Bed wetting

[Crow]

Hi all,

Most children grow out of night time bed wetting by age seven. And most children who do wet the bed at night tend to do it here and there rather than most nights.
Sometimes it's genetic, sometimes it's due to medical reasons, and for some children it's just normal.
But I have discovered recently that bed wetting can be a sign of abuse, and is a result of high stress.

I can tell you that one thing I won't forget is bed wetting. My twin brother and I wet the bed most nights for years. (And as a parent I can tell you that just the odd wet bed at night here and there is not fun to deal with - especially when children share a bedroom.)
My brother and I had a sticker reward chart when we were about 8 years old, where for every dry night we could put a star on the chart in the morning. Our prize was a Sunday morning wearing my dad's necklace. (This was a great reward for some reason!)

It's only recently though that I have wondered if our enuresis was due to our high stress home environment and the abuse. Certainly the social services records that I have now show that there was a lot of support that my parents had to deal with the issue, and this issue was also a source of a lot of my mother's stress and anger towards us. (Although it was always my dad that got up to change beds and clean us up or shower us.)
But I wonder why social services didn't make a link between our enuresis and the suspected and reported abuse.

Has anyone else had a childhood with markedly increased bed wetting at night? - particularly that went beyond age seven. (We must have gone beyond age 11 at times.)
I'm just curious.

Thanks,

Crow

[OneThousandApologies]

Crow,

My brother (6 years older then me) wet the bed all the time. Well, I'll be honest, he also had a problem of not wanting to use the toilet, so he urinated and soiled his pants and bed at night as a kid and all the way up until he died last year when he was 35. I stopped wetting the bed when I was 4, after my mom died and my grandparents took us in for a year. I used to wet the bed due to stress, my mother's stress and my abuse living with her. I don't know for sure but I think there was a lot of things that was done to my brother before I was born that made him be afraid of using the toilet or go into the wash room in general even to take a shower. My other brother (2 years older then me and one of my abusers) wet the bed every night until he was 10. He would wet the bed occasionally after that until he was 12.

OneThousandApologies

[Crow]

OneThousandApologies,

Sorry to hear of the loss of your brother, especially at such a young age.

I'm not sure why I posted this topic... curiousity I guess. But I'm not sure what knowing other people's experiences will achieve. Silly topic really.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Crow

[Chessgirl]

My mother has always talked about how I was so late with potty training. She says I wasn’t potty trained till I was 4 and she supposedly tried everything and I just wouldn’t grasp it. Now that I’m a mother and have worked with kids, I know that 4 is really not all that late to be potty trained. Also I seriously doubt she worked with me diligently the way parents are supppsed to with kids on their potty training. She probably just expected me to learn on my own with her unrealistic expectations. I’m
Not sure really but I wouldn’t be surprised if sometimes the bed wetting has to do with parents neglecting training their children properly? I dunno if this was the case in yalls cases but might be true with mine. She’s always been that way with me. She would never spend time to teach me anything and then would get furious that I didn’t know how to do something. For example, she wouldn’t let me play sports but then she would get mad at me for watching tv. She wouldn’t teach me how to cook, but then she liked to humiliate me and tell everyone I couldn’t cook and refused to learn how to cook. With my failing grades I always felt like if she cared so much she could have sat down and helped me with my homework but she wouldn’t do that or get me tutoring (she definitely could afford it) but then she complained. I dunno I think some parents like to set their kids up for failure. That’s my take on it.

[OneThousandApologies]

Crow,

I think your right about it being curiosity. It's normal to be curious if others have had the same experience as you. You may not know what knowing other people's excierences will achieve but you already know what its like not knowing..

OneThousandApologies

[OneThousandApologies]

Chessgirl,

I agree with you. I feel like my parents set their kids up for failure. There is 8 of us total (4 of us share the same parents, 2 are from my mom and 2 are from my dad). I am the youngest. My siblings were the parents when we lived with my mom as she was more focused on getting high and her next fix. She potty trained her first 2 kids, then they tried to potty train us, all while feeding us, going to school and and doing odd jobs trying to make ends meet. They were only preteens. Living with my dad there was 4 of us. My dad was drunk all the time, worried about how he's getting his next beer. We had to take care of ourselves. When we didn't know things that we should have but was never taught, we would be in trouble. They liked to exploit our failures and weaknesses to us and others who were trusted to keep the abuse a secret. We all got bad grades because we didn't have help at home, we were too poor to get a tutor (not like we would have gotten one if we could have afforded it) and in result, our failures and short comings we our fault. It made life hard when I moved in with my foster parents when I was 14. They were great people. But I didn't know basic skills and they thought I was lazy and didn't try. I tried but failed regardless. To their credit, they were only aware of the physical abuse, some of it. They didn't know anything else about my childhood. Sorry for rambling. Hope it made sense. Getting ready for work and in a hurry

OneThousandApologies

[Chessgirl]

Onethousandapologies

Yes it makes perfect sense and no need to apologize. It does help to hear that others no what it’s like to have parents who set you up for failure. Your childhood sounds so turbulent and unfair. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!

[OneThousandApologies]

Chessgirl,

Thank y'all for making it comfortable for me to share!

It also helps me to know that my siblings and I are not the only ones who was set up for failure.

My childhood was traumatic. I've recently learned that I'm more screwed up then I thought I was (saying a lot) because of it. But I'm finally willing to deal with it all as of last week and try to learn how to cope better then the survival coping skills I've leaned as a young child. But I am who I am now because of it all. My past is my definition but I won't let it dictate my future.
Small rabbit hole: I can't remember who said this but this is one of my favourite quotes. I'm working on that last part.
"The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering."

OneThousandApologies

[Jonesy]

Hi Crow

I hope you are doing ok this day

------------------------------------------------------------

Hi OneThousandApologies and Chessgirl

I would like to remind you of our Guidelines https://isurvive.org/join-our-forum/for ... s/#Posting and ask that you please take time to ensure your response is directed to the owner (original poster) and not to another member. This ensures the owner of the thread receives more targeted support and that the conversation does not veer in a different direction. Thanks for your understanding

[Chessgirl]

Oh thank you Jonesy! I will be more careful!