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Why I'm Speaking Out About My 'Embarrassing' Lifelong Struggle With Neurogenic Bladder
When I was in fourth grade, I started to wear shorts under my skirts in case anyone tried to fling them up. However, something odd started happening. Whenever I wore those shorts under my skirt, my bladder was harder to control. I often found myself peeing a little when my bladder started to feel full. Normally, I could keep myself from peeing until I reached the bathroom, but for some reason, the shorts caused me to leak before I could make it to a restroom. I never told anyone. I didn’t let the teacher know. I didn’t tell my mom when I came home from school. I was embarrassed that I — a big kid — was peeing myself. I thought if I told anyone, I would be told that I was old enough to know when I needed the bathroom and that I needed to “do better” — that peeing myself was my fault. Since it didn’t happen when I didn’t wear those pairs of shorts, I asked my mom if I could stop wearing them, saying that they were uncomfortable. And thus, I solved the problem — or so I thought.