(I know the original post is from 2008 (!) but someone must have resurrected it as it is listed almost on top)
Not sure of the OP is still active here, but I wanted to react to this part because it expresses some of the ambivalent feelings surrounding incontinence that forever seem to complicate things:
RobertC wrote:
Hi Paul,
I know exactly how you feel as far as feeling "babyish" when it comes to managing incontinence. How can you not feel like a baby when laying on the floor or bed pinning on a cloth diaper followed by pulling on a pair of plastic pants? I have been through my angry stages since becoming incontinent at age 6. You can well imagine the shame of having to wear diapers as a child and teenager. I often felt like a baby growing up as diapers and plastic pants were meant for babies, not young kids and teens
Actually, wearing plastic pants and diapers has never made me feel like a baby.
According to my mother, I cried and protested half-heartedly on the first night she put me in diapers and plastic pants again, following a very tiring few months using pads and training pants and whatnot trying to potty-train an incontinent child. When hospital tests suggested this wasn't going anywhere, I was reportedly mostly very confused and a bit frightened. I don't remember much of it myself, but I soon felt much better because I could actually sleep again.
I don't know, maybe this is simply easier for girls. If anything, I felt that my diapers and plastic pants were "girlish", but on account of me being a girl I was very much OK with being girlish anyhow. Maybe it sounds odd, but I still feel very much myself wearing diapers and plastic pants - more so with than without. Or odder still: they make me feel feminine. Who knows what psychology lurks behind that, but maybe it's best to leave well enough alone

Of course there's still the hassle of dealing with it - I wish I could get up and to work as fast as my continent friends! - and some things are just harder. But on the whole, this never interfered with my self-esteem.
Somehow, this reminds me of that great classic movie 'Citizen Kane' - I saw it some months ago.
To paraphrase one of Charles Foster Kane's quotes in that movie:
Quote:
"I am, have been, and will be only one thing -- a woman."