I want to be a kid again

[Sunnydays1]

I’m in my late thirties and I so desperately want to be a kid again -.-

In the sense that, I’d be loved and taken care of no matter what.

I also miss my child self.

Anybody else feel the same?

 

[Movingforward10]

Oh Jesus no! being utterly and totally reliant on others , who fail at their jobs, and having no autonomy over what happens to you? That can all f*ck right off.

adulthood is much better. We get to pick the people we share our lives with. And we have the ability to take care of ourselves.

 

[Weemie]

I feel like I'm having what amounts to a second childhood in my 30s. I've managed to get on IA and don't currently need to work, so I've been focusing on basically just having fun and enjoying myself and fostering my relationships with my family and learning how to kind of play, basically. To have hobbies, to have wonder. Just doing basic and silly shit. I never got that as a kid, but the cool thing is that you can gain that stuff even if you're not a kid.

 

[Aprilshowers]

My childhood was so awful most of it is repressed. I am living my best life right now - surrounded by the family I (helped) create, supportive friends, a lovely country home, freedom, security, stability, love, and peace. I am content.

 

[emily1890]

I was abused by my mother growing up. she tried her best, (and succeeded), to give me a bad childhood.
if I knew I could be in a loving family and treated with love and care, I would love to be a child again. I never played with friends, went to the park, not even go on vacation.. I was usually starving, doing without water and being slapped- or in some cases even burned

I'd love a normal childhood, but I know I can't go back in time or get back days that were lost to abuse so I suppose I am stuck with what I've got

the only hope I have, (and I admit it's quite a weak one), is that there is an afterlife. a life where I can live and be me

 

[Huxley]

Not having to work for a living is what all adults work for in the first place. Nearly everyone looks forward to retirement and receiving retirement benefits, and being able to escape the daily grind. Life is much easier when all that stops.

Which is a long way of saying that if you now have that opportunity (or can work towards it), it’s an awesome thing and you should rightly be enjoying it, whether you label it as being a kid again or not. It’s a time when you can focus on you, which is a great and beneficial thing.

 

[arfie]

i hope i'm not overstepping to empathize from a potentially delusional point-of-view. i'm another who experienced enough childhood trauma and neglect that i didn't have a childhood worth missing. i didn't get to have my first childhood until my forties where my healing had finally helped me to lighten up enough to permit childish behavior. my therapy supporters encouraged and applauded enthusiastically from the sidelines. experiencing my first childhood with my own car keys and bank accounts rocked, big time. goo goo, gah, gah, my little ya ya. let's go get some ice cream! ! !

twenty odd years later, at age 65, i inherited 3 young orphans. yeah, i miss my childhood alongside of the 1040EZ i got to file before them little boogers went and complicated the equation. that was 4 years ago and we've stabilized into a happy place, but, girl howdy, i miss the simple life.

 

[caroline_13]

I’m in my late thirties and I so desperately want to be a kid again -.-

In the sense that, I’d be loved and taken care of no matter what.

I also miss my child self.

Anybody else feel the same?

yeah

 

[Bandersnatch]

In the sense that, I’d be loved and taken care of no matter what.

For sure. Absolutely. Often. Especially when -almost exclusively when?- I’m doing badly, PTSD-wise.

I so desperately want to be a kid again

Nope! (Except for the ‘everything was beautiful and nothing hurt’ part!).

Because the amazing thing about being an adult?

I can seek out my every heart’s desire, including to love and be beloved; on my own terms, making my own choices, my own adventures …and… in the interim? I can check into a hotel or resort and have nearly every OTHER heart’s desire, and aspect of life, taken care of for me.

 

[KayW]

I’m in my late thirties and I so desperately want to be a kid again -.-

In the sense that, I’d be loved and taken care of no matter what.

I also miss my child self.

Anybody else feel the same?

Yes, this is a big one for me because I long to be loved and for someone to care, but also hate the feeling of neediness and from there it gets all messed up.

It's not that I want to experience the childhood I had again, but that the child part of me still desperately wants the needs that weren't met to be met.

As an adult, those needy feelings have made me vulnerable to abusive relationships, for which my adult defenses battle to shut out my child self, which increases those feelings of rejection and neediness.

So I leap from the feelings you've spoke of here, desperately wanting to be a child and have someone look after me... to being afraid of the vulnerability.

I'm working on trying to be kinder towards the needs of my child self.

 

[Sunnydays1]

Thanks everyone for responding.

I understand the part where you do not want to go back to a bad time in your lives.

For me, I was emotionaly neglected, and other things, but I had good times where I hung out with my neighbor friend, we played outside and climbed trees and walked to get ice cream.. I had great times outside of home, also in school I played with my friends in recess.

Many times I like to walk around my schools and sit on the bench and try to remember myself from that time and I feel a comforting familiarity, an awakening of my child self, that’s what I meant when I said I miss being a kid, as in I miss myself in that time.
I wonder if it means I’m dissociated.

Also, is it weird that I also like going to my old school and look at the students, because it reminds me of myself when I was their age, it brings a lot of heavy feelings, sadness mostly, and yearning.

My adult life isn’t going great emotionally, while I can do
everything my heart desires, I still feel a hole in my chest.

It’s good to be reminded of the many advantages of being an adult versus being a helpless child : )

 

[Huxley]

Doing the kinds of things you described sounds like a great way to make contact with one’s inner child, to me.

i was asked to look at old family photos to try to piece together my childhood. if I lived near any of those places they may have suggested that also.