Can littles 'grow up'?

Just curious ...

we have one around 6 and one around 10. will they always stay that age? we haven't known about them long.

We're also not sure whether they are just kind of a memory fragment or a part that maybe capable of growing up or fronting in the future?

Sioux

they can
we have some who seem to get older as we work through certain problems with them. it seems to have something to do with maturing emotionally and cognitively.
other Littles have not gotten older, so it is not a given.
we have teens who aged tremendously within a short period of time. the body was drained for a while, it seems to take a lot of energy.
it is also normal for parts who aged to slide back to a younger age now and then for some time after the change.

That would depend on the system.
I've got one that's 12-13'ish and has NOT seemed to change that age since getting to that point. When I first hear about her, before I knew the others were alters and their lives were inner world, she was 6'ish... and "adopted". But I suspect that was to explain how/why she suddenly appeared inside (since the subconscious tries to rationalize what it can, however it can).

But when she got to about 12-13... nothing changed. All of my others, as far as I know, age normally, linearly, since about the time we got Alaska (outside) and into high school. In fact, they are "born" then inside, making them (at the time I "met" them) the age _I_ was when we got to AK (give or take).

IDK if that was b/c at that point we "stopped" being in danger and they "froze" or whatever caused it... but it did...

Aging is not a linear, you live a day you grow older, thing like outside. We've seen periods of aging and NOT aging, and at least one that seems NOT to age at all (maybe Satin & Charles, too- young adults basically... and that doesn't seem to change as others do). And some that did, then didn't, and then did again (Pixie, Angel, Kaleb, Kitten, and Katya are all great examples of that- the remember different ages, gaps between them, then not aging at all until they "tied their world to mine" - Pixie's wording for anchoring inside life to outside life before they truly understood what we all were).

There’s a book called Dear Little Ones by Jade Miller (you can buy it and there’s also a YouTube video of the author reading it). It talks about different choices that littles have about whether or not they grow up.

Gang, I love that book. Good suggestion.

ok thanks to everyone who answered. I'll look up that video on youtube tomorrow.

Sioux

Hey Sioux,

I know I'm late to this but here's our 2 cents.

We think it's different for every system, and can be different for alters within a single system?

For us, we know they definitely can grow up, but in our system, they hafta want to?

Like, Arin went from a 6yo to being 18, overnight, cos she really wanted to grow up. It took 3 of us working inside with her to help her & share like info with her & stuff. And it took alot of energy, V2 was fronting & she ws like exhausted when it was happening.

After that, Arin grew a bit more over the next few weeks, like she got a little older as she got more used to being out front & doing stuff, taking responsibilities & stuff like that. Then she sorta stabilized and stopped aging.

OTOH Melissa has been active for 20 or 30 years, & she knows alot & can do alot of stuff. But she's still 7 & she says she never wants to grow up she likes being who she is, so thats how she's gonna stay.

The rest of us in our system don't age either, we just kinda stay stuck at whatever age we are. We can change, like if we want to & make it happen, but that works both ways - older & younger.

FWIW I also wonder sometimes if thats why we tend to get burned out or overwhelmed & wind up disappearing for a long time in our system, cos like we don't age so we can't grow & adapt & stuff? So stuff finally just overflows. I dunno, its a theory.

Viola

Amythyst wrote:Hey Sioux,

I know I'm late to this but here's our 2 cents.

We think it's different for every system, and can be different for alters within a single system?

For us, we know they definitely can grow up, but in our system, they hafta want to?

Like, Arin went from a 6yo to being 18, overnight, cos she really wanted to grow up. It took 3 of us working inside with her to help her & share like info with her & stuff. And it took alot of energy, V2 was fronting & she ws like exhausted when it was happening.

After that, Arin grew a bit more over the next few weeks, like she got a little older as she got more used to being out front & doing stuff, taking responsibilities & stuff like that. Then she sorta stabilized and stopped aging.

OTOH Melissa has been active for 20 or 30 years, & she knows alot & can do alot of stuff. But she's still 7 & she says she never wants to grow up she likes being who she is, so thats how she's gonna stay.

The rest of us in our system don't age either, we just kinda stay stuck at whatever age we are. We can change, like if we want to & make it happen, but that works both ways - older & younger.

FWIW I also wonder sometimes if thats why we tend to get burned out or overwhelmed & wind up disappearing for a long time in our system, cos like we don't age so we can't grow & adapt & stuff? So stuff finally just overflows. I dunno, its a theory.

Viola

Hi Viola

We have some similarities. when Kit first started re-emerging she was still around 16, she has 'grown' chronologically to an extent but is still younger than the body age wise and emotionally.

Our 'Daisy' sounds similar to your Melissa she always presents around 6/7 yrs old, comes across a very shy child who seems afraid to make the body do anything incase its' 'wrong'. She still only whispers or communicates by sending thoughts.

eg she likes to colour in but will only do so in popular books that we can find an example of a coloured in picture so she can copy the exact colours. We've tried more fantasy style books like enchanted forest and Narnia etc so there's no 'right and wrong' way it's just how she wants to imagine it, but she still won't start a picture unless she can find an example of it coloured in online.

On the other hand, like your Melissa she also has a lot of knowledge it seems of our system, childhood and things she's learnt from others just from staying in the background when we were at college or university so in some ways seems 'wise beyond her years'

Bobby is much like a younger version of Kit, locked in fantasy on the inside and doesn't even want to come outside unless it's to enter another fantasy world ie video games - getting lost in Zelda as 'Link'. They appear or choose to be non-verbal, communicating only by sending images of what they want or need. It is hard to tell whether Bobby is a male or female child some times, our guess was they represented the bodies 'tomboy' phase and it was some kind of defense against being bullied. Could they be the system's 'trauma holder'?

I'm unsure Bobby will ever come out of that stage they seem to be locked in, but I felt Daisy held potential to work with some of the adult alters and grow and help the system develop further?

Sioux

After being in the background whilst I was re-reading this the other day, Daisy has revealed she was always afraid to 'do her own thing' because she was constantly encouraged to copy other children 'to be normal'. So she was afraid to be herself...It seems everything other kids did was 'normal' when she did it she was 'behind' or slow or inappropriate for her age unless it was a direct copy of another 'normal child's work.

So I decided to try something with Daisy agreeing to be in the background to just watch. I watched a video technique of how to use watercolour pencils and blend with them then applied it to a picture in a book but using my own colour scheme. I discussed out loud for Daisy's benefit how to make for eg the leaves look more natural but still not doing a direct copy, (so we were applying the correct technique yet it was still my own work) This seems to have worked as Daisy suddenly indicated she wanted a much brighter breast on the robin.

After completing that picture she has indicated she wanted to return to finishing a picture from her xmas book. She wants to learn how to do a 'northern lights night sky' as she loves the pretty colours and patterns but then do it in her own choice of colours, so we will do that this weekend!

I hope now if she realises she can express herself without fear of being made fun of or having to have her work on public display for others to criticize she will become more creative & confident. Which may in turn give the system more confidence when having to deal with 'the outside world.

Sioux