I've read quite a few stories here at BigCloset about people who feel like children inside, and who (I assume) feel that their adult bodies are wrong for them, who become kids with the help of benevolent witches, either as a temporary vacation from adult life, or permanently. The Little Kid's Camp stories for example. Some of these tales I like. Who wouldn't want to live in a world that has unicorns in it? And the adventures are usually fun (The young woman spying on the witches, not trusting what they're up to, and getting caught. Or the nasty old biddy---a real piece of work for all appearances---being rehabilitated as the little boy she'd always needed to be). And the kids are........Well, kids are cute.

But I can't say these stories really speak to a longing in my soul, the way they obviously do for others. Unless this is something I have been totally repressing. And it's possible, it wouldn't be the first time I've been struck by a realization of this magnitude. By this of course I'm referring to my Gender Identity Dilemna ("disorder" sounds too clinical), this all-too hairy body with the wrong sorts of accoutrements that I find my lovely self stuck in; An experience that I imagine brings me closer to being able to understand "Age Dysphoria" than the gender-complacent majority. But not totally understanding it.

I assume it's the same sort of thing as GID, only about age (and not an old broad's desire to be 21 again just to be sexier or add years to her life) and about body size (and not for the sake of looking good in something slinky, or wanting to be relatively powerless in the hands of one's beau...); And also, I'm going out on a limb here, correct me if I'm wrong......there seems to be some appeal in being pre-sexual; which I react to with the same bafflement that a typical male experiences when confronted with the notion of someone like me wanting to shed their teste-monials to manhood. Only without the same visceral dread and sense of indignation they seem to bring to matters of male and female. Kid-hood doesn't seem like a WRONG thing to want to me, only unfamiliar to my own sense of self...

I can have a blast being a little kid---totally grokking being 7 or 8---for about twelve minutes, and then I get bored and want to go read essays and comments and arguments about writing technique and rules and stuff. I can get into it much longer when I am hanging out with pets, chasing the dog to one end of the house and then fleeing in pretend panic while she chases me, and then rearing up so that I'M the chaser in this pointless game. It's giggly good fun, I'm good for about an hour there, tops.

I seem to recall that even as a kid I wasn't much of a kid. More like the somber, suit-wearing Barry Gordon in that offbeat 1960's comedy 1000 CLOWNS, if you ever saw that...

I may actually be more of a child nowadays. Some aspect of my personality are childlike* and rather girlish, certain toys and cute cartoon characters really appeal to me (along the bottom my flatscreen here I've stuck this adorable little plastic blue fairy that I got out of the gumball machines at the front of the supermarket, a more sensible use of my pocket change than the slot machines, who I like to pretend participates in and helps my writing, sprinkling it with pixie dust or whatever), or the happy shapes and primary colors of an Alexander Calder mobile. But these aspects seem integrated into my personality, not like there is this other, realer person inside me who feels oppressed by the age that I present to the world...

So what this whole blog is about here, is a request. I would very much like to hear from someone who experiences this Age Dysphoria first-hand. I would love to read an account of it, an essay of whatever length posted hereabouts, about what it feels like, what it means about you and your place in the world.

If you're COMFORTABLE doing this, that is. I imagine such a coming out could be scary, most of us here have had experiences with judgement of and hostility to who we are. But hopefully you can tell from what I'm saying that I am not going to judge whatever you have to say about this aspect of yourself. And I bet very few others here would either.

I just want to understand this better, to have another piece in the big puzzle of life. If not with the perfect understanding of someone who lives it, then better than I do now...

Love, and thank you for letting me be myself...
Laika.

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* Note that I said child-like. Childish doesn't count, a lot of adults are childish. In popular usage it usually just means being a jerk. We've ALL done that.