Regression Therapy
By Roxanne D'Eon
1 - The Nightmare Begins...
After being awakened by my screams for the fifth night, Marcia had insisted that I needed to get professional help for the problem. She called Laura Henricks, a friend who worked at the local mental health center, to see if she could recommend someone. Without going into details, Marcia indicated I was having nightmares, and had trouble sleeping. Laura told Marcia that Dr. Mark Louder was my best bet for that kind of problem. He specialized in sleep disorders, and as a psychiatrist, could prescribe medications that would help suppress dreams, and help me sleep.
It took another week before I was able to see Dr. Louder. I had slept less than four hours a night for most of that week, and felt like I was half-asleep most of the time. I half expected to fall asleep in his waiting room.
Dr. Louder was younger than I'd expected, appearing no older than my own age of thirty. He was several inches taller than I, and had the lean physique of a runner or swimmer. He'd smiled warmly, leading me into his office for our first appointment.
He directed me to a chair beside the window. A tea set was placed on the table between two chairs, steam rising from the teapot, and two cups of dark tea, "This is an herbal tea I have custom blended. I find it helps my new patients to relax, and speak freely about their problems. Have a few sips, and organize your thoughts. Then, tell me about yourself, and why you've come to see me today."
I sipped the tea, and took his advice. After spending a few moments thinking about my problem, and my life, I felt the tension draining from my muscles. Looking out the window, I noticed a small crystal pendant hanging at the end of the window shade's pull. The swirl of colors reminded me of something, but I couldn't seem to remember what it was. Looking back to Dr. Louder, I relaxed into the soft chair, and felt a wonderful sense of trust and confidence in him. I knew that I could tell him anything.
"I always considered myself to be your basic 'old-fashioned guy'. Most of my views and opinions would be considered pretty conservative, both politically and socially. For example, I've always thought it was a bad idea when women began to work outside the home, especially mothers. Mothers should be at home with their children, taking care of them and their home. I understand that the costs of living have made that impossible for many people, but also felt that feminist crap about working outside the home being better for women to be a bunch of femi-nazi lesbian propaganda. Women and children were much better off, I felt, when they were at home, and a responsible man provided for them, as he should. Taking care of your wife and family was just a man's job, in my opinion.
"When we were first married, Marcia had been thrilled by my old-fashioned views of our separate responsibilities. Even with a four-year college degree in English Literature, the best job she'd been able to get was as a secretary with one of the financial firms downtown. She'd been more than happy to quit that dead-end job, and move into the ten-room house I bought for us in the suburbs south of town. Since she didn't need to work, Marcia was able to devote time to the community in supporting the theater and local dance groups, and to her own hobbies. She kept our house spotless, and always made sure my dinner was ready no matter what time I managed to return from the office.
"I'd been very committed to my business during those early years, taking the construction business I inherited from my father from one of the smallest companies to the fourth largest contractor in the metropolitan area. That required great amounts of my time, of course, and Marcia often complained that I worked too hard and too long. Although I knew she was concerned for me, Marcia just didn't understand what it took to run a business. I decided it was time we started our family. A baby would keep Marcia busy at home, and give her less time to nag me about how much time I spent at work.
"At first, Marcia said she wasn't ready to have children yet. She told me she wanted to wait until I could devote more time to a family, and not be so consumed by work. I reminded her that it was part of her responsibilities to take care of our children, and that she didn't need to work precisely so that she could devote all the time needed by the children. It might be many more years before I could spend much less time with the business, and I had no intention of waiting until then. Marcia said she would think about it, but felt she still wasn't ready to become a mother yet.
"Fortunately, Marcia was also old-fashioned about her choice of contraception method. She used a diaphragm with spermicidal jelly, a method that often left me waiting impatiently while she inserted the device and the applicator for the jelly into her vagina. Using a pin to make two very small holes in the diaphragm took care of that barrier. It was much more difficult to empty the tube of spermicidal jelly, and to use the applicator to refill the tube with KY jelly, however. It still took almost four months to pay off, but finally she missed her period, and tested pregnant.
"Marcia suspected that I had made the holes in her diaphragm, but she never accused me of it. She was completely mystified about why the spermicidal jelly had failed to prevent the pregnancy, however, and never guessed what I'd done to eliminate that barrier. However upset she was to find herself pregnant, I knew there was no way she'd ever consider an abortion. Once she was pregnant, Marcia soon reconciled herself to becoming a mother. By the time our daughter, Kelly, was born, Marcia was completely consumed with becoming the very best mother she could be.
"For the next couple of years, Kelly kept Marcia occupied enough not to bother me about what time I got home from work. Half the time, she was so exhausted; Marcia was in bed asleep when I got home. I wasn't happy having to prepare my own late dinners on those nights, but considered it a worthwhile trade-off to avoid the nagging.
"Once Kelly was weaned and toilet-trained, however, Marcia began to nag me once again about my late nights at work. She claimed that Kelly barely knew who I was, and needed me to spend more time with her. I reminded Marcia that raising our children was primarily her responsibility, but promised to try to spend more evenings at home. Since I was making the effort to be home more, I decided to take advantage of it, and enjoy more frequent sex with Marcia.
"She always seemed to have an excuse not to have sex whenever I suggested it, however. We rarely made love more than once a week. When I told her that I thought it was time for us to think about a second child, she laughed.
"Marcia said she'd figured out that I had sabotaged her diaphragm, so she had solved the problem permanently when Kelly was born. Her gynecologist had performed a tubal ligation, and Marcia could not get pregnant any more.
"Of course I was furious that she would take such a drastic and permanent action without talking to me about it. I'd wanted to have several children, and was very disturbed to realize that Kelly would be our only one. I wanted at least one son to carry on the family name, and to raise to be a real man. Now, that will never happen, and I guess that's Marcia's idea of revenge for my getting her pregnant the first time.
"So, that's more or less where the marriage stands right now. She's never really forgiven me for getting her pregnant, and I've never forgiven her for getting herself fixed and not telling me. I just don't see what any of that has to do with my nightmares, Dr. Louder."
"Well, Rocky, it may have nothing at all to do with them," he replied, smiling slightly, "But, I find it helpful to have as complete an understanding of my patients' lives as possible. It also helps me to form a deeper comprehension of all the dynamics at work in your relationships. But, now I think it's time we talked more about those nightmares."
I had spent a week waiting to see Dr. Louder about my insomnia and nightmares. I had insomnia because I was afraid to sleep. When I slept, I was regularly visited by a bizarre and terrifying set of nightmares. After nearly two weeks of insomnia, and exhaustion leading to the nightmares coming every time I was able to sleep, I knew I needed to get help with this problem.
In the nightmares, I seemed to be a small child, no older than two or three, because I was inside a crib. A young, blonde woman leaned over the crib to reach for me, and was suddenly grabbed from behind. Dark, gloved hands gripped her throat, and she screamed silently, until she sagged into unconsciousness, or death. The dark hands dropped her, and reached over the crib side for me. I woke screaming.
The details of the scene, and location varied, but I was always a small child, and the blonde woman (my mother?) was always murdered before my eyes by the dark, gloved hands. The dark gloves, and a short portion of hairy forearms was all I could ever see of the killer. I was seated in a highchair, being fed by the blonde woman, and the gloved hands descend from the shadows behind her. She's left in a heap on the floor before me, as the dark hands again reach for me, and I awake screaming and crying once more. I am in an old-fashioned bathtub, being bathed tenderly, when the hands emerge again from the dim shadows behind her to strangle her once more. I slide under the warm water, and through a blurry lens of bathwater see those evil hands reaching down for me.
Dr. Louder had scheduled me for a double session, wanting to allow all the time I might need. After I had described my relationship with Marcia, we had discussed my recurring nightmares, and the resulting insomnia and sleep problems. He asked a number of questions about the nightmares, and my normal sleep pattern.
Finally, he asked, "Do you recall, or know of any real traumatic experience from your childhood, which might form the basis of the nightmares?"
"That's really part of the mystery," I responded, anxiously, "My mother is alive and well. She certainly wasn't murdered in front of me when I was a child. There's nothing in my memory that comes close to the horrific scenes I see in my nightmares. My mother also swears that no other relative or babysitter has ever suffered such a terrible death, to her knowledge. My childhood was utterly normal in every respect that I can recall. I can't remember ever being subjected to any physical or emotional abuse by either of my parents. The worst thing I can recall either of them doing would be an over-the-knee spanking when I was ten or eleven."
Dr. Louder nodded, and said, "That may indicate the memory is deeply repressed, or there may be another cause entirely. I'll want to see you at least three times a week to begin treatment. We'll need to begin using hypnosis immediately, to see if we can find the causes of your nightmares. I'm also going to prescribe a medication to help with your feelings of anxiety, and another that should help you to sleep without nightmares. You may have dreams, but they should be relatively brief, and not emotionally disturbing."
Before we began the hypnotherapy session, Dr. Louder prepared a syringe, and gave me a small injection in my upper arm, "This will help you to relax, and make it much easier to induce the hypnotic state. Just lie back on the couch, and we'll begin in a few minutes."
More than an hour had passed when I became aware again. Dr Louder was smiling down at me, "We've made good progress for a first session, Rocky. I was able to regress you to the youngest age you can recall, and there is nothing in your memories that matches the images you describe from the nightmares. I was also able to get more details of your recollections of the nightmares while you were in the trance state. That may help me identify the source of the disturbing dreams.
"I'm fairly confident that we can prevent your having the nightmares again, with regular hypnotherapy sessions and the medications I've prescribed. But, you should realize that it's likely to take quite a bit of therapy to discover the root cause of these disturbing dreams. I've implanted a few post-hypnotic suggestions to help your subconscious avoid the nightmare scenarios, and the sleeping medication should help with that as well. If you do have another nightmare before our next session, call me at this number, and I'll see you as soon as I can."
2 - Patients, My Dear
The next time I saw Dr. Louder, I had finally gotten several nights' sleep without having a nightmare. Instead, I found myself having short little dreams which were similar to the nightmares, but without the murders and terrors. I dreamt of being nursed at the breast by my loving mother; being taken for a walk in a park, seated inside a baby stroller; being fed baby foods while I sat in a highchair; being bathed and diapered in the morning.
This last dream also made me realize something else that was odd about the dreams and nightmares. In these dreams, I was a baby girl! Though I had felt no surprise in my dream at looking down in my bath to see the pink infantile slit between my legs, I had been surprised by the realization when I awoke. Why would I dream of having been a baby girl? There was certainly no time in my life when I had been female!
Though the medications left me feeling a bit foggy, it was far better than the state of nervous exhaustion I'd reached before. However, the deep sleep they induced created another problem. I began wetting the bed.
The first time I wet the bed in the guest room, Marcia was sympathetic and understanding. I'd been sleeping in there to avoid disturbing Marcia's sleep with my insomnia and nightmares. She and I carried the mattress outside to clean it, and dry it in the sun.
When it happened again the next morning, Marcia told me, "This mattress is a total loss. You've soaked it completely. I'll try to get a new one for the guest room this morning, but we'll have to do something about protecting the new mattress, if you're going to continue wetting your bed like a small child, Rocky."
"It's not like I'm doing it on purpose, Marcia," I protested, "The medication makes me sleep so soundly, I didn't even wake up when I wet the bed. I'll have to ask Dr. Louder what to do about this."
That evening, when I arrived home from my second session with Dr. Louder, I discovered that Marcia had replaced the double bed in the guest room with a youth bed. It had a single-size mattress, which was covered in a nursery print plastic. A pair of low wooden railings was fitted to the sides of the bed, making it look like an oversized toddler's bed.
"The furniture store had a sale on convertible youth beds," Marcia said, gesturing at it, "The whole bed was less expensive than a new mattress for the other bed, and the plastic mattress is better than a plastic sheet that might slip off the double mattress."
"Did you have to get one with a nursery print?" I asked, sullenly "Didn't they have something in plain white?."
"They make youth beds for toddlers, dear. I'm sorry if you find your new bed embarrassing, but no one will see the nursery print when the sheets and covers are on your bed," Margo replied, smiling and patting my arm.
Marcia then held up an adult disposable diaper, and said, "I think you'd better start sleeping in these, too. The plastic mattress won't get wet, but these will avoid the sheets and blankets getting soaked if you have any more accidents."
"I really don't think I need to sleep in diapers, Marcia," I said, more sullenly, "The plastic mattress should be enough protection."
"For the mattress, yes. But, you're not the one who has to do the extra laundry, Rocky," Marcia said, sharply, "It won't hurt you to wear these for protection. If you don't have any more accidents, you can still get up to use the bathroom like a big boy. But, if you're going to keep having more of these little 'baby accidents', the diapers will protect your bedding just like they do a baby's bedding."
"All right, fine," I agreed, reluctantly, "If you really think I need them, I'll wear the damned things. But, Dr. Louder adjusted the dosage of my evening meds, so I won't sleep so deeply. I'm pretty sure I won't be needing them."
The next morning, and the morning after, however, I awoke wearing very wet diapers. I had dreamed briefly about the daily episodes of baby life again, and had still not awakened either night. The adult diapers did, in fact, keep the bedding from getting soaked, just as Marcia said they would. I was embarrassed, and more than a bit unhappy to be proved wrong about needing the diapers. Although the wetting episodes had shown she was right about my needing to sleep in the diapers, I was humiliated by the way she treated me after confirming that I had wet them.
"Were we dry this morning, baby?" Marcia asked teasingly, just as she had the morning before. She knew the answer from my expression, "Hmm, guess Mommy was right about you needing to sleep in dydees, huh?"
"Yes, dear, you were right," I admitted, softly. I resented her tone especially, and referring to herself as "Mommy". I was certainly not going to start calling my wife "Mommy", or let her treat me like a small child.
"I guess wet diapers are better than a wet bed, after all," I conceded, glaring back at her. I removed the wet diaper, and wrapped it in a plastic bag to place it in the trash, "Hopefully, Dr. Louder will be able to help me with this problem as much as he has with the nightmares."
"I wouldn't get too hopeful about that, sweetie," Marcia commented, "So far, it seems like all he's done is make you dream about being a baby again, instead of having nightmares about being one. Maybe that's what makes you like the idea of being a big baby again, and wet yourself."
"I DON'T like the idea of being a big baby again!" I protested angrily, "I'm not the one that wanted to wear diapers!"
"No, but you ARE the one who NEEDS to wear them," Marcia replied, grinning, "You ARE the one wearing and using diapers like a baby, that's all I'm saying."
3 - Past Lives
I began my next session with Dr. Louder by telling him how upset I'd felt at Marcia's treatment of me earlier that morning. I complained, "She's acting as if I want to sleep in diapers and wet them like a baby. I only did it because she was complaining about having to do more laundry. It's not like I WANT to sleep in diapers."
"You have to understand that this sleep and nightmare problem you're having is also quite stressful for your wife, Rocky," Dr. Louder said. He touched my forearm lightly, and the tension seemed to flow out of me completely, "Marcia may be compensating for feelings of failure as a wife, or other guilt about your problem and her inability to help you. By casting herself as a mother figure, she sees herself as more powerful, and in control. Being a mother is a familiar and reassuring role for her, which helps her to cope with the guilt feeling over her failure as a wife. That helps her to avoid feeling powerless. By being your 'Mommy', she feels that she is taking care of you. If you go along with her taking the role of 'Mommy', you will help Marcia cope with her stress and feelings of being powerless in the situation."
"You want me to act like she's my mother?" I asked, confused.
"No, not your 'Mother". Your MOMMY," he corrected, and smiled, "She needs to see you and treat you like a small child in order for her to feel in control. You don't have to act like a child if you don't want to do so, but don't fight with her when she treats you like one. All right?"
"If you say so," I agreed, reluctantly, "But, I'm not acting like some kind of overgrown baby just to make her happy."
"That's up to you, as I said," he responded, "I'm going to add a few suggestions in your session today that should help you avoid feeling upset if Marcia treats you like a child again. Mainly, however, I want to try a new approach with you today."
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.
"We've explored your memories of your early childhood, and found nothing significant. I want to try going deeper. Have you ever heard of 'past-life' regression, or 'past-life therapy'?"
"Yeah, I read an article about it in Psychology Today a few years ago," I replied, " I recall something about doctors using hypnosis to regress people to their past-lives to treat their problems. Is that what you're going to do now? You're going to try to regress me to a past life?"
"That's the general idea. I've had some success using past-life regression in cases similar to yours, Rocky. Since we've found nothing in your memories of your present life that has proven helpful, I think it's the next logical option to explore," Dr. Louder said, "No one knows if so-called 'past-lives' are real, or merely another way the human subconscious copes with unbearable stresses and experiences. It may be similar to multiple-personality-disorder with the past lives created to adapt to the unbearable stresses. It may also be true that past-lives are real, and somehow we recall events from those lives, which can affect our present life. Either way, there are therapies that work quite effectively in such cases. Now, let's get started..."
When I awoke from the hypnotic trance that day, Dr. Louder was quite animated about the session, "We've made some real progress today, Rocky. This does, indeed, seem to be one of these 'past-life' experiences we were discussing earlier. I was able to actually talk a little with the small child you recall being in that past-life. Unfortunately, that child is just a bit more than two years old, and has fairly limited vocabulary, and language skills. It's going to take quite a bit of work in therapy to get more information, but I'm sure we're making good progress."
"Now that we've had this breakthrough, I want to try using your dream periods to recover as much memory as possible from this past life prior to the traumatic episode," Dr. Louder said, enthusiastically. He smiled slightly, "I'm afraid you'll need to keep wearing the adult diapers for your own protection, though, Rocky. The suggestions I've implanted will encourage you to dream even more frequently about that past life. You're almost certain to have more wetting accidents, as a result. You may even begin having wetting accidents when you're awake. I don't want you to feel discouraged by that, however, because we're making real progress now.
"You may have accidents because you will probably find yourself recalling events from this past life while you are awake. The suggestions I've implanted will encourage you to recall such events when you daydream, and to remember those recovered memories so we can discuss them in our next session. When that occurs, you'll almost certainly find yourself feeling and acting like that young child while you are awake. Again, don't feel discouraged, if you do find yourself acting, or feeling like a small child, or even a baby. It may feel strange and disturbing for you, but this is the best way to recover your repressed memories. Any such episodes will help to generate the memories we're trying to recover. So, allow them to happen, and concentrate on remembering every detail you can recall when they do."
As Dr. Louder and I left his office, I was surprised to find Marcia and Kelly waiting for me in the reception area, "Marcia? Is there something wrong? What are you doing here?"
"I asked her to come and drive you home, Rocky," Dr. Louder said, before Marcia could respond, "It's not safe for you to drive, or deal with other complex tasks, when you may become distracted by the intensity of a memory recall during a daydream. For your own safety, I felt it was necessary that your wife should know that you will almost certainly have a number of brief episodes of acting like a very young child. She needs to know that you will not be able to control your behavior during those episodes. She and I have discussed your situation to help Marcia understand what is happening with your therapy, and how she can help you to cope with these therapeutic memory events."
"C'mon, Rocky," Marcia said, smiling slightly as she extended her hand, "I took the rest of the day off work. Let's go home, and get you settled someplace safe, so you can start having these 'memory episodes' that doctor says you need to have."
I started to protest that I didn't need her holding my hand like I was a child, when I realized that I had already given her my hand. Swallowing my now senseless attempt at protest, I allowed her to lead me from the office building to our car. She helped Kelly into the minivan, and leaned inside to fasten the harness around her. I reached for the front passenger door, and opened it to get in the front seat.
Marcia opened the door again, and gently pulled me out of the minivan, "No, no, sweetie. Children under twelve need to ride in the back seat, where they'll be safe. You're too little to ride up front."
Again, I started to protest her treating me like a child, but found I had already begun to do as she instructed. I climbed into the rear seat in the space beside Kelly's car seat. I sat passively, allowing Marcia to fasten the seat belt around me, as if I really was a small child. As she was leaning over me to fasten the seat belt, I had a sudden intense vision of the young blonde (Mommy?) bending over me to adjust the safety harness of the child safety seat I occupied. I could clearly see her looming above me, and intensely felt the spurt of warm pee between my legs where no man could pee.
The vision vanished as suddenly as it had come, and I looked down to see a dark, wet area spreading across my trousers. Marcia turned in the driver's seat, and also saw the spreading wet spot, "Good thing I put a plastic bag under you just in case that happened. Next time, Mommy will make sure you're diapered when you go to see the doctor. Guess it's a good thing Mommy decided to bring along a diaper bag, huh?"
She came around to my side of the minivan, and released the seat harness, "Lay down in back, and let Mommy get you out of those nasty wet pants, and into a dry diaper."
This was just too much, and I opened my mouth to tell Marcia to stop treating me like a baby. But, instead of speaking, I followed her directions, and climbed into the open rear area. Lying on my back, I inserted my thumb in my mouth, and began to suck it anxiously. I kept sucking my thumb like a toddler, while following Mommy's directions during my diapering. I lifted my hips to let her remove my wet trousers and underwear. She raised me to a seated position next to remove my shirt, as well, since the front tails were also soaked with my pee.
I tried to tell myself that this was my wife, Marcia, and not my mother, but could not think of her as anything except "Mommy" from the moment she called herself that. Marcia had become my Mommy in my mind, and I could not even recall her real name any longer.
As Mommy leaned over me, lifting my legs to wash my bottom, I stared at the hairless pink slit between my legs for several seconds before I realized what I was seeing. Blinking, I tried to picture my hairy adult scrotum and penis, but all I could see was a baby girl's hairless pudendum.
I was actually happy to have Mommy diaper me, and cover the disturbing sight. She helped me to sit, and drew a shirt over my head. After she'd eased my arms through the sleeves, Mommy had me lie down again and lift my hips. She drew the tail of the shirt between my legs, and fastened the snap closures along the seam. It was a onesie, like babies wear, and it bulged over the bulk of my diaper. Looking down at myself, I saw the bulge of my diaper between my plump, hairless pink legs.
"Mommy, why Daddy wear dipees wikes a baby?" Kelly asked, twisting in her seat to watch Mommy diaper me.
"Daddy has to wear dipees like a baby because Daddy decided that he wants to be a baby girl like you, Kelly," Mommy said, smiling at my look of frustrated anger, and knowing I could not argue with her, "We can't call him 'Daddy' anymore, though, 'cause she's a baby girl now. Baby girls can't be Daddies, can they? So, from now on, we'll have to call her Baby Roxy. Can you say that, Kelly?"
"Baby Woxie," Kelly said, giggling and pointing at me, "You not Daddy no mores. You Baby Woxie now. You baby girl, too, Woxie, wikes me."
Mommy drew me to a seated position again, and fastened the harness of my child seat around me. I looked at Kelly in her car seat beside me, and it seemed to me that even a four-rear-old was larger than me. I knew that was physically impossible, but couldn't shake the impression. Sighing softly, I returned to sucking my thumb like an infant, and felt strangely reassured by the comfort of doing that. I paid no attention to anything outside on the drive home, and sat passively in my seat until Mommy came around to release Kelly and me. Mommy took my hand, and helped both of us climb out of the minivan. She led Kelly and me into the house, holding both our hands as we toddled behind her.
Though I tried to tell myself that what I saw and felt were illusions created by Dr. Louder's post-hypnotic suggestions, it had no effect on what I experienced. I saw Mommy standing before me, and she was much taller than I was. I saw Kelly standing beside me, and even she seemed to be taller than I was. Illusion or not, I felt like I really had become a toddler again.