Talking about our inner kids

[Ecdysis]

Do you have a good relationship to your inner kid? Do you talk to your inner kid? I do and some people I know do too, irrespective of whether they had childhood trauma. I also know a lot of people who have no access to their inner kid too, tho.

How about you?

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[Roland]

I have personality splitting so my inner child can kinda "take over". Acting childish, hiding, crying, wanting to play, or dress in a crazy way. I wouldn't say I really have a good relationship with her though. I feel like I hate her for being weak and helpless. I feel like she gets in the way of how I want to act. Sometimes I accept her and let her dress me in the way she wants and to play but it's an internal struggle I'd say.

But I struggle with self expression, I feel like I'm restraining myself in many ways not just her. I recently got a facial piercing, with no prior indication that I wanted one, although I thought they were cool when I was a child. I talked to my husband about it a week before I got it. My family was shocked, they were like what brought that up? Why did you do it? Just because I wanted to, that's it.

But I think everyone would benefit from inner child work, some more than others.

 

[Friday]

I don’t have an inner child.

The article you linked would seem to agree with me, as it asserts one develops an inner child when one stops playing… and I’ve never stopped playing.

Of course, it ALSO ASSERTS that when one stops playing is when the balance shifts between childhood & adulthood, and I couldn’t disagree more strongly there. I am an adult. I’ve been an adult a looooong ass time. As well as (the article, asserting) a whole helluva lotta other things that have no bearing, much less accuracy, in my life.

Sooooooo I might should not use an article whose premise/theses I almost wholly reject, just because there is one line I relate to??? Shrug. Still. “I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.”― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi <<< There’s that.

 

[deno]

I used to think my inner child was lost, or maybe never really existed in a way I could access. I spent most of my life in survival mode, and survival doesn’t leave much room for play, curiosity, or softness. But recently, as I’ve worked through trauma, I’ve felt him stirring—more than that, I’ve felt him wanting to be free.

For a long time, I was protecting him, holding onto all the pain so he wouldn’t have to. Now I realize he’s not just the part of me that was hurt—he’s also the part of me that still holds hope, wonder, and the ability to experience life without fear. Learning to listen to him, rather than just guard him, has been one of the most profound shifts in my healing.

I think inner child work is different for everyone. Some people naturally stay connected to that part of themselves, while for others, it takes time and effort to find it again. But when we do, it can be powerful. For me, it’s about creating safety—not just for the adult me, but for the kid who never really got to feel safe.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

I struggle with the inner child stuff. What I can do is visualize me as a child. What I went through and most important, the feelings. The feeling of abandonment and betrayal have skewed my whole life. They still do but I have some awareness of what is happening. I have a long way to go but I am improving.

 

[Movingforward10]

I've moved from not knowing anything at all about an inner child, to not knowing in the slightest how to connect, to trying to connect and it being a messy shit show at times, to now I think connecting a lot and being able to be the parent my little child parts needed.

Awareness and practice and error and practice and error and practice seems to have gotten me here.

Learning self compassion. Words that had no meaning and made no sense to me: how do you show self compassion? What does it feel like? What actually is it? Learning that, I think has been key.

 

[Muttly]

The article you linked would seem to agree with me, as it asserts one develops an inner child when one stops playing… and I’ve never stopped playing.

heh, I used to tell people, "I don't have an inner child, because I always kept my child out."

I'm in one my stages where I don't really believe I have DID. IF I did, it's possible I have several inner children and feel differently and communicate differently (if at all) with each of them. If I don't have DID, I'd just say I am all over the place with the idea of inner children and inner children work

 

[Friday]

IF I did, it's possible I have several inner children and feel differently and communicate differently (if at all) with each of them

IME, with the tiny handful of people I know IRL with DID?… that’s cannon. The initial divide, creates near infinite divides. Because children’s brains are THAT amazing. I, myself, do NOT have that. But still grok it, at a certain level, becauses of who I am. My own life. And shifting between “gears”. This place, one thing. That place, another. Fluidity, amongst chaos. Being “right” no matter the circumstance.

 

[arfie]

"personification" might be my most used therapy tool. it organizes and gives expression to some of my more therapy resistant symptoms. at present, intrusive thoughts might be where i most often use personification. i personify those intrusive thoughts into, "puppet shows," according to subject matter. "mini-me," or my inner child is among my more dynamic characters. she is something like the "finding waldo" game which was popular during my first parenting career. as i turn the pages of my life, you can find her somewhere within whatever chaotic scene on the page.

when i first started psychotherapy, the stick up my ass had a stick up its ass. i took EVERYTHING way too seriously. anything worth doing was worth over-doing. learning how to lighten up and get playful was a critical piece of my psychotherapy, as well as allowing myself to process the horrors mini me lived as a child prostitute. mini-me was just the personification for the job.

fast forward 50 years and mini-me has much lighter duty these days. she's the one that is my excuse for simply quenching my thirst while the optimist and pessimist are arguing over whether the glass is half empty or half full.