What age did you consider yourself to be a child?

[Deleted member 37085]

Yes, I believe this as well @Links...I struggle so at "having" fun..."playing"...foreign concepts...

 

[Tinyflame]

catapulted into very large survival issues

Yes me too, though for a time I was fortunate to be a child. One that took care of myself to a great or at times total degree, but still a kid.

to ask questions, another missing component of lost child hood.

That's me too. It's so helpful if I can ask, hear the answer.

Playing helps kids learn how to problem solve.

"having" fun..."playing".

'Relax'- ??

:hug:

 

[Childhood]

Not a poll, but when people say 'childhood', where does that begin or end? And when are we 'adults'? And...

You are legally a child up to the age of 16 but you become an adult at 18 years.

I think that's is correct.

 

[GWhizz]

Haven't read all the replies. But for me I see my 5/6yo self as mature enough to be responsible for myself. My T asks me how I could think a 5yo could make such decisions/choices. I tell her I was a mature 5yo, street wise etc. Logically and from a professional point of view, a child up to the legal minor definition of 18 in my country, I don't see any onus on one to behave anyway adult. But personally I see myself as adult at a much younger age. Maybe because I was exposed to adult problems at an unnaturally young age. I used to try counsel and reassure my own mother from about 4! Not a Dr. Phil advocate/fan or anything but I really do heed his advice now in my own child rearing - "never put adult problems onto children". It truly robs them of a childhood imo.

 

[Tinyflame]

Me exactly too @GWhizz . Totally 'get it'.

:hug:

 

[ladee]

I am just now reading this thread. I saw the question when you first posted and the level of anxiety I felt at the time, and being dumbfounded by the question, just stopped me for even reading...
I was truly dumbfounded by the question... and thinking, what does that even mean... and had to read all replies to get a clue....
I have felt like an adult my whole life. Having too much responsibility put on me, that I had no clue how to resolve... being a 'marriage counselor' as early as 8 or 9. I have no memories of before I was 4. NONE...

Taking care of my mother emotionally and being torn in two by the dynamics of my parents... not realizing how I was shoved into the wife role in more ways than was appropriate.... it was all just so confusing... If I did act like a kid, my oldest sister shamed me back into shape.... I dissociated most of my life, so who knows when I really became an adult.... I know I wasn't a kid for very long.... maybe till age 4, then unreasonable and undoable responsibilities since then... for me, on my journey, I feel I was in my 40's when I became a for real adult... understood more about life, my history, why I was the way I am, ect.

I left home when I was 14... but that does not mean I had the skills to live on the streets, but I learned... but that was survival, not adulthood... a big difference...I don't think or feel I ever really got to be a kid..

A lot of healing came with inner child work.... we do play, she is safe.... I hear her.... so many times now and since starting that work, I have regained some semblance of what childhood meant..... very interesting question .....

 

[ninja]

PS, not sure if it's this thread's responses but I had a PJ day without a breakdown, first time in about 7 or 8 years.

This makes me smile Junebug. I am so glad you were able to have such a day. :hug:

I think I have felt aspects of both, but I don't know that it was necessarily a difficult thing until somewhere between age 9 and 12. Prior to that there were some things that felt like a lot - honestly just normal childhood exploration of some topics but it wasn't forced on me. By 9-12 some dynamics had shifted in my family and I ended up in a role between my parents which lasted until I had a breakdown, which lead me to move out about 2.5 yrs ago. Throughout that time, certainly until age 13/14 I still felt able to reach childhood through imagination, stories. By 15 and onwards I mostly felt pretty old & out of steam.

These days I find I still feel very much like a child: vulnerable, powerless sometimes [to the stories/perspectives adults had, vs. being able to claim my own story/truth], easily scared, working to expand a knowledge base that massively shrunk, but also curious and not nearly so often weighed down by what I had thought being an adult was all about. And that makes me feel a little more excited about growing and the future. :)
Thank you for this topic.

 

[Teamwork]

This is a great thread. For three days straight I've been on the front porch watching baby robins be fed and cared for. It brings all kinds of stuff up in my head about how fiercely protected the two adult robins are. But also my sense of wonderment is alive and well. What I didn't learn about this simple act of nature as a child, I am learning now. I'm taking the time to just sit and watch and wonder and let that part be alive. The wierd thing is, I feel intensely lonely and sad sitting here. That part I don't get and wonder how I can be sad and lonely while I watch this.

 

[Sideways]

I turned 13, started menstruating, and stopped being abused within the space of a few months, and that's definitely when I started feeling like an adult.

With DID, part of me is still trapped in childhood. But I do think that even without DID, a lot of people with traumatic childhoods, or people who essentially never got a chance to be a child, probably have a very similar part of their psyche that is still a child and still needing to experience a childhood of sorts.

 

[hodge]

I feel my childhood ended when I was 12, the first time I was sexually assaulted. Though it could also have ended at 11, when my mom took to calling me her best friend and relying on me to start taking care of her emotionally, after my dad left us. Which meant I never really learned how to take care of myself emotionally till much, much later.

This is a good thread, and as others have said, makes me think.

 

[Deleted member 37085]

Yes me too, though for a time I was fortunate to be a child. One that took care of myself to a great or...

Yes "relax"...what's that concept of being...living? Due to crazy volatile environment...never was allowed...to play let alone..."to relax".. @Junebug

 

[Teamwork]

Relaxing, relaxed, almost needs to be a new thread. We never relaxed. Everything was intense and if it wasn't intense we were expected to have the same work ethic as parents.