of course,” was my initially confident answer and off we went.
First the doctor asked me questions about school, which class, how I liked it, whether I had any friends. My mother let me answer them all. Only sometimes, when I was unsure, did she help briefly. “…yes, his teachers get on well with him. No, he’s not about to change schools.”
“Do you coach a sport?”
“Yes, I’m in a soccer club.”
“How often do you train?”
“Sometimes once a week, sometimes three times.”
Then other questions soon followed.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“No”
“Are you often scared?”
Questioning look at my mother
“No, he’s not scared. Just a bit shy.”
She kept looking at her papers, making notes, smiling at me again.
“Do you often have stomach ache?”
“No”
“Do you sweat a lot”
‘No’
“Nail biting? Do you do that?”
“No!” I answered quickly, even though my mother admonished me for it from time to time. I felt warm and was probably a little red when I gave the answer. A sideways glance at my mother told me that she would let this little lie pass.
The psychologist made a note.
“Are you going to bed?”
“Nope!” I replied quickly again. The heat flashed across my face.
A sideways glance at my mother showed me that she wanted answers for me.
The doctor approached her.
“It says here with me that you have a little problem with it.”
“She knows,” it popped into my head
“Why did my mother tell me? Isn’t that anyone’s business? I’m here for school!”
“Tom, you don’t have to be embarrassed. Lots of children still wet their beds,” she cheered me up.
“So think about it, is your bed wet sometimes?”
I didn’t answer, just sat there with a red head.
The psychologist looked at my mother.
“Tom wets the bed again,” was my mother’s short reply. I was to hear this devastating sentence regularly from now on.
“What do you say to that, Tom?” the psychologist wanted to know. I looked down out of shame and was unable to answer.
My mother added:
“It’s happened once or twice a year over the last few years. Hasn’t it Tom? So far!”
“But not for a long time now,” I tried to relativize sheepishly.
The psychologist looked at her records and then back at me.
“When was the last time you did that?” she asked cautiously.
Again, I looked bashfully at my mother for a moment, then bowed my head. I replied in a low voice: “On Tuesday.” She made a tick in her records.
“And before that?” I thought about it. “On Saturday.” I was now bright red in the face. I’d never been so embarrassed. Tick.
“And did you wet your bed last week too?”
Again, I didn’t answer at first.
“Tom. You can just tell me. I’ve spoken to lots of children who are bedwetters.” Now she had said the word I was so ashamed of.
“So, did it happen last week too?”
“Yes,” I answered, looking down at the tabletop. Tick mark.
“More often?”
I nodded.
“How many times was your bed wet last week, Tom?”
“Three times”
My mother nodded next to me.
“And before that?”
I looked at my mother.
“It was twice the week before that too,” my mother answered for me.
I felt caught out. That no longer sounded like an “accident”.
“And have you ever been dry for longer?”
I nodded.
“And in the past, can you remember having a wet bed a lot earlier too sometimes?”
I nodded again.
The psychologist turned to my mother: "Has Tom ever been dry at night for much longer than six months? Maybe nine months or even a year?
“Tom was dry during the day when he was three. Then something only happened very rarely. At four and a half, we stopped wearing diapers and at five, we stopped wearing them at night too.”
“You might even remember that. Or Tom?” the doctor gently continued the conversation with me.
I nodded silently.
“You must have been proud how you didn’t need diapers anymore, right?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“And was your bed always dry then?”
I remained silent.
“But Tom, don’t be embarrassed. It still happens to lots of children. There’s a girl outside who’s almost as old as you and she even sleeps in diapers again. Simply because then she doesn’t have to worry about the bed.”
She looked at her papers.
“I think your bed got wet from time to time later. Right?”
I nodded.
“And then when you came to school, your bed was always dry.”
I shook my head.
“Tell me, did it only happen once every few months? Or was it more often?” She took my hand.
“More often,” I replied.
She looked at her papers again briefly.
“Tom, look at me, you really have nothing to be ashamed of. When you were six or seven years old. In first and second grade, did you wet the bed more like once a month or once a week?”
I looked at her, but I couldn’t make a sound. “Or was your bed wet several times a week? Maybe even every night? Like the girl I told you about.” She looked me in the eye very kindly.
“Yes, often, almost always…at night,” I stuttered.
“Tom, look at me, you don’t need your mother right now. You really have nothing to be ashamed of. Tell me, what were you doing there?”
“Mom put my old diaper pants back on me,” I said quietly. I had to assume that my mother had already told her that.
“There you go, then you know that anyway. And what are you doing now?”
“I have a pad in my bed.”
“That’s a very good idea. Then the mattress won’t get wet. But of course you’ll be even wetter. Until your mother helps you. Right?”
I nodded again.
She was still holding my hands and was now squeezing them a little.
“Tell me, does it also happen that twice in one night you have wet pants?”
I blushed again.
“Yes, it has happened,” I grumbled. I would have loved to die, I was so ashamed.
“When did that happen?”
“On Saturday, but it only happened once.”
“Shall we send your mother out and the two of us can discuss something between us?” the doctor suggested. I didn’t know what to say. In the pause that ensued, she gave my mother a sign and she went out the door.
The psychologist grabbed my hands again.
“I had a long talk with your mother”, now it was out, I thought.
“Your mother is worried and she sees how you are getting worse at school as a bedwetter.”
There it was again, the word “bedwetter”. She called me a bedwetter, but it only happened a few times, accidents.
“Do you want to help me, Tom? Do you want to help your mother?”
“Yes,” I sobbed.
“Don’t you think it’s very bad if you get up twice in the night so that your mother can change the bed?”
I nodded.
“I think you’d be a bit better at school if you had a good night’s sleep.”
I didn’t know what she was getting at.
“You’ve been wetting the bed almost every other night for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, these are not accidents. Many two-year-olds only do it once or twice a week.”
Again, I lowered my eyes in shame.
“I’d like you to wear diapers again.”
I widened my eyes.
“Like a baby!” I exclaimed in horror.
“No, Tom. Like a child who doesn’t always want to wet the whole bed. In the morning, you just take your diaper off and nobody notices. Only your mother and I know about it.”
“I don’t want diapers, it doesn’t happen often.”
“Your mother has a lot of work to do too.”
I hung my head.
“I know you’re ashamed. But I know from the other bedwetters I treat, they’re ashamed even when they wake up all wet. Their pyjama shirt is often wet all over their back, their pants anyway and the smell. You’re ashamed when you stand in front of your mother like that, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“So, Tom. Are we in agreement? You’re going to put your diapers back on to sleep until the bedwetting gets better? Then we can call your mother and we’re done for the day.”
I was totally taken by surprise. I didn’t want diaper pants. But what could I do? I wanted to get out of here. I was so embarrassed that the psychologist knew all this about me. But I would have preferred to become invisible.
So I nodded in the affirmative.
“Good Tom, can you tell me that too, so that I really know you’re okay with it,” she said very gently.
I sat there a little helplessly. She squeezed my hands again. “Just tell me that you want to wear diapers again until they stay dry for, let’s say, two months.”
“Two months?” I sighed.
“All right, let’s say one month. You can manage that, can’t you?”
I nodded, a little relieved.
“And your mother can help you with that. That’s very important.”
I nodded sadly again.
“So”
I tentatively formulated the sentence:
“I’m going to wear diapers again until I’m a month dry.”
“You’ve done a great job. Now we can get your mother and tell her all about it.”
I didn’t know what I had let myself in for.
She let go of my hands, went to the door and called my mother in. She sat down again and the psychologist took the floor.
“We’ve decided that as long as the bedwetting doesn’t get better, Tom will wear diapers to sleep. Is that right Tom?”
I nodded my head gently.
My mother was very surprised, you could tell.
“He’s very ashamed,” she added in my mother’s direction.
“But there’s a good thing about being ashamed, Tom. It’s a sign that you want to get dry at night quickly yourself. I also look after children who are bedwetters but aren’t ashamed enough. They have their diapers on, but they soon don’t bother them anymore and the bedwetting doesn’t get any better.”
“Tomi, I think that’s a very good idea,” praised my mother.
I didn’t know what to say.
The psychologist took the floor again and turned to my mother.
“It’s important that you’re very involved. We’ve agreed that too. The diaper changing time is a time we spend together. Changing nappies is a bit like when you were a toddler, when you had no responsibilities and your mother had lots of time for you.”
“Does that mean that my mother puts the diapers on me?”
“You do it together. Firstly, it’s not that easy and we don’t want your bed to get wet any more and secondly, it’s also a sign of trust in your mother if you let her change you and follow her. Thirdly, it’s time together.”
I blushed.
“Yes, you’ll feel a bit ashamed, but you’ll dry out quickly. You’ll see.”
“Once you’re used to your diapers for a few days, you’ll sleep much better and we can quickly take care of your school problems.”
She said to my mother:
“I’ll write you an address here where you can get everything you need. The diaper pants shouldn’t be too small. Firstly, children that age wet a lot and”, she turned to me again. “Besides, sometimes you wet your pants twice in one night.”
I wanted to say that it only happened once, but then left it at that. Turning to my mother, she added: “It’s good to use one or two more diapers. Tom should feel the diaper pants well. On the one hand, it gives him a sense of security and on the other, it reminds him that he wants to be clean.”
My mother nodded and even made notes in between.
“You should definitely have this checked out by a doctor.”
"I think it’s primary enuresis, which is when the child has never really been dry. It is called dry if the bed was dry for at least 6-9 months.
However, this was apparently never the case with Tom. It is then a case of ‘maturity delay’.
I froze, heat rose to my face and my mouth remained open. She said I had never been ‘dry’. Like a toddler?
She seemed to guess my thoughts. “Tom, that means there’s probably nothing wrong with you health-wise. You’re already a big boy, of course, but a small part of you hasn’t moved out of toddlerhood yet.”
I looked down at the floor in shame.
“Tom, you don’t have to be sad. Your bladder and some messenger substances are not yet as developed as those of other children who are perhaps already dry at night at the age of three. That’s why some doctors recommend training days. You’re training for soccer, aren’t you Tom?”
I looked up again.
“The doctors do something similar to your trainer. They train your bladder to last longer. Just like you train your muscles and reactions in soccer. Do you understand that?”
I nodded.
"You could always have a training day at the weekend. First you try not to go to the toilet for three hours, for example, then four hours. Next weekend you might be able to go even longer. Drink a large glass of water every hour or so. Many doctors have had success with this.
But don’t think it will work straight away."
She said to my mother: “There are often accidents, especially at the beginning. But even later on, the increased time can lead to wet pants. You shouldn’t get impatient. To avoid wet clothes or even wet upholstered furniture, Tom should also wear diaper pants on training days like this.”
I blushed again.
“No one will see you at home. And if you’ve been dry at night for a whole week, we’ll skip the next training day as a reward. What do you think?”
I must have made a pretty panicked face. She had to laugh for a moment. “Oh Tom, you’re right, a week might be too much to start with. Let’s say for starters, if you only wet the bed once in a week, you can skip training once and do something together.”
I was still sitting there terrified.
"Well, you can still think about that. Maybe you’ll go to bed earlier than you used to. Most children have problems at the beginning when they go back to wearing diapers. In the beginning, sleeping with the thick diaper will still be a little unfamiliar and you may even wake up. But this is also an opportunity for you to feel that you need to go to the toilet.
Eight o’clock would be a good time. That way you’ll be well rested the next day. You’ll start getting ready for bed at seven, so you’ll have plenty of time before lights out."
Then she put a colorful booklet in front of me. There was a picture of a rabbit on the front. He was standing by his bed wearing a diaper.
At the bottom it said:
“Bunny will soon be sleeping without a diaper”
“I have a training diary for you. And I have colorful stickers to stick in it.”
She unfolded the little booklet. There were 7 pictures of the rabbit on each page. He was always standing in his room, his bed was also visible. He was always standing there in a different position, playing, putting on a shirt or walking through the room.
"Whenever you’ve stayed dry, stick the sticker with the white diaper on the bunny here. When you’ve wet your diapers, put one of the stickers with the yellow diaper pants on him.
If you can’t get a diaper on because you’ve already had five weeks of dry nights, your bunny won’t get a diaper either.
I still have stickers with potties on them. You stick one to your bunny every evening. If you have been to the toilet in the evening, stick it on as normal. If you’ve forgotten about it or nothing has come out, you stick it upside down." She paused for a moment and laughed out loud: “Tom, don’t look so scared. Don’t worry, you don’t have to go on the pot tonight. You’re already a big boy. The training book is just for smaller children. But I also have lots of older children here who enjoy it anyway.”
I felt so small between the two adults and more ashamed by the minute.
"Next time we’ll see if we notice anything.
If you have a wet bed because your diaper pants were too small to hold everything or you were allowed to sleep without a diaper and had a relapse, please stick one of these yellow dots in bunny’s bed. Each side is for one week. Do you understand everything?"
I looked at the stickers and the childish booklet in disbelief.
“Look, I’ll write your name on the front and today’s date on the first picture. Tonight you’ll go to the toilet and stick one of bunny’s potties on it. And if your diaper is dry tomorrow, Bunny will get a white diaper first thing in the morning.”
“What a lovely present. Tom, thank you.”
I had to thank him now too.
We had to arrange a follow-up appointment with the receptionist in two weeks’ time. I was supposed to come to one of the study groups to improve my grades. I was reminded to bring the “training booklet” with me to this appointment.
“You should go to the store I wrote down for your mother right now. They have really good advice there. You can choose a pair of diaper pants there and you’ll wake up in a dry bed tomorrow.”
My mother said that I didn’t need anything for the time being because my cousin would lend me lots of things.
Now I looked at my mother in bewilderment. She smiled briefly and tousled my hair: “Come on, my hero, let’s go”. And she said to the psychologist with great relief: “See you next week”.
With the booklet and sticker sheets in hand, we left her office and stood in the waiting room. A girl a few years younger than me was sitting there. She recognized the booklet immediately and grinned. She looked me up and down. I quickly wanted to make everything disappear into my bag. I was so hectic that I dropped the booklet and stickers on the floor.
The reception assistant was quick to help me pick them up.
Of course she knew exactly what the book meant.
She gave it to me and winked.
“We’ll be seeing more of each other now, I’m glad. Let’s make an appointment right away.”
When my mother had finished making the appointment and we were already at the door, she ran after me. “Tom, there, you’ve forgotten your bunny book. Good luck and see you in two weeks. For the first lesson in our study group. You’ll see, they’re all nice children. Two of them also have the bunny book.” She winked at me again. “You’re not the only bedwetter,” she added half aloud so that the girl on the waiting bench couldn’t hear.
There it was again, the word. “Bedwetter”, it was now official. I was also going to be put back in diapers now. Like a toddler. And yet I felt almost grown up.