u/No-Squash-5166

I feel like there are two half to who I am, big and little me. They are separate and not the same person, though they have a lot in common. They both like my little pony/miraculous ladybug/other kids shows, hanging out with my mom, collecting and playing with stuffed animals and dolls, stuff like that.

Little me likes to color messily, watch baby tv shows, sing alongs, thumb sucking, babbling, and being with our mom. She also never wants to leave her mom. She gets sad if I go on a trip for more than 2 nights without mom.

Big me loves her partner a lot, wants to get her masters and become a therapist, live with her partner, own a home someday (with a room that looks exactly like her childhood bedroom), and have ways to display all of her stuffies and dolls. Big me also, in a way, wishes that she didn’t exist.

Big me wishes that she was regressed all the time. That I would never leave home, never leave my mom, never get a job or move out or live with my partner or even really have a partner. I am so terrified of change that I cry almost every night for months about it. It’s not hard times anymore, is all the time. I don’t care how many people, my mom included, say that I’ll love moving out and living with my friends. I can see myself being happy, but not happy enough to justify the sadness and fear that I’m going to be experiencing at the same time.

I feel like I have to make a choice between big me, the choice that half of me kind of wants and the choice that literally every single person and society wants me to take and a choice that I want so incredibly badly but there is no chance that it could work. I can’t be little forever. My mom can’t care for me forever, she won’t be able to support me without me getting a job forever. I’m only ok right now because my dad pays for me and my mother, but he sucks and my mom is going to divorce him soon so she’s going to have to go back to work, and she won’t have enough money to pay for both of us and my dad won’t pay for me if I’m not in school.

How do I cope with crying every day because the one thing I want more than anything not only goes against my other wants (my partner) but also is impossible. I’ve wanted this since I was 8 years old, and I’ve felt like the universe hates me specifically because it gave me a dream that can never be completed. Even if my mom could support me and care for me, and I could be little all the time, I still wouldn’t be happy, because the other part of me doesn’t get what she wants.

There’s two halves of me and it seems impossible for both halves to be happy. Someone is always going to be sad, and because both halves are me, I’ll always be sad.

My mental age 99% of the time does not match my actual age, and sometimes I regress to even younger. My friends are ok with this (I wouldn’t be friends with them otherwise,) but they don’t really understand or are able help me through issues, so I’m looking for a therapist, but idk what to look for, any suggestions?

I just had a dream where everything was a mild inconvenience.
First I wanted to shower, but my mom and brother kept walking into the bathroom so I couldn’t.
Then I wanted to put on cute socks, but as I dig around in my sock drawer all the good ones disappeared and only the scratchy ones that didn’t fit were left.
I was listening to Spotify on my phone, but there was an update that made it where you had to open the app and find a moving button to skip a song.
I look out the window, our cats are fighting.
4 big trucks come down our driveway and start doing donuts in the yard, it’s very loud.
Eventually it stops, and one of them comes to the window where they saw us (even though we were trying to hide) and they say that they’re my half sister from an affair my dad had before I was born.
I’m still in my pajamas, so I go upstairs to get dressed. All my clothes are in storage except a pair of jeans I had worn for 2 days and a shirt that I hated.
My water bottle was outside my window on the roof (my room doesn’t have rod access)
My cat got her claw stuck in the shirt I didn’t like and pulled out a huge thread.
The other bathroom door wouldn’t close at all so I couldn’t use the bathroom.

Everything was just an inconvenience. I’ve never had a dream like that before, and idk what it could mean.

I've seen on multiple different places on the internet people talk about regression in different ways. I've seen it described as:
-doing childish things while not acting like a child or feeling like one, aka doing kid things when big to calm anxiety
-acting like a child to calm anxiety, but still big mentally
-not acting like a child, but genuinely feeling like a kid. Feelings where big identity feels like a memory of a different person rather than yourself
-temporarily having little to no recollection of big identity at all

I have felt all four of these descriptions, but it changes based on how "regressed" I am. I consider the first to just be how I am big, I like just like childish things. I consider the second to be how I feel when I'm slipping into regression, which is usually when I am outside with my friends and very happy/comfortable. The third is when I am mostly regressed; it feels more like I have memories of someone else that were given to me, or I just watched a movie explaining everything about someone else's life that isn't my own. The last is when I am totally regressed, and it is sometimes distressing but usually is when I feel the best, as I don't think about big me at all, and it feels like I couldn't make myself even if I wanted to.

Anyway, I was wondering what regression specifically feels like to others in this community! If anyone has any way to describe how they feel when regressed, or better ways to describe the descriptions I wrote about above, I would LOVE to hear about them!
I have been regressing for a long time, but I'm not sure how others feel while regressed. If anyone is willing to share, I would love to hear. Of course, no pressure to share if you don't want to : )