SirNapsALot said:
Perhaps I'm alone in this, but one thing I've noticed is that my little side experiences emotions in a very different way to how I do as an adult. In my adult life, most of my emotions are quite complex and deep-seated, but they also feel quite measured and I'm generally able to appear level-headed, even if I'm especially excited or even upset about something.
However, as a little, I have absolutely no Poker Face. As Mama Snaps can attest to, if I'm tired or worried in little mode, I appear exactly that, and have no instinct or even ability to hide the emotion. It's the same if I'm excited or happy. My little's emotions also seem to be bold and simple - I'm gloriously happy because I have my Baby Stella with me, or I'm extremely sad because I'm struggling to clip the poppers on my onesie together.
Can anyone else relate to this? I know obviously we think and feel different things in Little headspace to during our adult time, but I'd say my cognitive process and reactions are way different when I'm regressed, up to the point where I feel like I'm operating a completely different brain to the one I have most of the time!
I know
exactly what you mean. I've always had a... "mild" (is that the right word?) "little" side since I was er... little.
I never experienced any obviously major "psychological trauma" as a kid, but, for some reason I was always a bit of an anxious outside over-achiever/perfectionist/introverted/worrier...
I never realised at the time, but looking back my parents were quite anxious people. We were a very close, loving family... but no one ever faced up to any negative emotion. We just grinned and... To speak of any negativity was completely taboo. I didn't even realised that the warm, loving, altruistic parents I (still) idolise had, in some way, brought me up to suppress negative emotions.
My therapist introduced me to the concept of psychological "splitting". It's hard to explain in a nutshell, but essentially it's where some thoughts are suppressed and "split" into a black-and-white compartmentalisation of emotion. So, for me (with anxious parents who became distressed if I showed any negative emotions), I realised that I needed to be calm, calculated and very reserved in my behaviour. I split off my repertoire of natural emotions into "acceptable" (adult) and "unacceptable" (childish), and locked the childish ones away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
As a result, I became very "mature" for my age. I was used to talking with adults on their level, and behaving with the same degree of politeness and civility in social situations as they did. When I started school, I would play games with the dinner ladies and teachers at playtime more often than I played with other kids... But if ever we were playing "house", I
always wanted to be the baby! :sweatdrop:
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that, from a very early age, I learned not only what was (and wasn't) considered acceptable behaviour (according to my parents), but also what constituted acceptable emotions. I didn't feel like I was permitted to even admit to having negative emotions. I assumed this was just "normal" -- how everyone had to be.
Despite being able to vaguely articulate it, my beliefs about showing (or recognising, or thinking about) emotions are still deeply entrenched in my behaviour. I still feel the need to split the "innocent", lost wholeness of childhood from the illusory façade of the perfectly-in-control adult that I was expected to be (even as a child).
So... I have the ability to be professional; cool, calm and collected (adult) on the outside... But those suppressed emotions have to come out somehow... and maybe being AB/DL is just my way of coping with it. In "little mode", I give myself the permission (which I never had as a child) to put down my guard; to lose my poker-face, and just experience life purely, sincerely and honestly.
Arietta said:
Lots of times when I'm getting into that specific Little space, I feel like not only am I no longer even internally holding back any emotional reaction.. but I'm no longer holding back much of anything! I crave that feeling of truly being... of turning off all the walls in my brain and reaching that point to where I'm just me.
:smile: I so get that! For me, it's the opportunity to tear down the psychological "splitting"; the "Berlin Wall" that divides emotions into "okay" and "not okay in public".
These are some great articles about dissociation... and (interestingly) how splitting is an important and natural part in the development of children's minds as they accumulate new knowledge and have to rebuild their conceptual model of reality to ensure logical coherency.
http://www.hiddenhurt.co.uk/dissociation.html
http://www.acat.me.uk/reformulation.php?issue_id=15&article_id=116
Arietta said:
EDIT: I wanted to um.. clarify that I'm really not the type to separate my kid self and my adult self, I don't really do the "sides" thing. I just.. sometimes you kinda get bogged down with the feeling of being an adult, and all your inhibitions, worries, and all.. and sometimes really just thinking about who I want to be, my inner heart, and just really get in that... [Regression is] just a time where I'm letting all this out and not caring who sees.
I totally get that. I've always been confused as to where I lay on the AB-DL spectrum, as it were, because this is almost entirely an "emotional" thing for me as opposed to a sexual fetish. But, I don't really do the role-playing, dressing up, using-anything-babyish-other-than-a-diaper thing either. My "little side" isn't an alter-ego... I try hard to integrate my childish/emotional/idealist thoughts with my adult/rational/nihilistic ones.
But I don't care about labels, or what my own brand of AB/DL/Littleness is called... In the end, as you rightly say, it's all about finding yourself and recognising your "inner heart" and accepting every emotion spontaneously, without the anticipatory fear that you might be breaking some adult social taboo. (
*Tiny breaks into song*: "
I am what I aaam, and what I am needs no excuseees!")
If you've read this this far (anyone? seriously? let me shake your hand!), you HAVE to read this wonderful blog on dissociation and regression:
https://handstitchedfamily.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/dissociation-and-regression/