I keep having this fantasy about being slowly gaslit into regression, being lied and tricked and by the time you realize what’s going on it’s already way too late for you to back out.
It starts with you accidentally starting to wet the bed. It’s not every night, it seems like a freak accident at first. But after the 3rd time in a month, your partner takes you to the doctor because she’s worried about you. The doctor examines you, runs some tests, and prescribed you some medication that should be able to help with this issue. On the way home, as you stop into the pharmacy to pick up your prescription, your partner also grabs a pack of overnight protection briefs. Just in case. Just until your new medication starts working. It’s not a shameful thing she’s not mad at you, it’s just the sanitary thing to do considering your condition. So you agree to wear them, you start taking your new pills, but it never stops. It starts getting worse, too slow to notice at first, but after a few months you’re wetting yourself more nights than you aren’t.
The breaking point comes when you have a daytime accident. You’re driving home from work, and your pants suddenly feel warm and wet, the stench of piss filling your nostrils, it’s almost too much to handle. You’re overwhelmed. You finally get home and walk inside, crying from the shame as your partner rushes to your side, trying to see what’s wrong. As soon as she sees you she realizes what happened. She guides you to the shower, re-assuring you as she helps strip you from the soiled clothes, running to grab fresh ones for you as you clean yourself and contemplate what’s going on. You hear her on the phone scheduling another appointment for you as she places the set of clean clothes by the sink for you to change into after your shower. When you’re finally done, you step out and notice a pair of your padded briefs on top of your clothes, no underwear. It makes sense, but it’s still not easy to accept you’re going to need wear these during the day as well. You’re worried. The medicine isn’t helping, you’re not sure why this is happening to you. But your partner is there to re-assure you, to get you the help you need. You two will figure this out together.
You arrive at the doctors 2 weeks later (it was the first appointment they had open) with soaked padding hidden underneath your pants. The daytime accidents had become more and more common in those agonizingly long weeks waiting for this appointment, but you’re here now, your partner is here with you holding your hand, rubbing your thumb with hers to reassure you as you sit together in the waiting room. Finally your name is called, and you have another visit with this specialist your partner found. He’s very sympathetic, he explains that this, while uncommon, is something he’s seen before. He prescribes you another course of treatment to go along with the first. It has a pretty lengthy list of side effects, but he’s confident it will work. He writes you a prescription for the new medication, re-ups your prescription for the first treatment too. It’s a lot to take in, but the finish line is in sight.
Your first week on the new medication is ROUGH. You knew there were side effects, but you weren’t expecting this. You’re incredibly tired. It’s not uncommon for you to take multiple naps throughout the day. This paired with brain fog (another side effect) makes working incredibly difficult. Your performance is slipping because you just can’t really focus on anything anymore. Those, combined with how the medication makes you grind your teeth until your jaw is sore, you just don’t know how you’d get through this without your loving partner by your side. She holds you as you cry at night, comforting you, reminding you that this isn’t your fault. It’s not a moral failing it’s a medical condition. It’s not going to be forever. You just need to wait for the medicine to take its effect, and you’ll be good to go. “It’s like Chemotherapy,” she says. “The side effects suck, but it’s better than the alternative, right?” And of course, you know she’s right. It’s just hard to keep everything in perspective.
She was by your side with solutions to every problem. Concerned by how much you were grinding your teeth, she looked for some solutions online before you wore yours down to nubs. The pacifier had been a hard sell, but she reminded you it was just like your protective briefs. It’s just what we need to do because if your condition. So every night you strapped the pacifier around your head so you couldn’t spit it out in your sleep, and you kept it on hand during the day for if the grinding got to bad. When the fatigue and confusion and lack of focus got so bad you couldn’t work anymore, she helped you get some extended sick leave from work, so you knew you’d have a job to get back when you got better. When new side effects started appearing, like your loss of fine motor control and muscle atrophy, she was more than happy to help. She would help you cut up your meals into more manageable pieces, since you had trouble working your fork and knife. She got you bottles with lids to help with how much you were accidentally dropping heavy glasses. When you started having trouble with the stairs, unable to make it up to your shared bedroom on the second floor, she helped get you set up in the guest bedroom downstairs. It was a childish room, but at least you weren’t risking those stairs multiple times a day anymore. She looked after your every need. She picked up your prescriptions on time every months, made sure you never ran out of your protection, drove you to your now weekly doctors appointments monitoring your progress, the side effects, and your continued deterioration. She took care of you, and you could never thank her enough.
When you got too weak to change out of your wet protection yourself, she helped with that too. She started buying a new brand of protective undergarments, ones that your doctor had highly recommended, with tapes. She set up a nice little table for changes in your room, and your little changes quickly became your favorite part of the day. It’s not that you enjoyed having someone change you out of your wet diapers, (and let’s face it, that’s what they are) but it was just so….. intimate. Her opening up the tapes, wiping you clean, making sure to massage the lotion into every little crevice, applying the scented powder, it was a lot more fun than you cared to admit. She made sure to give you all the attention and care you needed, making sure you didn’t feel embarrassed about this change in circumstances. After all, as she kept reminding you, it’s only temporary. Only until you get better.
As the months turned into years, the changes in your life kept piling up. When doctor switched you to an all liquid diet, your partner made sure to lovingly prepare your meal replacement shakes, even holding the bottle for you on nights when you were too weak to hold it in your own. After finding you face down on the floor one morning, having fallen out of bed and unable to get yourself back up, she replaced that guest room bed, your bed, with one that had raised walls so you weren’t at risk of falling again. When your various medications started impacting your emotions, making you cry at the drop of a hat, or get frustrated at the smallest things, she was always there to comfort you. On Valentine’s Day, after you had expressed how much you missed cuddling her at night, she got you a big stuffed bear sprayed with her favorite perfume so it was like you were holding her in your arms again. She bought you new clothes that snapped at the crotch to make changes easier, she exercised your limbs, made sure to get you out if your bed so you weren’t at risk of getting bed sores, she took care of your every need and want.
You didn’t notice her calling you “Baby” with increasingly more frequency, it had always been one of her favorite pet names. You didn’t notice her beginning to talk to you in more and more childish ways as time went on, fussing over this and that. You didn’t notice the knowing looks her and the doctor exchanged from time to time. Why would you? It’s not like she had anything to hide from you. She clearly loved you. Look at everything she was doing for you. You eventually stopped noticing the years ticking by, your condition never getting better. You forgot that was even an option, after all, you had been settled into this routine for so long now, you barely remembered what life used to be like. You hardly even questioned it when she started occasionally breastfeeding you. At that point you were so starved for that sort of intimacy you were just glad she found a way you two could still have fun like that in your weakened state. (Sex had been a physical impossibility for some time now. You could barely stand, let alone do anything like that)
By the time you did realize, it didn’t even matter. You tried to confront her, but she just laughed. After all, what could you even do about it? Who could you tell? How would you be able to survive without her? It’s not like you could go back to being a normal person after this, she had made sure of that. Even if you got away, would anyone be able to love you like this? Be able to dedicate their life to taking care of you? You were comfortable here. You had your every need taken care of. It was easier to just give in, like you had so many times before.
After all, Mama would never let anything bad happen to her baby.
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