Originally posted : 19 Aug, 2026
I'm writing this after coming home from my psychologist. We were talking about 're-parenting', aka having conversations with your younger self in your mind and providing to your younger self what they were deprived of.
As a kid, I had to grow up fast. My mother did, too, so it was only natural that the cycle continue. However, this made me feel like I couldn't enjoy other things kids did. I felt old before my life had even begun.
Nowadays, I've been reversing this. As a fresh 18 year old, I still sleep with plush toys, listen to the music that made me happy as a kid, play games, and watch all my childhood favourite movies that I felt guilty about enjoying. For too long, I felt that I couldn't enjoy these things, and that I was strange for wanting to embrace my inner child, however, through the internet, I've discovered a whole bunch of people who feel similarly to me. The term is 'age regressors' but I've never felt as if it suited me. I don't view my moments of looking after my inner child as 'regressing', but rather 'accepting' a natural part of me. I don't feel like I'm going back to my childhood, but rather re-experiencing parts of my childhood without guilt. I guess it's all the same difference, though.
For me, I'm either being as responsible of an adult as I can, or I'm completely lost and afraid, especially in scary situations. When my fear and uncertainty kicks in, I don't experience it as 'regression', but rather becoming my own parent and allowing myself to feel scared. I guess it's true when they say there are two wolves inside of you, but for me it's not good and evil, but rather the hardened adult part of me that wants to be isolated and will bite and scratch to protect myself, and the younger part of me that is still soft. We take turns taking care of each other. My adult side looks after my inner child through being able to enjoy things like a kid, and my inner child takes over when my adult brain is too tired to handle things anymore. This is usually when I end up crying.
Despite me talking about my two sides as if they are different people, they are still intertwined and share bits and pieces of each other. I guess that's why I don't view it as 'regression', because I'm not becoming a kid again but rather accepting what the kid version of myself would have wanted. If that makes any sense at all. I don't know, there isn't the right words in English that can properly describe what goes on in my brain. I don't even fully understand it myself.
All that to say, just be kind to yourself. Bring a stuffed toy out in public. Watch things that made you happy as a kid. Let yourself cry. Take care of the part of you that's still young. Your body can grow old, but that doesn't mean every other part of you has to age with it.
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hnm.. i never actually thought this was a psychological thing. i always thought it was something people made up. that's actually pretty interesting. i've never fully grasped your "kid self", but i can understand being able to indulge in the things you weren't able to do as a kid. is that nurturing the younger part of yourself that resides within you? i think it's pretty normal for adults to be into "childish" things. especially in this generation where people get shamed for doing things their age because everyone wants to, or is forced to grow up and mature at the same level that they do.
many parents say that once someone is an adult, they get to do whatever they want, so all those repressed ideas and hobbies that they weren't able to do just blow up. even when they're expected to be serious and mature now, i think sometimes that's allowed to be broken. i initially remember talking about being treated like a baby once in a while. of course growing up doesn't mean that we abandon all of our responsibilities. but it's nice to be catered like a child every once in a while, especially by someone else in my opinion. we only get to experience that thing twice. when you're a toddler, and when you're elderly. i have a grandmother in hawaii who likes to take care of me and talk to me as if i'm still a kid. (not babying in a sense where people treat you as if you don't have any rational thinking, of course)! i think it's also another way of nurturing the younger self, perhaps? letting yourself relax :)
i agree!! its nice to just be taken care of every once in a while.
by GHOST; ; Report