Confused... is possible to be stuck younger and know wrong?

I have ALWAYS felt messed up and NEVER felt like an adult (almost 50here). Now I know many people just don't feel their age, so I never thought much about it but I am a bit further gone then I also know would be normal. I use a comfort item on a constant basis and often feel even much younger then the young me I normally feel. I know this is confusing to follow and I'm not sure I will be able to explain it clearly.

I have brushed the 'very young' feeling (when I say feeling, let me say it is extreme feeling.. I want a thumb in my mouth sometimes and even talk out loud in a younger voice... now I can prevent this stuff from being seen outwardly,like I can force myself to not let that babble talk come out and not allow my thumb in my mouth or change it to bite a fingernail so it's appropriate, so I don't know if some of this would be considered did our just regressive episodes... but it's crazy. )

Where my mind is going now is to the fact that I have NEVER felt my age and again with felt, I mean in many ways. I remember being in high school and the girls going on about cute guys outside and I just didn't understand. It seemed foreign to me and I never could figure out what they were seeing. I know that's a strange example but I was just realizing that as on older adult, I still don't get it. Ib know I'm an adult (my mirror provesv it) but I don't feel like one. I drive age have held down good jobs and know that I have regularly catch myself thinking things like I am not old enough to do or understand things before me.

I know I'm not explaining clearly. I guess what I am trying to figure out is if anyone else experiences still feeling like a child and having senses of a child but also the knowledge that it can't be true because your an adult, but that can't be true, I need my *** (comfort item), I can see my old hands so I know I'm an adult, but I feel insecure like a child and am to scared to get out of my own bed... etc. . Etc... I am very confused and really don't know what is going on with me and the more I think about it and remember how much and how many strange things have filled my past, the more confused I get.

The bag of sunflower seeds that get gone in my cubicle when I worked corporate america lol. Guess, what though a corporate america job indicates your everything but a youngin if that is what your worried about. A small comment on the smart part of what you wrote. You are not alone!

i dont have any advice for you, but i have always been the same way. possibly because i have so many young alters, maybe. but know youre dfinitely not alone.

Thank you both for your reply. I am glad to hear it am not the only one that feels like this. Seems strange, but so far the strange stuff has been understood by others around here.

Appreciate the relief

I have always felt young and unable to cope, but now I have "older" selves that help me out. My nephew even told me he loves how I am like a kid. I love to play and sruff. Everyone has an inner child or children, but I think with us (people with DID) it's a little more exreme.

I can understand what you are feeling. When I get very distressed I can feel and appear very childlike... I have talked w/my T about the many different ways and ages I present...It can be confusing as many of us who are Dxd w/ DID or any other DD usually carry more than on dx.. my T and I have spent some time trying to separate and identify this tangled ball of Dx yarn .. So in my case, If I am somewhat aware of this kind of state but may or may not depending on trigger/situation....we have attributed this to PTSD. If I present childlike in full amnesiac state (completely unaware)... Considered a DID part...unless the child identifies as legal identity and is "stuck" in a past timeline...then PTSD "flashback". In some ways I always feel childlike. The teen stuff...I have been told happens, but never to my awareness. Though, I have been informed of a few teenaged "alters" (I dislike that terminology...I prefer to use "parts")..these parts have nothing to do with my known time line or life..completely autonomous...therefore DID...w/ 1exception...I am unaware of this part when it presents, but have found notes left by her, which hand writing and time line match some of HS notes that I have kept.. but are not notes that I remember writing and do not match my teen age hand writing.. This is where it gets confusing to me at least.. I am also dxd w/ BPD. BPD does not present until teen/20's... I have a part that I have over my life been both aware and unaware of at different points in time. She has been identified as 1of 3known parts that have existed since memory serves(I am another one of these 3)... Her primary function was "protector"... but, she has also been identified as my BPD counterpart as well...being that I am unable of sexual intimacy and extremely uncomfortable with even familar/friendly physical contact..some of which I have been able to desensitize towards and am now OK with very close trusted ppl hugs and occasional kiss on cheek or forehead...but no more than that...so, once puberty hit my protector part took on role of sexual part as well..tho apparently there are other later presenting parts that are also capable of sexual acts as well, but when eventually mid 20's was dxd as BPD, she has "owned" the sexual, implusive, flighty, extroverted, angry etc..behaviors. .which are,associated w/ BPD. Some I have bits and pieces of memories of some not at all.. I display the dependent depressed, attached behaviours on the other side if the BPD coin...so this on teen PTSD "flashback" part identifies and presents as a younger version of her... IDK if that makes any sense?? I still struggle with a lot of this. I intellectually understand in theory...but still it makes my head spin.

Yes, I absolutely believe it is possible. I recently watched some podcasts by professionals and specialists who work with clients who have DID and/or experienced complex developmental trauma, and they discussed this very topic.

Trauma during the developmental years interrupts and disrupts 'normal' human development. That is a proven thing. Disrupted human development means that not all of the critical developmental tasks (that lead to 'normal' human development) were achieved. If not all critical developmental tasks are achieved that leads to specific areas where development is halted or stuck at an earlier level.
It stands to reason that if the critical developmental needs that enable normal development to take place were not met in infancy, then one would have parts of self / emotional aspects that felt 'stuck' at that developmental or emotional level.

Hey hi...I'm not one to get "set in my ways" because I'm always changing. My body is 48 but I'm only like 20, or 18.

Even the littles come out doing there thing, but what can you do? They just do. So I give up trying and crying about it because I have no control over it. It's my lot in life to be the weirdo. It sux, and I aint used to it still because I'm genius....but I still look stupid. It's a hard pill to swallow.

My littles love Toys R Us and fast burger food, or any baby toy in a doctors office. Yep

Thanks everybody. I haven't replied to ski many nice pays because right now I am so stuck in na very young moment and battling where I feel like my t finally got all of us believing and trusting him and trick is. Probably not on purpose like, but I can't handle it right now.

Thank you for your insites

Oh my, I couldn't even decipher my last post on there. Usually I catch more autocorrect errors then that. Sorry people.

I posted back on this because I have stated thinking more and more on what I wrote and realizing that if I am honest, I don't feel like I ever grew past preteen years in my head. I think about growing up and even remember myself watching older kids and trying to figure out how I was supposed to act and I think I just kept doing that into adulthood and am very good at it. But it feels like this skin or shell of an adult Ober a child that sometimes tames from 2-10 years old or so. Anybody know if that Could truly be possible? Could the mind actually work like that?

I'm sorry hon, I'm no expert, the mind is still a complex mystery and that question is probably not yet answerable. I've heard of people whose minds stays young due to a learning disability, chemistry, mental retardation, or t.b.i., but you come across as with all your mental faculties intact and with intelligence. I believe anything is possible when it comes to the brain, so I bet how you feel, you are most likely not alone. I hope that you find your answers, and if you do, please post your findings here.

That's what I'd so confusing alwayschangung... academically yes, I have a bachelor's degree and was a teacher before the ptsd panic attacks made it impossible to stay in the classroom (you have to ignore all the autocorrect grammar issues in my typing to believe this..lol)... but inside I feel like I learned how to'act' adultish but never went past early teens.

I have searched and searched the Internet with no luck and that's why I was sure going people around here might have sone idea. I actually told my t that I was going to ask him tomorrow about an important question but we will see if I can do it when there.

For a perspective that's not centered on mental health, you might want to check out this podcast: https://www.biglittlepodcast.com/201...g-out-stories/

Uuuumm, ok. Only listened to the first couple of minutes cause that's definitely NOT where I'm at. I do feel different ages at different times that I recognize from occasional infant and occasionally maybe preteenish.... but most often I just feel between 4-7 or so and am most often able to 'act appropriately' but sometimes I don't even have the ability to stop it from showing outside in my mannerism. I don't have cravings for bottles or diapers or things like that, I just all of a sudden feel different and even notice a change in my talk, voice and just how I feel. T has noticed it and even today said he saw it happen and said it was regression, but he doesn't realize that I feel that way most of the time and am just able to hide and control it most of the time.

Thanks for the thought though, but don't think that was quite my issue.

You're welcome.
If you are "older" the cravings for "bottles or nappies", most likely wouldn't be there. Some littles feel closer to different "ages", some are middles(feel closer to being a preteen), or even older. The person in the quote below, describes always feeling younger.

I bring it up, because regression is mention fairly often, but permanently feeling younger, isn't, and searching without the right keyterms can be difficult.

I wish you the best on your search.

I too don't feel my age. This body is 47 and I'm just a teen. Alters don't all age, some are stuck in time. It's awful being stuck in an old man, I just want to cry.

Alters don't have to take over, we can feel pressure, another presence, urges, or be influenced by them. Whose to say that you aren't an alter to the body? PTSD has dissociative symptoms.

(Wishing I didn't relate )

Alwayschanging, you and I have exchanged many posts over the months since I stared trying to figure out what is going on in me and today I was trying to figure a way to better describe this to my t without saying I am almost always 4-6 years old but sometimes infant or teen because that didn't seem honest either because I'm NOT those things but sure feel like it. I then realized what it really seems like and it is much like you just said. The 'i' I speak and act with in the world feels like a shell that learned how to show social appropriateness regardless of who or how old I feel inside. I just realized that it has always been that way and that I don't know that I ever had a real self that seemed to be who I am or was. Wow, that sounded crazy but the closest to right I have been able to describe it with. I realized that the only thing I can relate at an adult age is the visual flashbacks of a couple things that happened in my adult years and those are only images and experiences and I don't feel adult even in those images. It's like I learned how to present as the years grew, but inside I just keep changing from very young to teen and multiple address and things in-between, and even seem to have different attitudes and feelings that are about the same age. Even my terrors and flashbacks change as my inside change but I seem to control the shell to the world about 90% of the time so nobody ever knows what's going on. I am thinking as I am typing that there are really truly different me's in here and it has just always been that way and I didn't realize how things really weren't right until I am starting to not keep the shell together in therapy and these young things are showing through. I wish I knew how to understand the difference between regression as t has said he is seeing and these 'things' all being separate.

Sorry for the ramble, my brain seemed to realize more as I was typing. I wish I could explain this clearly to t and see what he thinks but i always start losing control of the shell and the young stuff starts taking over and I can't explain worth crude.

Thanks for listening and if you or anyone else has insight or thoughts, I am ALL EARS!

Could you be so kind to explain a little what makes sense to you? I am sure trying to understand what is wrong in me and would sure appreciate other perspectives of their own lives to see what I do or don't connect with.

I understand though if you don't want to put yourself out there, just and only if you do it anyway

Hi. I don't know about all that, but I'm a multiple. A multiple knows that they are a multiple. Multiplicity is a spectrum....nobody's system is the same. Some are more amnesiac while others are more blur like.

Labels don't matter....you are or you aren't. There are no meds really for any of it- just therapy.

Us parts are dictated by triggers, or some has chose to hide where Others are just to feel protected- who knows...that's the therapist's job.

_____________________

Wow, I don't know what happened, but-

Please let her read your posts? Best of wishes.

I'm sorry

Please....you can be a multiple too but in stealth?

Only your T can help you discover this. In my case it's a sledge hammer! Lol

Maybe this can help?

https://di.org.au/about-multiplicity/

Mind you, it's Australian, but it's still useful info.

Thank you again. I did read it and it was helpfully clarifying but I am still just so confused because I don't seem to have anywhere I fit. I can tell it's not just change in emotional state but that was the first thing I noticed note that I realize more but I do see where I have for this stuff all my life. When the pay that seems to be here the most (around 5 or 6) I am constantly terrified and go to bed most nights feeling like s child all alone having to go to bed in a scary house with nobody home. I want to hide, cry and even do call out for help but nobodies there. When the older teen like is there, I can stay in bed all day long and space out for hours but the terror and fear isn't the same as the young times, more pain and hopelessness (more desire to die then also). Then there are times that things are different and I have overwhelming urges to purge when I eat when I don't other times,,, other times I me physical pain to over ride the emotional pain and use pain and other times I have no desire for pain. I just feel like a big basket full of heads with different wants and feelings that seem to swim in and put at different times and stay for completely random amounts of time, but I know is still kind of me the entire time just like completely different me's at the same time. I just can't find anywhere I fit to make sense of myself.
For about 5 days the older teen feerlingb wad there and I stated in need about 20 hours each day and just dissociated away for hours at a time (i felt depressed but less fear and terror), then a couple days ago the younger 5ish has come back and the night terrors and constant fear are back. I even feel my body moving like I'm younger (rubbing my eyes with my fists like a kid and taking to myself like one )... but the craziest thing is, if other people come around me, I seem to be able to make myself control my voice she stop myself from some of the actions, it just takes work to keep it hidden.

I don't know, still confused but sure appreciate your attempt to help provide insight. Thank to so very much.

I really just want to say hon....even in the world of multiplicity....nobodies system is ever the same. Everyone has a different life, so it's never the same. The basic root causes are...but it grows into it's own animal. Good luck with your search. I found just accepting it for what it is was so much easier than fighting it...trying to prove that I wasn't even though it's overwhelmingly obvious.

In this day and age....there are no new psychological deviation....yet.

I hope that you find your peace. Luv.