Growing Up, I Wasn't A Soaking Wet Loser - I Never Was

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I asked myself the other day: What aren’t you seeing now that you also couldn’t see back then?

What couldn’t I see? I couldn’t see that my bedwetting wasn’t a measure of my worth, that something outside my control didn’t make me inherently less.

I was young, a child, but not that young, which is why my “nocturnal enuresis” was such an abhorrent fact of myself — to my mind, at least. To the best of my knowledge, I was the only one of my peers who still wet the bed, though if you look at the stats on bedwetting, I surely wasn’t. I couldn’t have known this, as there was no internet (nor PCs) back then, and if there had been, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to visit medical sites to learn about it.

I don’t recall how old I was when I finally stopped wetting the bed, but I know I was old enough to be invited to sleepovers, to which I didn’t go. I did sleep at a couple of friends’ houses eventually, which must have meant that I’d been able to wake up dry most mornings, but I still can see myself lying in my friend’s spare bed, staring at the ceiling, hoping with all my heart and soul that I wouldn’t wet that night.

If I recall correctly, I did wet on one of those nights, and my friend’s mother helped me figure it out come morning, which meant she eased me from the horrific embarrassment to the breakfast table, then to the front door and into my mother’s car. I never slept at another friend’s house until my bladder was fully capable, and to say I had friends would be a slight exaggeration. I was mortified and knew I had no business being anyone’s friend. I had one or two friends, but cautiously so.

That sure would prepare you for your place in the world, wouldn’t it?

For better or worse, I also happened to grow into a golden retriever, a human version of a dog who’s compelled to make social contact, to get to know, to say hi, to smile. To connect. So, it all turned out okay in the end, but it wasn’t easy, and today I wonder what still isn’t easy that I’m mistaking for my inherent worth?

What am I assuming is a character flaw, which is instead something outside of my control? Or at least the fact of it is outside my control, if not the learned management of it.

It’s been a while since I wet my bed, at least fifty years. That’s enough time to learn that delayed bedwetting isn’t the deciding factor as to whether or not I have potential, or that I can expect to have hopes, or that I’m innocent of such sheet and bedspread crime. To be honest, even fifty years isn’t enough time for some of us to understand these things. Sometimes, sadly, we never learn that our life is worth it as-is.

Since I wet my bed in the 1970’s, I figure little to no information as to cause and treatment had trickled down from research to public awareness, if there even was much research on it back then. I remember one treatment my mother tried: no sugary foods. For us, that meant no sugary breakfast cereal. While sugary cereals don’t affect delayed bedwetting, it certainly was serendipitous that we didn’t grow up with Lucky Charms. It was straight-up Shredded Wheat for us.

Shredded Wheat didn’t do the trick. Instead, I continued to wake in the morning, or in the middle of the night, with the saddest groan. Oh, no. I did it again.

There wasn’t a hint anywhere in me as to how I could stop this micro trauma of being soaked when I was supposed to be dry. What I wouldn’t give to not have endured the many times I lay shivering in my bed, sad that I’d have to admit to my mom that I did it again — didn’t hold my pee.

There are several reasons why a child has delayed nocturnal enuresis, and none of them relate to the child being lazy or careless. In my case, it would be nearly five decades before a diagnosis of ADHD would grace my life, and the understanding that many of my early challenges most likely correlated with or were caused by my ADHD. Children with ADHD are far more likely to wet the bed than their peers. Was it the cause of my extended bedwetting? Who’s to know, but it might have been.

But that’s old news, right? I’m an adult now. We live and learn.

Sometimes.

Adulthood doesn’t necessarily make us immune to assuming the worst about ourselves. Physical challenges can create frustration and despair, and those emotions can morph into a downgraded view of ourselves. We wish we weren’t a certain way. We’re angry when we can’t function properly. The assumption we make is that it all falls onto us, so we become moral failures, even subtly, behind the scenes, and this can build. The final verdict: we’re less-than.

Our limitations can affect the way we act and treat others, the attention we’re able to give to a situation, and the commitments we take on. This, in turn, can affect how we see ourselves. Yes, we hopefully learn to manage or support our limitations over time, but mistakes or shortcomings still come into play, and these can create a mirage of faultiness, if not loserhood.

There are plenty of options for downgrading ourselves: inherited traits and conditions, loss of function, injury, disease, mental and emotional challenges, you name it. These aren’t fun, and they ask us to adjust our expectations about life and what’s possible. Yet, they don’t affect our deep-down, intrinsic worth.

Does anyone want to wet their bed as a child or an adult? No. Would anyone be happy to find out their nervous system is such that their mobility will fail one day? Certainly not. What about depression? That’s no one’s idea of a walk in the park.

Our bodies are what they are: physical matter; a combo of various substances that collaborate to allow us to explore the world and this life. Our bodies are our greatest gift, and they will always be so because they allow us to experience all the other greatest gifts of being alive. And, they have nothing to do with whether we are a soaking wet loser, because we are never such a thing.

Instead, we’re a massive piece of luck living out its life in a container that will do what it can do, and this is more than a gift. It’s extraordinary.

Bedwetting (Nocturnal Enuresis) Causes & Treatment

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Have a lovely week, friends. :-)