Stepping out as the really real me for real

Well we are back after being away from midday Friday last dealing with things that weren't done online like my Tumblr, blogs, the UR and EB Forums and real life things from the likes of the NHS, gaps in shopping with not being out last Wednesday and the like.

Most of the stuff about being away is on the main littles blog as that's really what it's about, totally non sexual fun more like a summer camp for legal adults which for strange types on Mumsnet is what its been always about.

Anyway for me it was within those terms a more frilly affair  with wearing white patterned long socks with frilly tops, going with more frilled underwear and nightdress, part in many ways of the changes we've been going through over recent months but all from a non sexual, fetish free direction.

The kind of look I'd of gone with in my early teens.

The Hello Kitty socks going with them even as in this picture with a sweatshirt and skort.

Jigsaws were done like this Mr Men one, a more child-like one cos as I said we're playing as if we're at summer camp with friends.

I felt great letting this mixture of little and sissy sides together in simple way, living in the moment being more the the full me rather than trying to fit in to someone elses idea of what this is all about.

Result!

Summer playtime

As you may of gathered I was going to be away for a few days this weekend which was a part the reason for posts being a tadge rushed.

 
But as ever and increasingly more so, I had do everything like pack everything I was going to take away with me, sort out transportation and remember to take some with me a biscuit  as I'd be travelling across midday with two friends.

This tends to be easier than sorting train connections and the almost inevitable issues these days of cancellations and delays due to weather, industrial action or no driver turning up.

Seasoned readers of certain forums will know, the last few weeks haven't been good with me with family health worries not least dads cancer, diabetes and related complications so a large part of being away was to get away from that and play more.

We've been finishing a few bits of collections off such as my Blue Peter annuals most going back to when I was younger and our television wasn't colour.

There will a more frilled mode of dress going on as you all know really that's me but in a relatively subtle more Little way given the setting - it always makes sense to "Read the room" - and keep within the events expectations.

I not usually much for short sleeves especially dresses as that's one area where body image connected dysphoria is strong in me (not feeling comfortable in your skin is so not funny) but thought this was a good setting with people to try it.

Plus it's so it's so middle/little and that above all was where I wanted, nay needed right noe.

* Picture NOT brought to you Associated Rediffusion but as I has no smart phone and selfie stick (dangerous given my computer usage issues) this is as close as you're gonna get AND see, I is for real.

A message from the Plushies II

Been a bit busy tidying up this week removing magazines that soon build up and the likes and  I thought I'd post about something that is troubling me.

 One group appears to have a "one set of rules for some and another for all else" running through who can be in a private group on a popular messaging site, the way people can know about any group activities - only seeing the information WHEN you've been added to the list so you never know to even register an interest before and not even getting back to your messages.

Ideas for a back up channel if one long running LG site has issues using the same provider are just ignored without comment even though they know the old Yahoo system had ceased working a while back and there is no list on site of Moderators so if anyone has a concern they can raise directly.

 

 Time to just cuddle your plushies while this carry on continues.

You and the week

Well the tidying up this term continues in The Dorm which I hope you all appreciate while obviously we need to continue with new entries that follow that aim  which are really rooted in now.

Being away this weekend was great, managed against the odds to walk rather more taking my time at it than I had since being struck down with covid a few years ago that affected my breathing noticeably apart from brain fog and lethargy, taking in the sea air.

My world is and always has been a bit different, like how many people do you know who are legally adults that have dollies on their armchairs and teddies on benches in the front room and yesterday I spent the day in pink and white short skirt with white tights on?

Or who else would see seeing the White Rabbit  and buying coconut ice as being a highlight, just loving cute tasty candy?
 

It's not as if the other things didn't make an impact, like Miss Kitty, I found punk rock but it brought itself into that world rather than moving me along beyond it so the world in minds eye is different than my peers.

Growing Up? Well that was rather less of a space ship booster rocket take off into new unexplored space as a widening of the current space even if magazines like this would of been more what I would of wished for as much as the loss of so much of the children's comics over the last few decades is sad when fun got replaced by commercializing Tv, toy and movie ties with plastic tat.

Web events today are a thing, you buy access tickets and take part in interactive sessions even if real life conventions still exist although sadly I missed this one some nine years ago

Enid

Something that goes back a few years that seems apt.

What happens to unwanted or lost pushies?

That's a very good question to ask as it's really sad to think something that still has that ability to played with, loved and hugged is going wanting or even just binned.

Well, one answer to that arrived on Wednesday, when Mommy brought me Enid back from the Cheshire show, just up the road in Tatton as a thank you gift for being good and looking after everything while she was out..

Cleaned up, they are put up for adoption where you can be new proud owner and you get a certificate to prove it.

That way the plushie gets a new life and you get a new one to have fun with saving it from a sad end.

In the week that leads up to the anniversary of Mommy's death it seems appropriate to recall such moments and what they meant to you.

Fall 2023

It won't be that long before the clocks go back, the last weekend in this month if I remember it right and no matter where you are in the UK, something is happening all around you that's pretty magical.

Playtime for me involves time out of doors, no not sitting in the garden with the Chromebook, actually going a bit further and without the all pervasive internet, walking, throwing sticks in the woods and fields here.

It's the fall and the more your outside the more you'll see although for many years I loved observing it on the inter-urban commute to work through the bus windows, wherever I work if possible I'd go into parks and gardens not just for peace and quiet but to watch it all change.

Depending on the species, the rate of which the leaves change colour and even fall off varies which used to intrigue me as a child making my way to Church around harvest time where the pavements glistened in the low sun carpeted by leaves.

Sometimes things get a bit nutty as around now, you'll see the squirrels about gathering nuts to bury them and below it appears they've arranged everything that naturally fell making a  beautiful natural collage 

It's great to be out, eyes peeled to everything happening in nature.

A weekend away

I'm just starting on writing this, an account of sorts of how this last weekend went recovering from the excitement as well as the heat of the last few weeks

For me, time spent in little/middle headspace is time well spent simply for being me with this weekends adventure beginning with catching  the local taxi to our principal rail station.

That made sense as I had some time to kill as the bus and trains don't quite tie in so well so I though I might as well check the destination boards, confirm which platform the train is due in and get there.

My train came in five minutes late which London Northwestern don't usually but as this was the result of a Manchester train being late after a super rapid platform change to manage with my case.

Having arrived I changed into my grey pinafore dress and had a mini code and chips as it was a little late for cooking from a quality local fish and chip shop which was scrumptious.

Sunday was the day of the Ikklespace picnic as organized by the great fantastic Sammy which generally involves a lot of bring various food  such as sandwiches, pies, cake and sausage rolls together with soft drinks to a well known view in South East England to share between ourselves and teddy bears.

We flew colourful kites competing with some massive model airplanes or venue users had, ran around blowing bubbles the size of clouds on the thermals, something I just loved, building massive plushie piles sometimes over people plus one person played an acoustic guitar.

The weather was mild with a mixture of sunshine and odd cloud which meant some did get an ice cream

Just after five as people were for departing we made our way back, dropping of one of our party at their flat before heading back to South Staffordshire where we had a sausage roll and cup of tie before bed.

I was up about a quarter of eight Monday morning to catch the nine fifty-three train to my local rail station which was delayed due to incidents by a half hour before taking a taxi back home for around eleven forty in the morning.

Changed plans

Things for early next month were going to be different in that what had been an institution in the last decade that had been put on hold for personal reasons - the Ikklescape Picnic in the Home Counties - after 2017 were to resume and indeed I had expressed the view I was very much looking forward to attending.

Sundays on the railway are always a funny thing going back to and in part the reason to the days where anything beyond Monday thru Friday was seen as irregular and so people on the railways were never "rostered" just paid more to work on days off even if it was a fairly popular day for travel.

This tends to mean there are less trains running and often starting later plus engineering work tends to be scheduled just to add chaos so a train is replaced with a bus which is often slower.

Seemingly the train I was to have caught while listed in the current timetable of one operator had been changed by another after publication so rather than starting in Manchester, going to Crewe and then on towards Birmingham now went straight from Manchester, Stockport without stopping at until Stafford missing this area out completely.

Given we needed to at this event for around 1 pm and it was three hours drive just north of Birmingham, I needed to be there by no later than 10 and next train would of got their just before 11 which was far too late.

Thus I had to cancel my plans for it as there was no way an overnight stay on the Saturday would fit with someone else's arrangements.

Future arrivals

I don't know if we'll ever see this outside but there is always something approaching the feel of camaraderie whenever we are together having fun together and yes if you hadn't worked it out I do look rather more like the girl of far left even if I'd happily lose a couple of inches in height.

You see unless you have actually spent time as a little or middle then as much as I'm of fan of online groups and clubs you are missing that face to face interaction with other age regressors being in effect children together playing with the spontaneity that brings, recreating that time and space when that was all that mattered.

Everybody's 'day' is bound to be different, we played with differing things, watch different things on tv and with the exception of "Smartphone culture", the thing is they have more in common with each other than you might think.

 

That means however 'old' in terms of birth certificate age  you might be you're all around the same level which makes sense as childhood and from that childhood revisited is a space a person from a level of social, emotional, physical and intellectual development resides and that is how it is with me.

Being in with others is what I love the most and where god willing we'll be next year when this pandemic can be laid to rest.

Life (and why this blog is as it is)

After last week's past in present post, I felt like writing a bit more around what being this girl means and why it is this blog is the way it is.

Given this Covid thing we're going through has cut a hole through what normally would be happening around this part of the year, I feel it's a good idea to remind ourselves about it.

 I am somewhat more visual but in may respects this illustration sums a whole chunk of it up really well and in case you were curious some people can see "the music" in record grooves.

The first thing is we all dressed differently, showing that how we feel expressing our inner sense of being is different, I veer more toward the girl on the far left, others in this context might choose a party dress. It's all good!

We are all having fun, sharing chit-chat, sucking our Pop through straws. That sharing is what we do when at meets playing with each other and letting each other play individually with our dolls, stuffies and other toys. I am grateful my little/middle friends let me share things as it means a lot allowing us to build our friendships. 

There is music playing that we are sharing. It may be my home stereo component system is more technically 'better' than their phonograph, which I had a similar model when I was in my tweens but it is being used to share music, to enjoy it's playing so we have our records out.

That's the function of music in my life and there are 'places' I share it; it's not about the 'hifi', it's about the joy of listening to it which is why on this blog I do write about it, tossed in with the dolls, stuffies and other cute stuff.

There is also grown up supervision about keeping everything safe and ensuring we behave because it's easy for things to get out of hand and you mightn't see it and I sure don't!

The biggest thing in all of this is just innocuous fun!

What is a Girl?

I noticed more by accident the other week, something I talked about several years back was being discussed at a site with links back here so thought I'd write something about about it here a few years on.

Being a girl is...being how her feels in you, as it comes out of your own feelings as expressed by you in dress, interests and play.

In so far as being an adult little girl goes, it doesn't matter if you're in a relationship or not, if you have a sexual side in your life or the extent to which you are able to let this side of your life out at home or around your local area.

Being either transgendered or gender fluid/variant and of any and no sexuality does not make a  difference  to being and your ability to let the adult little girl you feel out so long as ...you feel Her in you.

There is no one model you have to confirm to.

You may prefer to dress more like a younger child or 'Baby' , a young child which may be dresses, dungerees or shorts or more Middlish looking Tween or young teen.

You might do more party or school type attire if that's you (I like sitting behind a desk in school attire doing exercises) depending on circumstances such as the ability to spend time with a few others.

You may have a Caregiver in your life. 

It really doesn't matter as little girl you is...You.

Some people do find their younger side may have a different gender presentation to their "Big" which may seem odd (and kinda threw me a few years back to be honest) but actually it's okay.

If that's you then please come presenting as that  Little Girl for the period - a little consistency during play helps - bring something with you and you know we'll share teddies, dollies and play even if your "Big" presents as male.

Those of us who aren't super frilly won't kill you if your presentation  goes out that way.
The only thing we aren't so keen on is people who take being a female, especially a little girl and project an overriding sexual side to it (We appreciate Adults often have a sexual side but that stay's in the bedroom and never at little girl playtime!).

It was my experiences elsewhere with "sissies" who tended to push a very full on sexual side linking femininity with subservience, ritual humiliation, who also by clearly linking being a girl as an insult, insulted our sense of being,  co-opting part of our identity for that whole "humiliated as a girl" thing rather than them being a girl if frankly they rather liked it even in short doses or enjoying their maleness if that was them, that troubled me.

Play and what we play with

 I'm feeling better this week so I thought I'd write something a little different than usual.

 Something I started noticing several years back when I first started buying my own stuffies and especially dolls was a difference between what some bought them for and what I did before getting involved around the world of littles.
One of things I found odd was what I later called the "collectors mentality" where people bought them in the original packaging and kept them permanently in that state, boxed up at best on shelf or otherwise in a storeroom.
To me they seemed to see them as objects that admittedly they liked  but the bais was clearly on maintaining that collectors item look and monetary value to the point they weren't handled and cherished even if they were intended for children who would play with them.
Personally, I buy my dolls and stuffies to play with although my porcelain ones are because of their delicateness are more handled than played with.
I take them out to sit by, hug whenever I feel the 'need' to hug or carry on in my hand around the house or wherever I am staying. I create stories featuring them which I then play with in real time together freely.
That's for me apart from those 'special dolls' they are my toys which as an adult child I play with in much the same way that I did as a child and as some saw me recently even gently rocking a pram with dollies.
It's what I get from playing with them that matters more to me than that whole collectors thing. 

Card games from the past

While I am recovering here from an infection and generally speaking not really up to doing terribly much, I was thinking back to some of the card games I used to play when I was younger usually with relatives.

That was a more a test of recall with a set of playing rules

Misfits was about sorting out the right parts to complete each character and then their were games like snap!
There have been themed versions, one of my favourites of which is this one:

 The Beano was the go to comic at the time, for some it still is, and so playing a game of misfits that featured the likes of the Bash Street Kids, Minnie The Minx - a heroine of mine - Dennis The Menace and his dog Gnasher was bound to go down well.

One could also play Happy Families as in this Victorian version
They all helped pass the time while having fun.

Reflections from littles camp Winter 2018

In some respects this is a follow up to littles camp report  that I blogged on the main blog on Monday as while that covered more of the activities and events of littles camp this entry is really more around my personal, emotional reflections on that period.
A good a start as any is to look at my emotions which as you all know have been all over the place with the permanent loss of one relative and sadly the living loss of uncle who is sleeping further and further into the Alzheimer's fog, struggling to recognize a soul.
In some ways at least it takes me back to how I was when I was Thirteen around the time my Grandpa died when I was sent around to keep an eye on him although in truth I felt way way out of my depth struggling even then look after myself never mind being expected to make (relatively) mature decisions when neither of us could understand each other but everybody else was going through the charade pretending this was okay.
I know, we all know, losing a close relative is a loss, and you do grieve for them but this memory is associated with feeling helpless, inadequate even and it's that which has been on my mind.
For me, being away was necessary because I needed to have mental and emotional space to process these thoughts and to do things that made me feel happy and whole again so just being focused more on play being away from the environment where all this hangs around cloud style was a must.
It also helped that those who I entrusted about what was happening were supportive, showing love and concern without smothering me so while being supported I could breathe while sharing and taking turns helped reconnect me as I am very prone to just shutting down when feeling overwhelmed emotionally.
One thing unexpected that happened was because Camp this time was more laid back with less structured activity a few of us did feel not withstanding it was Winter to venture out of doors so we actually went on longish nature trails.
I found just being away from things, switching off to all other than the natural sounds,sights and smells helped  as we walked talked about various things although it was the case I did lose my footing and had to pulled up as my foot landed in mud and started to go sliding requiring my camera and shoes to cleaned !
We also encountered dogwalkers who actually were not phazed by seeing me in a dress and three-quarter socks along their travels and indeed one complemented me on my looks as friends with permission stroked the dogs!
While thinking a bit about where you might go makes sense avoiding extreme presentations, sometimes we set the bar in terms of what can be accepted higher than many are prepared to accept us as ourselves.
While out I also did some photography which usually helps relax me.
One thing I did talk about with member of the group who also has brain damage was how we do things, the things we do appear on the surface to cope with that leads others to think we don't have the needs we actually do.
This is something I do find a problem not least in trying to shop where staff are trying to upsell to you and make offers that I'm in no position to deal with leaving me in suspended animation and others seeing me struggle asking if you're okay because I haven't just frozen but have gone mute. I'd sooner have an official card I can show so I can treated more like a minor at the counter as my capacity in these situations is very much sub adult and in that respect I need 'protection'.
When I'm away I'm always 'looked after' in their words "I always treat you more like a child" and apart from the odd verbal reminder I did behave myself and helped out making what I was to eat and doing chores such as setting the table or loading the car ready to go.
They are quite firm with me around that whole area of having to assume some responsibility and play an active if of necessity limited role which was a bit of culture shock at first but is helping me do a bit more and find some self discipline.
I found the time away did help me think past those issues that were on my mind, finding more joy in more fun child-like things which is in so many ways where I remain ever the adult but child while the walking helped with developing and maintaining better fitness not just physically but also mentally too.

Playing the game at Jo's

Recently when I posted my last entry I kind of noticed two new followers, something that doesn't happen so often so welcome to one of the longest running active middle/littles blogs on the interwebs.
The focus on the life lived and one in your own way you can make for yourself as that person is one of things that makes this blog what it is although naturally this blog is very much middle/little girl centred.
In other words it's not a fantasy, the blog of one who may dream of a life but to whom it always remains so but is grounded in reality.
Thus it's not just the things I like to play with such as my dollies nor is about just what I wear or would wish to but it includes the very things that were a part of it so I may mention events, events that did form a part of currency of actual childhood at that time such as changes of Leaders and Monarchs, major events that we all watch and talk about.
Those things were and are still a part of the glue to holds us together that we have feelings we share just as much as we did when we played games or otherwise interacted with one another.
No, the thing that's not here is stuff for Big People such as political discourse, sexual content, violence (unless it affected children) and so on.
On a typical schoolday, we often talked about the former like if some leader had changed or about sports personalities as we played sports although like with dancing  most of mine were disability sports and wheelchair ones at that  too so it's hardly surprising that today in my age regressed life that when playing games like at the Sports Day picture at the top of this entry I'd do that but leave the other stuff at the door and this blog is the same.
For me, age regression is just about being me and when I sit typing this that's where each and every entry is coming from.

Am I too old to play with toys?

It's bin an eventful week over here obviously as those of you who have seen the news since Tuesday afternoon will have seen as we're all affected by it in differing ways.
Today though I'm going to be talking about something that you might be going through or maybe it happened to you in your childhood that I think matters.
Most of us grew up with our parent(s) or a very close relative rather than say being with foster parents, in care or adopted and generally they oversaw how we grew up including the things we did or played with.
Every so often there was this talk about  the toys we had like if we still wanted them, could a sibling or cousin have them and sometimes they might of said something like "You no longer need Millie, Jo. You're a big grown up girl now and you don't play with dolls."
If you were really unlucky, you'd come home from school and just find your toys decimated and probing why would produce the answer "You're too big for them now so I took them away"   which tended to be what happened with mine. That sucks!
Actually they could well be wrong especially as it applies to younger teens and a few months back a girl wrote in to the American Girl dolls magazine with the following question to which they wrote this reply: 

This is actually pretty interesting and I have little doubt influenced by children's welfare 'experts' who see so much pressure on acting more sophisticated, in many ways trying too hard at being grown up, being too serious for our own good.
Writing this as someone who is legally an adult I like what they have to say about maturity a  lot which is really what we mean by  being grown up which is more about how we treat others and how we  run our lives. In a word, being responsible which we can struggle with and I won't lie to my younger readers that I haven't had this  too but that is all it is.
Growing up and even being Grown Up doesn't mean we should not enjoy play or doing something creative, indeed only this week gone, someone who isn't an age regressor like me just came out and said they were going to make a Lego model and did, showing pictures to our circle of plain adult  friends. I said life's too short not to do the things we enjoy and they agreed.
If you feel like it, then don't be afraid to especially if you are feeling stressed.

I posted this in part as a response to the young people, mainly French around this age group who were injured in Wednesday's tragic terrorist  incident in London, Great Britain who are in need of our love and support right now.

Recentring

It's the start of the morning here so I thought I'd  make a bit of a start on this weeks entry working through the various things on my mind.
I think the first thing to say is I feel more vulnerable emotionally today than I have for a good many years between the feelings brought out from the previous week, the never ending inter communal supremely childish discourse on Tumblr losing a couple of followers, having a remove and I'm blocking you for being in the "wrong" community as defined by them order and having our age regression  questioned by an exclusive group of ...age regressors!
Toss in the English FA youth soccer investigation into abuse by a man who lived but 100 yards away from me from whose face I can still recall with a shudder and you get the picture,eh?
I just feel very much in need of a hair rustling and a hug, just to know everything will be okay and in fact I'll just colour and play with my stuffies I think cos that'll help recentre me to a point I feel good rather like the "Restore" point on a Windows computer helps when the software don't work right you restore the operating system to a earlier point where it does!
That for me always was and is where age regression was at rather than anything really adult and why generally things had been running that much better for me over the last few years cos I worked more with what's right for me rather than performing an act of impersonating others and falling badly when the real life developmental issues plowed into reality, leaving me an emotional mess.
I may not be around some sites as much as had but I think this is really what I need right now.

On restoration

Restoration

Restoring the balance both at home with my parents and with other adults trying to get so a kind of natural order is there is very much what the last fifteen or so months of my life has been about, been given a proper place in those relationships, subject to their adult authority at all times.
When I look back at how things were at the start of this I can see how unsatisfactory the way I interaction at home and with other adults were, doing pretty much what I pleased no matter how they may of felt about or been effected by it.
I had a okay relationship with Mom and poor one with Dad and didn't really feel bonded to other adults at all so things did not run anything like smoothly for a lot of the time.
It wasn't that I was necessarily super obnoxious but I could not truthfully say I was exactly well behaved either having little sense of boundaries and parental and other adult guidance in my life.
It felt that I'd been been left without any guidance but being expected to know what to do when in fact I had no idea about how to behave.
That was when during Christmas 2014 when the external guidance started and as time went by other people followed through with everything changed although it took time.
This was when there now was a set of House Rules and similar rules for other adults brought into my life with very real consequences for any breach of those rule.
These included  being scolded, having my knickers taken down to be spanked or caned without fail and having to carry out any restitution straightaway.

Of course I didn’t become perfect overnight, but gradually, week by week, the new discipline code began to turn my behaviour and attitude around and as the adults recast as disciplinarians began to feel this wonderful sense of positive empowerment to act because they cared. Every time they took me over their lap I felt that at last I was receiving a way of providing me with the kind of positive guidance that I needed. I felt that they were giving me exactly what I needed, at exactly the right time in my life and I could see that I was absolutely thriving on this old-fashioned form of discipline.

It wasn't that it was all discipline, because it did include face to face discussions about my behaviour and conduct and what my many limitations being allowed for, I could and should be expected to do better together with rewards so it was recognized when I did really well to help me form a sense, a belief, in my ability to do the right thing .

This restoration  went hand in hand with having me dress more as that adult child often in her uniform as a learned to accept and co-operate with adult authority  I resembled their child subject to their adult authority with that uniform signifying my acceptance  of their rules and the spanking that I subject to in it.

Spanking I would say in my experience is an excellent form of discipline for girls who like me are over 18 and live at home or with adults to help learn how to conduct ourselves and adopt good personal habits

Middle bedrooms

A big chunk of the other blog is more around the life of a Middle while this looks at the other aspects of being a middle with a littleside but given the connectedness a post around it is justified.
The bedroom of a Middle I feel should be as close to that of a Tween or younger teen as possible not necessarily tradition in it's furnishings but true to original intent of being her place of rest and sleep, away from the buzz of daytime.
It should be very much an expression of her girlish innocence with cute simple bedding with matching curtains and lightshades with just what she needs to get her beauty sleep in and nothing more being free from techo attractions calling her as she lies in bed.
There will be shelving for her plushies, teddies and dollies that are not in her bed or positioned on her chair as well as her books with a small rack for current comics that she reads by herself with a small angle right.
One thing there will not be is a place for her cellphone or netbook to be resting because you will have her hand them over to you as her Caregiver before she goes to bed and be given then once she is up because you are responsible for her as her privilege.
You may restrict other technology such as audio or tv stuff  preferring her to share with others and view with you to help keep a close shared bond alive rather than have retreat to a inner world avoiding conversation.
There will be a wardrobe with enough space to hang her clothes including her uniform properly on hangers with space for shoes and slippers and draws for her underwear in addition to the cute nightdresses and pj's you'll put her in like the Middle with little side she is.
The overall feel will be light and airy with lots of space to twirl around in and walk along with ease across the whole room.
You will have rules about keep it tidy being prepared to work with her but you will spank her bottom firmly in the room when she fails too without good reason so she learns the importance in doing this and following the rules.

Reflections on past incidents

This week I've been reminded of some of the distance I've travelled following the start of this blog and a number of events in my life that were very traumatic for me following my second best friends recent emotional upset following a number of events one of which centred around being filmed without permission in a small group and the other feeling overwhelmed by people demand their services for free just cos she's popular.
Much of that reminding came through recall of the incidents in trying to explain something however imperfectly about what I learned from them that helped me move past that may be of some use or comfort that even thinking about upset me.
Some of my thoughts and my problems around those events were that I never really processed them emotionally so much as attempted to stick them in the (emotional) trash can so they were hanging around and finding myself by accident processing them this week helped in drawing a line under what had happened.
I saw a site that had go in for some really heavyweight verbal abuse and liable at that time have people post on it this week that actually they never had an issue with me and some saying they didn't understand why it had all started in the first place when at the time it had left me feeling very frightened, vulnerable and even wanting to take my life.
I remembered all too well the nervous breakdown from 2006/7 when I had a very important community role with financial and other responsibilities where it was I was being left with essential tasks others with greater abilities  and non of my 'adult' functioning problems while willing left me alone to deal with them and a public who expected way too much.
That was the moment I had to ungrow up and acknowledge a painful truth, that the era of pretend and masking needed to stop because functionally I was at the level and abilities of a child and simply could not cope with the sort of adult responsibilities such roles expected of me.
As  one employed person of said organization whose name I won't mention on the internet said "I really had to shield and protect her (me) from what she was expected to do and cope  with".
I left them with a excellent testimonial thanks to that person for what I had managed to do and started to work on rebuilding the links to my Inner Child and in time letting her out, feeling more at ease of being the chronological adult who is child in all other respects with same needs and interests.
I moved forward in my life by embracing and moving back to the past - my past and being the child I am.