I have been thinking about this lately, and it obviously often comes up when my mind wanders or I engage with things in life, but basically: I feel a deep... Negative Feeling(?) when I think about childish things.
It's the most vague statement ever so let me try to explain it.
The feeling is like a deep dread, depression, fear, pity, or something else along that through-line. It happens when I imagine something to do with "child-like wonder" or childish activites.
I've discussed it with my Therapist, but, well, we've been preoccupied with other more important things first and haven't really explored it (and it might be helped by other symptoms of my PTSD) but honestly it does bother me a lot. I like cute things. I like children. I like childish things. But when I think about the concept, the manifestation of a child being a child, my heart hurts and I fear it. I want to cry. I am filled with fear. Part of me also imagines an adult acting like a child and I am repulsed somehow, like a magnet. Yet still I am always drawn to these instances.
For example, what sparked this thought now to be brought to the forum is that I was trying to sleep and imagined a scenario. There is a child, wanting to play and talk about childish things. An adult is unable to parse the child and wishes to talk about high-concept adult things. The child merely continues on, as a young kid would, wanting to talk about a cartoon or play with dolls. Imagine if you would a four-panel comic made for humor about the disconnect of adults and children, but it plays in my mind as if it were a bad omen.
I think there's a lot to it. I think I fear breaking down into something people would be repulsed by. I don't do it anymore, but I do recall crying myself to sleep and imagining myself as a helpless young baby, desperately wanting a powerful figure to save me. I have not felt that need in a while, but these thoughts that come into my mind do distress me in a way that's similar. Another aspect is I fear the loss of intelligence, maybe autonomy? I have a lot of background experiences that give me fear of disability, dependency, etc. due to witnessing horribly sad scenarios in my life. Maybe I associate some things I do enjoy with some sort of stereotype, and my body is just unable to connect.
I would like to be more myself, which I think is a combination of cute and vulnerable but also with a love of power and intensity. It almost feels like that latter half has been present throughout my life and refuses to relent a bit. I want to be cutesy and romantic with my partner while wearing my mallgoth outfits! I want to hug a cute Sanrio mascot at the mall with all the other twenty-somethings and not disassociate, crying in the car on the way home because I was not present.
This was a real mind-vomit of words, but I hope maybe it resonates or you have advice?
I suppose my question or discussion topic is: does this sound familiar to you? Do you know anything or have theories about what this could be reflecting?