sleepless and sick in a wet bed

As a child I was very restless.  I needed to be going all day long.  If I had to stop I was very unhappy.  There was never 'enough'.  "Now what are we going to do?" was always my next question.  I never slept much as a child either, from the day I was born I couldn't relax.  When I did sleep I was plagued by nightmares.  I slept walked a lot.  I talked a lot.  My inability to stay put when I was asleep meant that I couldn't go camping when I was a Brownie, I would have wandered away into the woods.  I would drag all of my bedding down stairs and dump it on the kitchen table.  I would get up at 3 in the morning to take a shower to get ready for school.  The stories of my nighttime/asleep adventures are endless.
 

I was a hypochondriac as a child.  I remember when I was in elementary school I would go to the nurse all the time.  In those days if you went to the nurses office you got to stay for a while.  That was my favorite place on earth.  I was happy there.  For some reason I don't think the nurse ever called my parents to tell them I was 'sick'.  She just let me spend time with her.  Looking back I think that maybe she knew.  As an adult I see it for what it was: I was an attention deprived child.  I needed to be nurtured.  Sickness was not acceptable in my home.  "Get over it" was a favorite response to possible weakness.  In order to stay home sick from school in my home- you better be hospitalized.

In these early years between first and third grades, I started to wet my bed and pants.  I would be outside playing and I didn't want to have to go into my house for any reason.  I would try to hold it but I was little and no one can hold it for hours upon hours.  It got to be such a problem that my mom made me wear diapers.  I had to wear them all the time.  "Since I wet my pants/bed like a baby, then I was going to be treated like a baby."  was my moms way of handling the problem.  I remember the shame on gym days.  Having to change into gym clothes while wearing a diaper.  It still hurts today.  "Get over it!" would be moms response.

I guess I finally learned how to use the bathroom because at some point I was allowed to wear big girl panty's again.