✅ Potty Genius [NaNoWriMo 2022]

Forty-Two

¿Did you wet yourself in front of your friends?

Thankfully not. I don't think it would have made a big difference. But as it happened, the alert telling my bladder to empty popped up just before I met up with Jules. I told the app that I was wet; and then did my best to ignore it. I found myself wishing again that I could break the hypnosis, and looking forward to next week's session with Dr Theo. Next week would surely be the one that let me regain control.

But by the time Sofia and Langley appeared, we had so many things to talk about that I pretty much forgot I was wet. It wasn't until I got home and needed to pee again that I noticed the bulk of the diaper between my thighs, and remembered that I needed a change.

It was still a reminder that I needed to overcome the suggestions and be a big girl again. But at the same time, I realised that it was much less an issue than it could have been. The odor-neutralising chemicals in the diapers really worked; nobody would ever know if I was wet. And I was fast realising that nobody noticed me wearing them either. People just didn't look that hard; or they only saw what they expected to see.

Whether it was the next appointment or one more, I was ready for this hypnosis to end. But now I could accept that it wasn't an emergency, and wasn't some kind of disaster if I had to wait a bit longer. I'd somehow accepted it as a thing that could happen; nobody else cared, and it wouldn't stop me enjoying my life.

¿Did the next appointment help?

Kind of. I found out some new things, which might have changed my plan a little. In the days leading up to it, I felt like my confidence was growing again. Sure, I was finding it easier to sleep with a teddy cuddled against me, and maybe once or twice I woke to find my thumb in my mouth. But I was sure that this whole drama would end this week, or next week at the latest.

I practically danced down the steps to Dr Theo's office, dressed in my most sequin-adorned outfit again. Dr Theo and Britney were the only people who really knew about the hypnotic suggestions that had been making me act like a little kid; but that also meant that the "when it's safe" restriction she had put in my subconscious tended to step to one side when I was talking to them. If I was going to feel like a little kid anyway, then I thought I might as well pick some clothes that Baby Adrica would enjoy. And I was feeling a little more proud of myself, because I had managed to recreate the same outfit for the little pixelated girl on the screen.

"Hi, Adrica!" Britney waved as I came down there. Another guy said hi as well, but I didn't know his name. I guessed that he must have been another client, seeking hypnotic suggestions to help him quit smoking or something. He looked like the type of middle-aged guy who might just be desperate enough to try hypnosis. He was on the way out anyway, so I didn't pay too much attention, and I thought it might have been rude to ask after he was gone.

"Hey, Britney. Wow, I'm already feeling giggly again. The teddy badge coming back to full strength now there's nobody around who might judge me."

"Yeah, we wondered if that might happen. But we've got some good news for you, I think."

I was excited by the announcement, and found myself doing a little dance. Even before I knew what they were talking about, I knew that I wanted to hear the good news. I should probably have paid more attention, but it was hard to do that when Baby Adrica was at the front of my brain. And I was sure that whatever the news was, they would tell me sooner or later, so I didn't need to fight it yet.

¿What was the news?

"Did you enable badges on your version of the app yet?" Dr Theo asked as I skipped into the therapy room.

"No. I'm leaving them off on this one. I don't want them to start sticking in my mind again."

"I think it might actually be easier..." Theo started. And I wasn't sure if she could tell from my expression how much that was confusing me, but Britney answered before I could ask.

"Theo finished the game," she said. "Turns out that if you meet their requirements for potty training, you win a badge. It's called the graduate badge, and there's a picture of like a diploma on it. Basically, it allows you to use the bathroom without feedback from the app."

"It's possible that the hypnosis might be less reliable than the others," Theo picked up the explanation. "Even if it's the app itself trying to change the rules, it will be harder for your subconscious to accept something that contradicts your previous conditioning. But to account for that, it advises you to keep swapping badges back and forth until it works."

"And in case it doesn't," Britney added, "there's a new 'graduate' option when you're setting a potty timer that forces the success chance to 100%. So you can effectively use the bathroom without any problems, if you want to."

"Right," I said, and grinned. I was so pleased to think that I might be potty trained soon, even if I knew deep down that I had been for most of my life. The childish energy seemed to be dominating my thoughts, and it was a lot more fun that way. "I'm gonna pass the test!"

I realised that would mean I'd have to enable the badges, because apparently that was how the app would go about hypnotising me again to remove its suggestions. But once I had a badge that should return me to normal, I decided that I wouldn't have any problem with that. I'd only gone to such lengths to get rid of the badges because all of the ones I'd had seemed to cause some kind of problems.

I still needed Dr Theo to hypnotise me, though. She could help to break down the suggestions from the app, so I might be able to regain control even without winning the game. I'd still play, of course. I wanted to prove to myself that I could win. But it would make it a lot easier if the hypnosis wasn't always there, chaining me to that stupid app. I wanted to have a choice of when I would let Baby Adrica come out.

As I lay back on the couch, I was quietly confident. It was hard to keep from fidgeting when I was in that headspace, but once I found myself hanging on every word she said, and not quite remembering what we were talking about, the childish thoughts quickly slipped away. And a few nods later, the rest of my thoughts followed.

¿Could you use the bathroom after that?

"Feeling refreshed and awake?" Dr Theo asked, and I nodded energetically, before I even thought about what she had said before that, and found a now-familiar mist of confusion in my memory. I could have recalled the details if I really wanted to, but there was no need to. I knew that Dr Theo had always given me the choice of remembering what she said; that she had told me I could remember her words if I needed to. But there was no need, so those memories were out of reach, like a word on the tip of my tongue.

"Yeah," I mumbled, after sitting up and stretching. My body was so relaxed now, and I felt like I didn't need to worry about anything. "So is it gone? I mean... can I go potty without using the app?"

"Maybe," Theo said with a shrug. "Why don't you try it, and we can talk some more once we know the situation."

I nodded, and hurried off to the bathroom. I realised as soon as I sat down that I'd used the word "potty" without thinking again. But with only Theo and Britney around, I really didn't mind a little slip like that. I got my phone out, and brought up the Potty Genius app...

And then remembered that I was supposed to be trying to pee without it. It was starting to become automatic. Whether that was because of the hypnosis, the lingering effects of the teddy badge, or just because I was getting into the habit of using it every time, I knew that I would need to pay more attention to what I was doing if I wanted to break this suggestion.

I tried for ten minutes, but it just wouldn't work. It felt so weird, trying to pee by myself when I hadn't even graduated from potty training yet. It felt wrong, and just a little bit creepy. Eventually I gave up, and came back out to tell them the bad news.

¿Did they still think one more week would be enough?

"I kind of suspected," Britney said, when I confessed that I still wasn't feeling much progress. "I didn't want to say anything, because that could hurt your confidence and make it harder."

"The nocebo effect," Theo added.

"Yeah. But... while you were in trance, you told us that you don't really want the suggestions to be removed. You're resisting what Theo said, and when she tried to work out why–"

"No way!" I said, unable to keep listening any longer. "I need to be a grown up to go to university, and there's only a week left! Why would I resist?"

The two looked at each other, and I realised this was going to be a very long conversation.