Story #150: Informed Helplessness

Story #150: Informed Helplessness (Part 7 to 'The Learning Disability' storyline) (Content Tags: Messy diapers, humiliation, infantilization, being treated as dumb, mockery, ongoing story) The drive home from school was a smelly and squishy affair for young Finn. The borrowed diaper around his waist was plastered in back with his own waste, and that was a sticky, bubbling, semi-solid muck. He wished he could say that he hated the feeling, and on a more cognitive level he did, but on a physical level, it was oddly comforting. "I got a look at that diaper they put you in, Finn. It looks a lot more hefty than the ones I got you." His stepmother commented from the front seat. The girl sitting adjacent to him got a smile, "Probably because that's the diaper that they make the retards wear. Right, mom?" His stepsister was crude, but not incorrect. The thicker diaper had come right from a SPED student, from the special ed classroom. Still, he really wished that she'd stop throwing that particular slur around, or that his stepmother would for that matter. It wasn't a matter of being politically correct, since he'd definitely said it before too, but now that it was being used to describe *him* in a *serious* way, it felt extremely offensive. "Yes, honey, that's right. Kids like that need stronger protection, like your baby brother here." That got the quiet lad to blush more brightly. He was older than his stepsister by several months; they might be in the same grade, but she was at the younger end and he was at the older end. By no means should he be the 'baby' of the family! Then again, even before his recent diagnosis, things hadn't been too different than they were now. His younger sister was treated far better than he was and already treated as she was more mature than him. The addition of the diapers only made it more obvious of what was already true. "Finn, if you potty on yourself too much, then I'm going to have to get you diapers that are like that, okay? I don't want any leaks, and I don't want to worry about constantly giving you bumchecks to see if you need a change." There was the squeeze. He'd been wondering what she was getting at, but it didn't catch him by much surprise. He glumly nodded his head and kept quiet, knowing that nothing he said would be taken into consideration, and would instead probably be used against him in some way. "I need you to say yes or no, Finn. I can't look at you while I'm driving." "Yes, I understand." "Do you also understand that you'll be saying goodbye to your underwear for a long time? I think you need to really prove that you're actually ready for them." Tears welled up in his eyes and he sniffled quietly. The groundwork for this had already been presented yesterday, but today had truly felt like his only shot to reverse things. It was dawning on him more fully that he might be in diapers indefinitely, and that his stepmother was still accelerating things. "In fact, I think that we'll just take a break from the big boy potty altogether for a few days. We can start fresh next week." And now he wasn't even being given the option to go outside his diaper. Accident or not, all of his toileting would occur right into his pants, until his stepmother decided that he was ready. It was beyond humiliating and Finn had a fear that 'a few days' might end up getting extended. "Don't worry, mom. I'll let you know when the dumb-dumb needs his diapee changed." His stepsister teased, taking great pleasure in Finn's humiliation. "Thank you, sweetie. That's very mature of you." They pulled into the driveway and Finn started to unbuckle himself from his booster seat. He was home from school nearly over an hour earlier than usual, so he was thinking of using that time to get a little extra gaming in. After a much-needed diaper change of course! "Finn, you've had a long day. I think you need to take a nap, so you don't get cranky." His stepmother announced, closing the door to the car and locking it. "I'm not really sleepy..." "Don't fuss, just listen to mommy, okay?" She put her hands on his shoulders and marched him toward the front door with his bowlegged waddle. Finn quieted his argument and nodded, though really just to placate the woman. It'd be easy enough to get in bed and turn on his Gameboy. "Okay, I'll take a nap." "Good boy." She unlocked the door to the house and led him in, with her daughter following right behind. "I'll let you get an afterschool snack first." He still wasn't used to this syrupy tone that she was using with him. It was still cruel in its own unique way, but it lacked the brutal harshness of her words that he was accustomed to. It was far more condescending, but only because she wasn't directly insulting him anymore. It was the tone she'd used with her biological son, whenever she was using him like a prop. "Umm, can I have cookies?" He asked, still captured by her fingers, with the long, painted nails. "Let's find something healthier than that. That special little brain of yours needs some real fuel." The emphasis on certain words there was anything but subtle. Nora finally let go of his narrow shoulders and wandered ahead of him into the kitchen. "Let's see...How about a banana and a muffin? Do you want juice or milk to go with it?" He blanched when he realized she was talking about the far more nutritious bran muffins and not the sugary ones in the pantry. They were still edible, but not nearly as tasty, and they always made him have to poop! The little stinker wasn't bright enough to recognize that the mega-fiber snack combo was hardly incidental; his stepmother was actively sabotaging him. "Chocolate milk?" She looked to think about it for a few moments, "Okay, but you'll be drinking normal milk at dinner. Now go sit in the living room on the floor and I'll bring you your snack. You get one cartoon and then it's naptime, okay?" Finn knew why he was being told to sit on the floor. His stepmother had been pretty clear about having no poopy diaper butts on the furniture. It'd technically been a 'rule' for a long time, but in the past it had been used as a way to amplify his punishment for messing his pants. Now it was more actively relevant, since it was expected that he'd be more frequently in such a state. The blond grabbed the remote and slowly lowered himself onto the carpet; he got onto his knees, with his squishy bottom not making contact with the ground. The icky feeling didn't particularly bother him, but he wanted to at least look like he was doing his part to make clean-up easier. He turned on some cartoons, and within another minute or two, his stepmother was coming over with a plastic plate and a cup in her hands. She placed them on the coffee table that was near him and he looked over to see that the cup looked a little hinky. Nora saw the expression on his face and clarified: "I don't want you spilling on the carpet. You've been dribbling a lot lately, so I got you some sippy cups." Had he been dribbling a lot? He didn't think it was any more than a normal amount for someone who might fumble their cup or take too big a gulp. It reminded him of dinner from the other night, when his stepsister had been commenting on his sloppy eating habits; she'd really just been nitpicking and exaggerating, but it'd made him second-guess himself. There had actually been a lot of second-guessing lately. Finn had been certain that his newly found conditions were irrelevant, and that he was just as clever and competent as ever, but he'd been having a lot more accidents, and he'd been feeling less capable at things he knew he should have down pat. It felt like all his quirks and idiosyncrasies were being turned against him. He kept getting called an 'autistic retard', and maybe there was more truth to it than he'd like to admit? His 'normal' peers weren't peeing or pooping in their pants every week, and they seemed to be less burdened by their thoughts than he was. He watched his stepmother walk away and he grabbed the sippy cup. Finn took a good long look at the childish thing, and then he slurped at it. He hoped that this was just because he was on the carpet; did she really expect him to drink out of one at the dinner table, or out at a restaurant? The sweetness of the chocolate milk soothed his frazzled nerves and he tried to lose himself in his cartoon. With the amount of stress that he'd endured today, he needed to be able to turn his brain off. The little boy munched on his snack and enjoyed the funny stylings of 'Tom and Jerry', all while forgetting about the pile of poop underneath his buttcheeks. "Okay. You had your snack and you watched a cartoon, so now it's time to take that afternoon nap." It'd felt too quick, but he had crumbs around his mouth and the credits were rolling on the screen. Finn carefully got up onto his feet, and slurped down the last of his chocolate milk. "Okay, I'll try, but m'not very sleepy." That was sort of a lie. He hadn't felt that tired before, but he'd begun to get drowsy toward the end of that episode. He thought it must have been the food in his tummy, because he did feel full now. It'd also been one heck of a day at school, so that'd probably drained him too. "You could have fooled me. You were getting so sleepy that you were starting to drool." She replied as she took him by the hand and gently began to lead him out of the living room. Was that true? He wiped his sleeve against his mouth and felt that his chin was in fact damp. "I think an afternoon nap will be good for you. I want you to start taking one after school; I can't have you being cranky in the evening and bothering your siblings." Finn furrowed his brow at the remark. His crankiness was directly proportional to the nonstop nonsense that he had to deal with! There's no way that he was being the unreasonable one here! And if anyone was being bothered, it was *him*. She led him into his room and directed him to turn around. He obliged and felt her pull down the Pikachu sweatpants that he'd grown so fond of. The woman prodded at the back of his borrowed diaper and cupped the bottom, as if determining just how full it was. Finn cringed, mostly embarrassed that she was making such a big deal out of it. "I think this one is fine for now." Nora announced, but she still pulled back the waistband to peek in and confirm. She let it snap back into place and she pulled his sweatpants back up over the bulky garment. "F-fine? But, umm, I'm messy. There's poop in my pants." He felt the need to clarify, because he was so shocked by her dismissiveness. "That's a big diaper, Finn. It can hold-out until your nap is over; you haven't even really wet in it yet. Besides, I won't always be able to change you right away: diapers are expensive and sometimes mommy is very busy." He was flabbergasted by what she was saying. It was one thing for him to be fine with wallowing in his own filth, but to be refused a change and be expected to simply stew? "Don't pout. You don't usually seem to mind all that much, do you? If you did, then you would always come to me right away and be honest about your accidents. Mommy's already done her research though; she knows that you feel yucky things differently than a normal boy, because of your condition." She condescended to him, gently patting his squishy seat with her palm. There was no rebuttal. It was true that he kind of liked the feeling and the smell of his own dirty pants. He hadn't really thought about it until he was in diapers, but now it was truly impossible to deny. He wasn't enamored by it, per se, but he *should* have been repulsed by it. Someone normal would be absolutely disgusted, wouldn't they? Nora led him over to his bed and guided him into it. "I'll change you before dinner, I promise. Now get some sleep." She turned out the light on her way out, and Finn was left laying in the dim room, with only a small amount of light breaking through the shades of his window. When was the last time he took a nap at this time of day? Getting an earlier bedtime had screwed with his sleep schedule, and now this midday nap would throw everything into even more chaos. Still, he wasn't usually this tired at this point in the day. He was cozy too, warmly snuggled under a soft blanket and with a full tummy (and diaper). Finn closed his eyes and let himself drift off into a gentle slumber. About an hour into his nap, he would stir from a wildly gurgling gut. Finn didn't fully wake, but instead walked between the world of the waking and the world of dreams. Only halfway conscious and feeling foggy, groggy, and uncomfortable. The pain in his gut wasn't a thought, it was merely a feeling; Finn had only to react with seeking to relieve that discomfort. There was another feeling that followed the relief. It was the feeling of something sloppy surging below; the feeling of his diaper becoming hotter around his bottom and thighs. The feeling of something bubbling and popping against his skin. There was a very rude noise too, but his mind didn't register it. Finn would fall back asleep, but this would repeat itself multiple times throughout the rest of his nap. It felt like he'd been lightly drugged, where he was too sedated too fully wake, but not so much that he could sleep through soiling himself. For all his accidents, he hadn't pooped the bed in quite some time. More appropriately, his bladder would eventually join suit and the mucky diaper would receive a sound soaking. His bedwetting ratio for a nap was a lot more respectable than for his nighttime sleep, but it wasn't at all unheard of for him to pee himself while asleep in the car or something. After a couple of hours, the door would open and Nora would poke her head in. She winced at the intensified odor that hung in the air, but was glad to see that her dominoes were falling in all the right places. She crept over and moved his thumb into his mouth; she kept it there for a few moments, until Finn finally latched on. The woman began to assemble the supplies needed to change the boy. Wipes, powder, and a fresh diaper from his drawer. As she did, she could hear more flatulence coming from underneath his blanket and the gentle sucking of his thumb. After getting everything set up, she went over and slowly shook him awake. "Time to get up, Finney. You need to get that thumb out of your mouth before you mess your teeth up even worse than they already are." The little boy groaned and started to open his eyes. He was still very groggy, and his nap hadn't been very productive, at least not on the resting end. He was confused at first about what she was saying, but then he felt his thumb was both wet and currently between his drooly lips. Finn plucked it out and wiped it off on his shirt as he sat up in the bed with a nasty squish. "Just like I promised, we can go ahead and change that stinky diapee now." Nora said, pulling the blanket off of him, which made the trapped fumes billow out into the air. "Eww, Finn! Sweetie, did you have another accident in your sleep?" He still wasn't completely awake yet, so he thought she was talking about him wetting his already soiled diaper. "Guess I peed..." "It smells like you did more than that, mister. You weren't this stinky when I put you down for your nap." She accused, while putting the changing pad onto the bed. Was she really accusing him of pooping the bed? He might have been accident prone, but even he had enough control to not do *that*. Then again, his diaper did feel a lot fuller underneath him than it had earlier, and a lot more squishy. She directed him onto the mat and pulled down his sweatpants again, "...Finn! You *did* poop again! This thing is completely loaded!" The woman exclaimed as she gave the swollen seat a prod with her finger. The diaper had also begun to stain pretty badly, since his accidents during his nap had been much less solid than his normal soiling accidents. It was all contained very well though, which was a testament to the diaper's quality. Finn frowned at the revelation. Sucking his thumb and pooping the bed in his sleep? Just what was becoming of him? He vaguely remembered waking up a few times throughout his nap and having a sore tummy, but that didn't make things that much better than sleeping through the accidents, since he hadn't thought twice about pushing on his bowels. Nora untaped the diaper and started to get him cleaned up. "I really need to ask that nice girl what kind of diapers these are; they hold so much! And with a little boy as special as you..." Finn just cringed and turned his head to the side.