Most people who bear this devastating consequence of sexual abuse and/or harsh potty training keep their suffering as an intensely lonely, shameful secret. If, as an adult you have no need of diapers, or using the toilet is not a painful or terrifying ordeal, you will not understand the comfort of knowing that you are not alone in battling this crushing embarrassment. You might even wonder why this unpleasant topic is addressed in a Christian website. The answer is simple: God cares deeply for people suffering this trauma and he has answers. If ever you are tempted to feel like a leper, remember all the loving attention that Jesus showered upon lepers. And he healed them.

Moved by an earlier draft of this webpage, a dear woman who had been traumatized as a baby wrote to me in deep embarrassment, saying that she had what she believed is called a “diaper fetish.” A fetish is something sexual. If one were to get sexual pleasure out of wearing diapers, like someone who gets sexual excitement out of cross-dressing, it would be a fetish. If, someone needs diapers because of a lack of control, however, it is not a fetish and certainly not perverted.

In the following, a man and a woman each share their story. They have never met in person but since they both suffered the painful consequences of toilet fears, I obtained their permission to introduce them to each other by e-mail in a way that they felt safe. They have now significantly encouraged each other and would like to share their encouragement with others. Moreover, they are finding answers that will help other sufferers.

Whereas Karen’s difficulty has been with her throughout her life, Alan’s bathroom problems have resurfaced after being dormant for years. By courageously bringing to God their pain and issues, both are healing from their pasts, and when their healings are complete, their toilet difficulties will end. Of course, I share their stories only with their full permission, but because this is currently a sensitive issue for them, I will not use their real names.

The above was written just a few days ago. Initially, Karen was too ashamed to let me publish it, even under a pen name. The next day, she changed her mind. Soon after, she underwent a far more dramatic change. A factor in this change was being granted insight into the spiritual world. One morning Karen awoke to find herself being attacked by a demon. As she fought the demon by quoting Scripture, she was actually able to see the demon in the spirit and witnessed the sadistic pleasure demons get out of Christians feeling ashamed, or feeling they are anything less that the triumphant people that Christians are, in the Lord. Shortly after this, Karen wrote the following.

I refuse to be ashamed anymore over physical pain and accidents associated with urinating. I was wounded emotionally. It was not my doing. So why should I accept shame for the actions of others?

Even if I am emotionally wounded, it is not a moral issue. So why have I let myself feel guilty over it? If someone were physically wounded, would we call him or her a bad person or a failure for being unable to urinate normally? Do people despise paraplegics for being unable to control their bodily functions? Aren’t such people acclaimed as heroes if they refuse to be dominated by their limitations?

I listened to a woman who survived London’s terrorist bombings. She lost both legs but she could have died. She felt she was given a second chance. The key, she said, is to forgive and focus on living.

Past abusers could have killed me. They didn’t. Life is mine to live to the full. They hurt me back then, but I don’t have to let them control the way I feel about myself now. I’m not their property. I belong to Christ, not them. They are long gone and yet I have continued to let their past actions terrorize me. I refuse to let the past torment me any longer. I will torment hell instead. I will be an intercessor who has no fear of hell. I will chase demons down, going after demons as God’s Bounty Hunter and make them let people go.

I am growing stronger and I don’t do fear anymore – not even fear over urination. Why should I cave in to fear or give in to shame? Memories exist but memories don’t have to keep on hurting over and over again.

Here’s my declaration to the devil:

Devil, get your dirty hands off my body. I rebuke fear and shame in Jesus’ name. I belong to Jesus. Abuse, I order you: let me go! I am not in bondage to you anymore. The cross is mine. Jesus’ sacrifice paid the price and I am no longer a slave to sin; whether it be my sin or the sins of others.

When Jesus victoriously rose from death he handed me the victory. No demon is going to feed on me or get its sadistic thrills from my pain. Yes, devil, you know you were defeated at Calvary. But now I know it!

Don’t bother me with mere physical things. I’m not falling for your lies any longer. Enough! I rebuke these toilet problems. I denounce the shame. It isn’t my shame. You did it, Devil; it’s your shame. I refuse to carry your shame any longer.

Stop messing with me about things I have done wrong, Devil. At least I wasn’t openly defeated by Jesus like you were, loser! I am God’s and I’m free to live. I have divine rights, and those rights acclaim that I am the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

I don’t care if I wet my pants a hundred times a day; I am going to praise God for total victory anyhow. I refuse condemnation in Jesus’ name.

I don’t care if I am the most unfit freak in God’s Kingdom, I am still God’s and he will have to deal with it, not you, Devil. Get out of my life. Keep your filthy hands off me. I refuse to let you torment me any longer.

The games are over, Devil. You lose.

Through Christ I claim my rightful victory. I choose to walk in my calling, which is to live an abundant life in Christ. I give myself and everything I have to Jesus. I plead the blood of Christ. I exalt the name of Jesus. What defense have you, Devil?

Don’t use my sins; they are covered by his blood.
Don’t use my memories; they are healed by his stripes.
Don’t use my failures; they are overcome by his resurrection.
Don’t use my shame; it is gone as I am a new creation through Christ.

So what have you to make any claim on me? You were defeated by Jesus. You don’t have the keys to life and death; Jesus has them. You have lost, and your days are numbered.

This isn’t a nice hopeful story; this is my identity.

I’ll going to spend the rest of my life kicking hell’s butt. Reader, will you join me?

I don’t bow to shame now. There isn’t any in God. He has no condemnation. When I go to the toilet, the old problem begins to reappear but I fight it by refusing to accept shame and affirming to myself that God is with me. It is a battle, but I am fighting, and the problem is not nearly as severe as it was. I think what I have learned through all of this is that what is worth having, is worth fighting for. I have learned that the enemy does not give up without a fight. Christians must enforce their Christ-bought rights. The evil master isn’t going to let go easy, but the fight is worth it. “ . . . and having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13). I will do all, and I will stand.

There are layers and layers to my urinary difficulties.

Both Alan, who shares his story later in this page, and myself, have wrestled long and hard with the difficult issue of forgiving those who treated us so cruelly that they have left us with a legacy of torturous, humiliating toilet difficulties. Forgiveness was long, gut-wrenching process we knew that refusal to forgive would cause spiritual problems as well as preventing us from moving beyond our past suffering. It was an essential step towards full healing, but it took more than just forgiveness.

Earlier, I mentioned that it intensified when at fifteen I felt that God had left me. Now that I am certain that God is with me, I thought that this assurance might be the end of bathroom difficulties. For a while there was an improvement, but it was not the full answer.

Sharing with Grantley and with Alan the details of my problem has helped, but that, too, has not been the full answer.

When I was about five, my abuser – who had occult contacts – inserted a straw into my urinary tract and blew hard, explaining that he was inserting a monster in me who would kill me if told anyone of the abuse. From then on, it felt like something was stuck inside me, plugging up my urinary tract. A few months ago, a demon manifested itself. It was the “monster” transferred to me by the abuser. The demon was cast out and that was the end of the plugged up feeling. I thought that would be the end of my urinary problems but it wasn’t.

Very recently, suppressed memories surfaced of a terrifying experience when I was three. The man who later became my abuser urged my father to take me into a “haunted house” at a carnival. No child twice my age should have been let in. My father, being a large man, was unable to squeeze through some of the passageways. I found myself in semi-darkness, separated from him and surrounded by what I believed to be mutilated human corpses and other grizzly scenes. Then, while still in deep shock, out of the darkness, a man in a black cape startled me by grabbing me and proceeded to sexually molest me. Terrified, I wet my pants. I now know from the similarity of the subject matter that this is the basis of all those nightmares I used to have as a child that inevitably led to me wetting my bed.

The other day, I was hiding under my desk at work. I was in such pain that if anyone entering the office saw my face they would immediately know something was seriously wrong. As usual, my inability to relieve myself was the problem. So to keep my secret hidden, I had slipped under my desk. I cried out to the Lord.

“Talk to yourself,” he said. I was puzzled as to what that meant.

“Repeat after me,” he said: “I am safe. God is here with me. No one is hurting me now. Urinating is natural and is a good thing. It is God’s way of cleaning the toxins out of my body. Bad things have happened to me, but that doesn’t make me bad. And even if I had been bad, I am now clean, and pure through Christ. I have nothing to fear. I rebuke fear. I am not ashamed. I can talk to God about this and he understands. I will not accept shame for needing to relieve myself. It is natural. It is the way God made me. I am not bad.”

As I repeated those words the pain that usually leaves me unable to move, lifted. I was able to walk to the toilet and successfully use it.

From now on I intend following the Lord’s advice and talk to myself this way.

It’s tempting to end my story here. To do so would rob some readers of a significant key to healing, but to say more might lead some readers unfamiliar with such things to question my sanity.

Over the past several months I’ve discovered that my childhood traumas had caused my personality to split into several parts, with each part hiding from the rest of me certain upsetting memories and emotional pain. Quarantining the pain this way helped me stagger through life but the fractured parts desperately needed healing and their distress kept affecting me in various ways. After months of intense, divinely-led discovery, I thought I knew every part (or “alter”) and they were healing well. Then, very recently, the Lord told me there was yet another alter.

It was through gaining the confidence of this alter than I learned of the “haunted house” experience. No wonder this dear alter had wanted to protect me by keeping that experience from me. Had those mutilated “corpses” been as real as she had thought – and the molestation was certainly real – I would indeed have found it ghastly to recall it. With God’s help, I was able to relieve some of this alter’s distress by explaining that the “haunted house” was fake.

It turned out, however, that once this alter was formed, she also bore for me all the humiliation, name calling and put-downs I was subjected to in potty training. To her, it was still as fresh as if it were happening that very moment. Not surprisingly, the surfacing of this dear alter initially worsened my toilet fears, but she quickly learned to join me in rebuking the devil and attacking shame.

I expected this to be the end of toilet fears but now I’ve discovered still more alters formed at a time when I was under near-intolerable emotional stress that coincided with me working as a truck driver. Imagine driving a heavy vehicle at speed while facing the prospect of pain that could literally paralyze me. These alters were created specifically to keep from my consciousness the memory of urinary pain and shame during this time. Among the disadvantages were lapses of memory that would cause me to get lost when driving, which in turn made me worry about my sanity.

Karen’s comments after being asked to check this webpage:

I thought I'd feel dirty reading that page. I did not. I felt like an overcomer. It helped me to read it.

I still remember the horror I felt about telling you about this and how I threw up when I first told you. I thought you’d hate me and tell everyone. I felt so unsafe. Yet the compassion you show is a healing in itself. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It might seem strange, since much of this page is my own testimony, but I am finding it most helpful to read it over and over. I take it with me to toilet. I pray that the reader will likewise find it helpful and healing.

A Worldwide Perspective on Toilet Use

Before moving on to Alan’s story, I would like to share the following to help put things into perspective. It is taken from what a woman friend of mine shared with some mutual friends who, like her, find using the toilet scary.

I freak out about using a toilet. I can stand, I can use bags, I can fertilize my plants, but I hate toilets. Several times I have been forced to go on dirty clothes in my bedroom rather than use a toilet. I now keep gallon size zip-locs in my bedroom for such times.

Since using a toilet is quite an issue to me, I have studied the ways many different cultures pee. Many do not have bathrooms. Many Arabs don’t and they have no tissue either. They use their left hand and clean themselves with sand. This is why they have rules about which hand one must use to eat with.

If we were in some desert parts of the Arab world and our fathers beat us for not using a toilet, they would raise an eyebrow and say our fathers were crazy. The Arabs would even beat our fathers for telling us to use a toilet. How dare we pee in water! Water is more precious than diamonds in a desert. People kill and get killed for water. You’d never pee in water where they live!

In parts of China, everybody gets in a line and squats over open holes alongside the road, reading their newspapers or whatever, while the world drives by.

In Africa, some natives wash their babies in pee and use the human pee for watering food crops.

Many toilets in Eastern Europe require you to stand up.

I have a friend who lives in a U.S. city and has no toilet in his house. He uses all human waste from himself and wife to fertilize the garden.

The point is that what we have been forced to avoid and what we have been told we must do isn’t that big a deal. It doesn’t matter how you pee, as long as you aren’t hurting yourself or using it to hurt someone else.

Our toilets are a British invention. They are not used worldwide and the important thing to God is not how you go, but that you are okay with going.

Alan’s Bathroom Challenges

WARNING If accounts of abuse disturb you in any way, you can skip that part by clicking here.

At age seventeen, I was left unconscious after being gang-raped in a bathroom. This was yet another chapter in a long history of bathroom horrors and sexual molestation stretching back almost until birth. Many memories that I had blocked out for decades are gradually returning. Regained memories are part of the healing process. When the memories came back so did my capacity to love and grow, but with it has come significant challenges. For well over a year, now, I find myself having enormous difficulties using the bathroom.

My sister, ten years older than me, told me of one of many incidents when I was a baby. She was ordered to clean my blood and feces off the walls. She saw me in the crib and thought I was dead. I recently learned that another sibling of mine was actually killed by my father’s abuse. The crime was covered up.

Even when I was still a baby, whenever I was dirty it usually meant a beating and/or sexual abuse, and at times smearing the bowel movements on me and even forcing it into my mouth.

Except for matters related to toilet training, I had no control over anything in my childhood. The only way I could get back at my abusers was through not using the toilet. Of course it helped my revenge plans that they had already made me deathly afraid of the toilet.

One of many complicating factors that I had suppressed from my consciousness until recently is that I learnt as a child that although a soiled bed would get me beaten, it was the only way I knew of keeping molesters out of my bed.

As an adult, I was plagued by terrifying nightmares of worms and snakes inside me. It made no sense until finally I learned that when I was 18 months old – presumably too young to know the difference between worms and snakes – my father put worms in my diaper to try to get me to never again need a diaper. It had the opposite effect. Whenever I was placed on the toilet I thought that more snakes would bite me from the toilet and crawl into me. My mother would also tell me that I had snakes inside my diaper, to try to get me to get changed.

Rather than being the full picture, many of my memories are like shadows. I know they would place my penis on the edge of the toilet and slam the seat on me repeatedly. They would push my head into the toilet after it was filled with filth. I was convinced that they were going to drown me. This is the background to what I wrote a while ago:

From the depths of my mind, shadow figures come to torment me. Out of nowhere they arrive, yet their insidious damage is deep. They torment and rage against my very soul. Though vague the pictures, my body remembers the pain. The shadow, dark as the deepest night, lifts the toilet seat and slams it hard upon me, taking great delight in my wounds. I hear it laugh and snicker evilly. A thing possessed, its only desire is to terrify and cut me deep. It is larger then life, more real then anything physical. All I can do is cry; trying to break free. Cold, icy fingers, tentacles of steel, grip and entangle my heart, draining my very lifeblood. It seems the pain will never end until the grave I see; until I lie frozen in the ground; the earth covering me. Now I find that even here, above the grave, it continues to rage cold, gripping every tree, stripping even the leaves off their cold, barren limbs, till all is dead.

My heart has been torn in shreds and my life has become as confetti blown in the wind. Yet, as impossible as it seems, God is slowly putting the pieces back together.

The abuse I suffered as a child extends far beyond what I have mentioned, but I won’t elaborate. What I’ve shared is enough for you to have an inkling of why I find myself unable to use the toilet for days at a time, for fear of flashbacks, and simply because of the horror of the repeated abuse I used to suffer in such a place. Memories have recently surfaced that were blocked for so long – incidents that have affected me so deeply, even when I did not know about them. Often the memories come with a vengeance, with even my body remembering the pain and the fear and the shame.

Despite being in my forties, I have had to resort using a diaper. When I try to use the toilet nothing will move. Then when I am unable to hold it any longer it comes out in the diaper.

Part of me has believed that the normal feelings of needing to relieve myself make me bad and filthy. I am slowly accepting that these bodily needs are just normal, even a gift from God to cleanse the system.

As I look back, it seems that everything I have done in my adult years has been to prove to myself that I am masculine. Having been subjected to rape has intensified this need. However, my childhood deprivations have left me craving a tender mother’s love. God often spoke to me of this but I tended to shy away, for fear that this need of maternal love clashes with my masculinity. Moreover, I’ve doubted that God’s love could be sufficiently soft and warm to meet my need. In fact, the hardest battle has been against the fear that God might be a little like my earthly parents and punish me in some way for my problems. Time and time again the Lord has reassured me, however, of his tender care for me as his child.

For instance, a few times I have sensed his hand on my shoulder and he says he is proud of me. “Proud of me?” I say. “Here I sit in a diaper, fearful of the toilet, feeling, and – when the memories are particularly strong – actually thinking, that I am a little boy.”

His clear reply stuns me. “I am proud of you, Alan.”

Once, I had a terrible flashback of feces being put all over me. I had kept asking God, “Where were you when all this happened?” Then during the flashback I saw him kneeling beside me, weeping. Later, he told me that I had the righteousness of Christ and that I was clean. I kept arguing with him. “Yes, I am wearing the white robe of Jesus’ righteousness.” I replied, “but the filth that was smeared on my body is soiling the garment from the inside.”

Soon after, I had another flashback of feces being spread all over me. When it was over I saw in a vision God, the great and perfectly good Papa, cleaning all of the feces off me with his own hand. It really struck me that there was no fear of his touch, no sexual pain or excitement when he even cleaned my lower parts. He was more gentle than the tenderest mother. I then could not argue that I would get the inside of the righteousness robe of Jesus’ covering robe dirty. So my argument turned to this: “Okay Papa I am cleansed on the outside and can wear Jesus’ righteousness but internally I am filthy.”

Soon after that I had another vision of Papa with his own hands wrapping all my limbs with clean, pure linen cloth that had been dipped in the blood of Christ. I felt righteousness seep into every cell of my being, and he assured me that even the most tiniest part of every cell had been completely cleansed. Then Papa wrapped me in a large clean baby blanket, the way babies are wrapped up tight to make them feel safe and keep them warm. He held me to his chest, smiling down on me, quieting me with his love. It seemed as if he was actually counting all the hairs of my head and studying my face and cooing.

As a child, I learned to expect beatings when I was on the toilet, to force me to go, and beatings if I soiled myself. I am now just coming to grips with knowing that God is so different to my human family that he loves me even though I need diapers, and that he is not going to punish or hit me if I am unable to use the toilet. I am learning that the true and perfect Father loves me, whether I have soiled myself or not, for on the inside I am cleansed; even to the very changing of my genetic makeup. All of this has come from the blood of our Savior.

It is as if in some areas of life I stopped developing at the age when I was being potty trained. It seems as if for self-protection reasons I closed myself down and put a wall around areas of my personhood at a young age and from then on I never really grew. It is as if I am still being potty trained. This is very hard to endure as an adult with terrifying memories.

I had bought a liner in case of leaks. Nevertheless, it leaked one night and I was in bed, kind of panicking. The Lord softly said, “It’s okay. Come with me and get cleaned up.” His gentleness staggers me.

I have been using the toilet at times with success. When I sit on it and relieve myself, I cry. It is all very confusing. Am I an adult or am I a child? Sometimes I do not know.

During flashbacks, reality and memories blur. It is as if it is happening all over again. Recently, when the feeling was strong that snakes and worms would get me (based on my childhood fears), I saw Christ on the cross. Just before I reached the cross, Jesus’ crown of thorns appeared on my head (I deserved that judgment). Then I was taken through the cross. On the other side of the cross was a blinding light and the snakes were burned up. Then Jesus came, as tender as the best mommy, and said he would help me. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said.

I am grateful for Grantley letting me e-mail him about my traumas and not giving me a hint of condemnation, but instead validating my personhood, even in what stressed me so greatly – my need of a diaper. Now that I have opened up, I find that the wall of secrecy is down. No longer can this part of me hide unknown. And I truly do not want that wall ever again.

I am improving, although I often do not realize that I need to relieve myself until it is almost too late.

I asked God when I will be free of my need for diapers and he just replied, “When you are ready.” When I am ready? I need to live now! I yearn for fast healing but it seems as if Daddy desires to build patience and character and deep healing. Certainly, through this trial I am discovering the depth of God’s personal love in a way that perhaps no other experience could show me. To know God so intimately is of immeasurable value.

His promise to me is, “Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth . . .” (Isaiah 54:4).

I asked Alan to check an early draft of this webpage. Here is his response.

As I read this I could not really edit it too well because I could not stop crying for sadness and grief. The strangest thing, though, is that I am also crying for joy. Joy that I am greatly loved. Joy that I need not walk in shame. Joy that Papa is healing me. Joy that the ability to really love is being restored to me. Joy that I am finally being potty trained and growing. Joy that there is hope and that in it there is no shame.

I never thought that such intense grief could be mixed with joy.

I am free, even when I have accidents. I am free even when I wear a diaper. I am free, for I am Christ’s.

Like Karen, Alan’s extreme abuse from such a tender age caused his mind to, as it were, quarantine the damage by splitting into many different “personalities” or alters. In an e-mail to a woman who has suffered similarly, Alan recently wrote:

Wow! What courage it took you to write to Grantley about you having young alters and needing diapers. I am honored that you let Grantley share your e-mail with me. It really touched my heart. I know the frustration of being afraid of the toilet. I feel for you and will be lifting you up to the Lord on a daily basis.

I have some very young alters. One is a baby. During the first year of the Lord leading me on my journey of healing after discovering my alters, I used to need a diaper constantly. Now, except for times when the younger alters are really frightened, they are able to use the toilet without a diaper.

For a long while I hindered their healing due to being freaked out about the diaper. After Father God told me at times to let them wear one, the healing became quicker because they were more relaxed, and less fearful. This allowed them to open up and receive God’s love. Wearing diapers allowed them to feel safe, since it was toilet training that traumatized them. They had to grow through it in a safe loving way.

There are still occasions when they need a diaper, especially two of them, but they have come a long, long way. I have learnt to be grateful to Father God for the times that we need them.

How You Can Be Helped

If you suffer toilet fears, you have learned the following:

* You are not alone in having these difficulties.

* As stated in the Lord’s prayer and heavily emphasized by Jesus, forgive others as fully as Christ has forgiven you. Only then can we hope to leave our past pain behind.

* If you suffered childhood traumas associated with the toilet, your problem is probably not medical. I am not a doctor and I presume even a doctor would be reluctant to say anything without an examination, so I cannot say anything authoritative. If you are able to put your mind at rest by discussing this with a doctor, that would be ideal. If, however, doing so would be too traumatic for you, it would be quite a coincidence if you had both past psychological trauma and a medical problem, each associated with relieving yourself.

* You are not weird. It is a product of past suffering inflicted on you by others.

* God cares deeply about your suffering. He longs for you to involve him in even the most intimate details and he will help you.

* If this problem makes you feel guilty, it is false guilt. It is a product of emotional wounding, not a moral issue, and in any case, God, through Jesus, longs to cleanse you of all past wrongdoing.

* Through your union with Christ, nothing – not problems in relieving yourself, nor being on the toilet, nor anything else – can separate you from God’s love and presence.

* It can help relieve the false shame you feel – which adds to your stress and so intensifies the problem – by confiding in compassionate, understanding people.

* Don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t force yourself.

* It can help to distract yourself by doing something on the toilet, such as reading, that will relax you. Feeling tense is your biggest enemy.

* As the Lord told Karen, speak to yourself. If you can turn this into a prayer, all the better. Say something like, “Thank you, Lord, that you understand. Thank you that because of Christ you approve of me. You have cleansed me from all unrighteousness and you are with me right now. I praise you for making my body and for creating me with the medically necessary ability to eliminate waste. In the name of Jesus I refuse to accept shame. Thank you that I am safe and that I can rest in you.

* Consider the possibility that, like both Karen and Alan, you could have multiple personalities. This is a common reaction to childhood trauma and could prove a significant key to full healing.

For Further Help

Are you sure that you have a living relationship with Christ? If you have the slightest doubt, see You Can Find Love.

For helpful insights into multiple personality disorder, see Surprising Help For People Traumatized as Children.

For help with healing from sexual abuse, see Comfort, Understanding and Healing for Abuse Survivors.

Forgiving those who seriously hurt us is a challenging but rewarding journey to freedom and Christlikeness. For help with this, see Revenge!

Personalized support

Grantley Morris: healing@net-burst.net

© Copyright 2007, Grantley Morris. May be freely copied in whole or in part provided: it is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged and it is not used in a webpage. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.net-burst.net  Freely you have received, freely give. For use outside these limits, consult the author.