Story #86: The Learning Disability

Story #86: The Learning Disability (Content Tags: Slice of life, messy underwear, messy accident, forced diapering, perceived as a mushbrain, humiliation, evil stepmother) The trouble staying focused, the sometimes lacking social awareness, the obsession with various little interests, and the infrequent accidents that appeared to happen whenever he'd fixated too deeply on whatever fun was in front of him. What had it all amounted to in the doctor's office? High-functioning autism and mild ADHD. Those terms hadn't been worth more than a pair of rosy cheeks and a skeptical eyebrow to the boy they referred to. For the boy's stepmother, they'd meant a whole lot more; the diagnosis was much more critical to someone who had the issues that she did. His stepmother was, in the most basic of terms, a complete narcissist. Finn was too young to identify it, being close to turning ten, but even at this age, he could at least tell that the lady had issues. That was abundantly more apparent when Finn looked at the difference in dynamic that she had with her real children. Her youngest at nine, Lily, was very much the 'golden child' who received the full of her praise and adoration. Her eldest at twelve, Marshall, was her 'prop' after he'd proven to be sickly in early childhood. Finn was neither; Finn was treated like an unwanted burden, as if he was merely an obligation to be met to stay with the boy's typically absent father. That dynamic would soon be changing though, and Finn would wind up wishing that he'd just stayed the 'unfavorite' instead of becoming the newest narcissistic prop for the woman to point at for sympathy points. Between the woman's shallow ignorance and the cruelty or pragmatism of her children, Finn's diagnosis would change everything. The little boy hadn't thought too much about it when they'd left the doctor's office. Nothing had really changed from when they went in, to when they came out; he was still the same boy that he'd been an hour ago, but his own perception of himself wasn't the perception that would matter. Nora, his stepmother, initially looked embarrassed by what she'd been told by the doctor. Nowhere in the sickly recesses of her soul did she wonder how it would affect Finn, but instead she was mentally sorting out how it may reflect upon her. Finn was already a smear on her 'perfect' image, but for him to basically be *retarded* too? The shame! The car ride home was quiet, not that Finn really noticed. His attention had already moved on to the enticing screen of the Gameboy he'd brought with him, and the diagnosis was already something that he wasn't thinking about. He only had vague allusions to what either of those conditions were, and while he knew they weren't 'good', he also didn't think that they defined him all that much. Unfortunately for the boy, they would be soon defining every aspect of his young life. His stepsiblings had different reactions to the news. Marshall was amused to hear it, and he gave Finn some light ribbing over it, but otherwise didn't seem to treat him much differently. Lily on the other hand, was more like her mother, and acted with the same disdainful disgust that she had. Lily went from being a pain to outright being a cruel-hearted bully. She called him a 'retard' and acted as if every indiscretion was because of his autism, even after he tried to explain that it was diagnosed as something extremely minor. It was enough to make Marshall show him some pity, but not enough for him to risk his own neck by defending his younger stepbrother. Nora acted similarly to her daughter, in blaming petty indiscretions on his 'learning disabilities', even when nothing about his behavior had changed. She was much more critical of his every misstep, and she would bemoan that fact that she'd been cursed to care for such a troublesome child. Mother and daughter were feeding into eachother's scorn, like a twisted feedback loop that had no end in sight. Marshall appeared appreciative of it, at least a little bit, since it meant less focus got put on him. And then Finn did what could be called the cornerstone of his diagnosis: he pooped his pants. His accidents, which could be either wet or messy, were not some everyday occurrence. He wet the bed a little more often, but anything that happened in the daytime was usually limited to a couple of times a month, and varied in severity. They had always been an issue, usually arising whenever he got too focused on a game or became too emotionally compromised, but he was often able to hide the bulk of them. There'd been no hiding this one. Finn had been at his sister's dance practice, quietly playing his game in the other room while Lily practiced and Nora observed. Since he and Lily got out of school at the same time, he was used to getting dragged to the practice, while Marshall would get picked up from middle school afterwards. Today had been chili dogs for lunch in the cafeteria, and he was also nearing the end of his Pokemon journey on his Gameboy. It was a perfect storm that was brewing, and the brewing was happening in his churning bowels. If he hadn't been so preoccupied with traversing 'Victory Road', then perhaps the increasingly worse cramps would have registered more fully with his brain, but alas, the treacherous final dungeon was all that his young mind could be consumed with. And so, after ignoring those signals for too long, Finn's body took the reigns and allowed the release of a large sticky load into his superhero printed underoos. He still didn't seem to notice, even now when there was hot poop pressed against his backside and foul fumes emanating off of him. Lily noticed before he did. She'd stepped into the other room to grab her water bottle and she'd planned to mess with Finn by knocking the Gameboy out of his hands, but had been stopped by the pungent odor that had caused her nose to wrinkle. Instead of saying something to Finn, she left the room and then returned with her mother, having complained into the woman's ear about what the 'dumb-dumb' had done. "...Are you kidding me?" The woman hissed, now standing over the little boy, with her hands planted firmly on her hips and a venomous glower in her eyes. "..Huh?" It took a moment for it to even register that someone was talking to him, but he lowered the screen and looked up at Nora. "W-what'd I do?" Nora furrowed her brow and shook her head, "I can't believe this... Of all the places... Stand up. NOW." Finn gulped, unsure of what her issue with him was, but as he got off the chair, it became abundantly clear what he'd done in the bottom of his briefs. There was a warm lump, and a stench rising off of him, and that could only mean one thing. "..Uh-oh.." "Uh-oh? That's what you have to say for yourself? Are you trying to ruin your sister's dance practice?" Finn stood there, paralyzed, which only enraged the woman more. She reached out and forced him to turn around, by pressing her hands down firmly on his narrow shoulders, and then she tugged on the waistband of his shorts and looked down. Seeing the load that he'd made, and after he'd recently woken up wet too, she was positively livid. It was only by the grace of another one of the moms poking her head in the room, that Finn was able to escape a verbal lashing or a physical strike, but Nora still gave him an evil eye and told him that he'd have to deal with being messy until the practice was over. For many other kids, that'd be a terrible fate to be handed, but Finn honestly didn't mind the sensation nor the smell. On both counts, they actually ranked fairly pleasant, which that itself could be a difference in his sensory processing compared to someone more neurotypical. She made him sit on plastic grocery bags when they left in the car, and Lily couldn't keep herself from making comments about the smell, or the fact that Finn had done something like that in the first place. His stepmother had to agree, going as far as to drop the 'r-word' slur and asking it that's what he was. Finn cried, which Lily mocked by calling him a crybaby, and Nora stopped the car short of the middle school, pulling into a nearby corner-store. She went in alone and came back out a few minutes later, holding the only thing she could find to remedy the situation. It was a 'change kit', meant for an older toddler, but it'd have to suffice for a fourth grader too. The Pampers in the kit was size seven, so it wound up fitting around his waist, but it obviously wasn't a permanent solution. Finn would have put up more of a fight against wearing it, but his stepmother was someone that scared him completely into complacency. "Finn's got a diaper on, like a BABY." Lily snickered, once the boy had gotten wiped down and his soiled clothes had been thrown away. His pants probably could have been salvaged, but it was obvious that Nora wasn't taking any prisoners right now, so Finn got buckled back up with Elmo showing unhindered. Nora made him wear it for the rest of the day, as a punishment for what she assumed was an intentional act. Finn was embarrassed by it, but he had to admit that the garment was more pleasing to the senses than normal underpants were. He thought that this would be the end of it; that she would have made her point, and that life would move on, but... There was a package of diapers waiting on his bed, when he got home from school the next day. They weren't like the Pampers he'd worn the day before, instead being larger and more clearly suited for youth incontinence. Was this just another point to make? Was it a threat of what would happen if he messed himself again? Nope. She came in the room, while he was looking more closely at the package, and she told him to sit down. What she proceeded to do was to instead explain that she'd done a little more 'research' about his autism, and that the most prudent thing to do was to have him start wearing diapers again, full-time. Finn didn't take that well. "B-but I don't *need* diapers! I'm not a baby! I promise I won't have any more accidents!" His pleas may have well been like he was tossing slices of ham against an oncoming tank. Nora's 'research' had been in probably the worst possible reaches, in the most vile of mothering message boards, where her type of narcissism was the norm instead of the exception. Finn tried to argue that his accidents weren't even very often, daytime or nighttime, and that she'd never thought he'd needed diapers in the years before now. It was so clear to him that she was using his newly identified 'disability' as a justification to start treating him completely differently, as if he'd actually changed at all since their time at the doctor's office. "Lots of little boys with autism need to wear them, Finn. I just don't want to have you ruining your clothes or any of the furniture." She said plainly, conflating his mild case with an entire spectrum of varying degrees of severity. She pulled the plain-white diaper out from the package and forced the boy to lie down on his bed, so that she could get him taped into it. The boy's head was spinning; having to wear one yesterday after his accident was one thing, but Nora made this sound like it'd be indefinite, as if he'd just be wearing them permanently from now on. Watching his Pokemon printed underoos getting slid down his legs and taken from him, it felt like he was losing more than just some colorful article of clothing; it felt like he was conceding a huge portion of the autonomy that he'd spent his childhood clawing for. He was being reduced to the same garb as a toddler, not as a 'punishment', but as a 'necessity'. His nose wrinkled at the smell of talcum, while the woman got him powdered and then taped up into the diaper. She gave the front of it a small pat and admired her handiwork, looking proud of herself for retaining the skill after so many years without needing to use it (yesterday not withstanding). "Good, looks like they fit just fine." Nora said, taking the rest of the package over to Finn's dresser to put them in his now poorly named underwear drawer. The little boy sat up on his bed with a crinkle and his cheeks turned pink at the feeling of the padding that enveloped his midsection. "...But what about when I have to, umm, go?" The question caught her off guard and she looked like she genuinely had to consider what the prudent response should be. "Well... If you need to go potty, then come find me or your siblings, and we'll help you take it off." Finn cringed at the answer. Did she really want him to have to do something so embarrassing? And why had she had to think about it? Was her first expectation that he'd just drop all notions of using the toilet like a big kid? It was dreadful to consider, that he might have to ask Lily or Marshall to take down and tape back up his babypants. "...Can't you just show me how to do it?" He mewled, sliding off the bed and trying to walk around in the new undergarment he'd been given. Nora shook her head while finishing unloading the package of diapers. "If you don't do it right, then you'll leak, and it'll ruin the point. I don't think you're capable of doing it yourself just yet." Finn grabbed his shorts off the floor and pulled them back on, finding it a little more difficult to get them over the puffiness of the diaper. He was starting to fear that Nora might have similar responses to other things in his life, that she no longer viewed him as competent in handling, due to his 'disability'. The tonal turnaround was also concerning. Yesterday, she'd been fire and brimstone over his accident, and before that, she'd acted totally embarrassed by him for his 'condition', but today she seemed a lot less contemptuous. Expecting that the woman had somehow just now found compassion, after being a cold-hearted harpy all her life, was simply unrealistic. It seemed more likely to Finn that she had something to gain here. Being reminded how Marshall was used as a 'prop' for her narcissism, Finn was worried that he might be the shiny new thing to garner sympathy and adulation from her fellow mothers; that would certainly line up with the way that she appeared to be treating him. It was also more than likely that Lily had her mother's ear, and that the horrid little girl was determined to make her stepbrother as miserable as possible. What conversation had they had about his mortifying accident yesterday? Had Lily been the one to suggest that Finn should be put back in diapers because of his diagnosis? Regardless of who was truly to blame, Finn would need to keep on his toes going forward, lest every indiscretion be met with an overly scrutinizing eye and an absurd overreaction. Finn was still the same as he'd always been; the only ones making him fit more into the peg of 'autism' were the self-serving monsters that he had to live with.