Welcome to Found in the Berry Patch!
A Tale Against Time
You're picking Mccoun apples at an orchard. They're too high to reach, so your father hoists you into the air. You twist one off the tree.
You're swimming at the local pond. You and your friend are sea dragons, and you must travel to the far kingdom of the fountain to deliver eggs. You dive back under the water.
In the living room, you and your sister turned the upholstered chairs into the walls of a castle. A blanket forms the ceiling, and stuffies guard the door. You get upwhen your parents call for dinner.
Your shoes sparkle on each step. Then they are velcro. Then they are laced sneakers, New Balance that your mother chose. You walk to work.
One day, you're not apple-picking. You're not squirting pool noodles in a battle. Time has passed. You're 6'3", an adult man, and stuffed in a cubicle. Or you're nodding to a customer screaming that they ordered half pepperoni and half mushroom. One day, we're all forced to Grow Up, to commit to a career that shall bring us happiness and money until our days are spent. Eventually, oh yes, eventually, we retire, returning to the beaches of our youth, finally kicking off those sandles.
Challenging the Path
Some of us are not able to wait, nor is that what we want. Some of us need our stuffed cat Mittens to leave the house. Some of us cry on day three of the same cubicle in a row. Some of us cannot submit into the mask of adulthood.
This is age dysphoria. When you wish you were younger, or that you feel know that you should be younger, yet your body decided to age anyways, that's age dysphoria.¹ Like with gender dysphoria, your identity differs from how your body developed. Your physical body does not equal who you ought to be.
For me, it's this great, great desire to be a kid. I want to be under 4 feet tall. I want to be a child, to be seen as a little little girl. While my feelings are on the younger side—many with age dysphoria feel like teenagers—it's this same incompatibility. Our identity is younger than the body, and we wish we could physically regress permanently.
From this point onward, I will refer to people younger than 18 as chronological children, and those older as chronological adults. This language is helpful, because the difference between myself and chronological children of course exist, as much as I hate to admit it. I have far more intellectual capabilities thanks to the adult-developed sections of my brain. And in this current body, I'm much physically stronger. But calling myself an adult is extremely dysphoric for me. So I only refer to myself as a chronological adult. I'm a kid. I know that.
Clearing up Some Questions
Yes, we know we are physically adults. Yes, we know we have adult intellectual capabilities, at least if one is not intellectually-disabled. Yes, we know there are predators out there who wish to hurt chronological children. Age dysphoria is not that.
No, we are not co-opting the language of trans people. Many of us like myself are transgender.
Yes, identifying as older than your age is also age dysphoria. It's believed to be less common, but during childhood, abused folks can often feel that way. They may have way over-functioned to protect themselves, or they may have wished to be adults so that their needs were taken seriously. Many will go on to feel younger than their age when older from the trauma, but some still may feel older than their chronological age forever.
Because my own experience is of craving to be younger, and because those are the communities I participate in, that side of age dysphoria is what I will focus on.
Age dysphoric people vary greatly what age they identify. Because I lean towards the much younger range (under 5), some of my posts may not be as relatable to those who feel more like a tween or teenager. But I still want to eventually post some broader research into age dysphoria that may appeal to all ages. :)
And So We Play
Welcome to Found in the Berry Patch. Here I will talk all about age dysphoria. I'll discuss the struggles of feeling like a little kid in a world that asks you to be productive. I'll explore the wider age-nonconformity communities, such as age regression and ABDL, and explore how they differ from (or are perhaps experiencing) age dysphoria. And I'll also journal about my own hopes and dreams and my own healing process as a childhood trauma survivor.
If this topic is new to you, thanks so much for reading. I know it can seem out there and totally against societal norms, but I believe age dysphoric will become more well-known over time. When I joined r/nevergrewup in 2023, it had 4,000 members. Now it's over 11,000. If you wish to read more about age dsyphoria before my next posts, check out this page.
I know that age dysphoria will be an official diagnosis in the DSM someday. I know this because I experience it, and so do so many others. I want to do my own small part in documenting what being age dysphoric is like in its early knowledge awareness. I also want a space to be unapologetically me. I think I've finally found that. Until next time,
Keep picking those berries~ 🫐🍓🍇
Footnotes
¹ I was inspired by the wording here