[Emily]

Hello. This might come across as a strange topic given my previous track record of creating complicated psychological and philosophical posts about my identity, so I'll try to be a bit more simplistic given the subject matter. Basically, do you feel like people are born with given personality and over time, they learn to express that type of personality in newer ways, or do you think that personality is malleable and capable of changing over time?

I ask this because I've noticed something interesting about myself recently. I've noticed myself more willing to express my feelings about things, and then when it comes to small and minor things, I end up feeling like crying. Like today, I was just playing Monopoly with my friends, but I ended up losing, and I got this really big urge to start crying. I realized that it was likely irrational, and that crying in front of a bunch of guys that I'm trying to impress would be a really bad idea, so I tried suppressing it, but it went on for a long time until I was able to turn my thoughts away from the scene.

And then it reminds me of another time two weeks ago where I went to my Toastmasters club and people laughed at my scientific evaluation on dieting and sugar addiction, and they said I went 2 seconds over so my speech didn't qualify. It made me feel very emotional and I started to feel like crying, but that sadness turned into frustration and I wasn't very pleasant for the rest of the meeting. I told my mom about this, and she said that I seemed to have to personalities: one that's very serious and another that is very playful, and it's not very fun to mix the two. But today just got me thinking: what if it's just more like I want to cry but when I suppress it, then I become irritable? Should I just be searching for different outlets towards this behavior, or do you think it's a bit more static than it lets on?

[xoxbug]

I just want to say that I don't believe that being little is a side of a person. I think it is someone's core personality. Not something someone turns on and off or experiences. I believe it's a personality base. Not an experience itself but literally just who that person is at their core of personality and interests.

That being said, I don't believe it can "get stronger" in any regard. I think you can learn, after intentional effort, to dull it down some at times where you're capable of recognizing societally deemed "inappropriate behavior" but I believe that a person is who they are and their personality is their personality. We were taught by our parents to conform to a societal expectations that meant we had to dull some of our childish personality traits as we biologically aged. The "little personality" is still there because that is just who we are as individuals but because we've had years, decades, of being told to conform perhaps we have a bit of embarrassment and hesitation about displaying our natural personalities. When we are pushing past those negative feelings is when we are embracing being little. Perhaps that's where you might be at now. Perhaps not.

Psychologically speaking, the personality of a healthy, average adult cannot be drastically changed in a matter of hours, days, weeks, months, or even a few years without serious conscious effort or a major life trauma experienced. Even if someone just wants to change it doesn't mean it can happen without a large amount of conscious effort.

It's like learning a second language. If you had decades of being taught by the closest people in your life how to speak Russian alongside English then as an adult you're not going to just forget the entire Russian language overnight, even if that's what you really want to do. It will likely take nearly as long to "forget" it entirely. Only this, little personalities, goes far past a language skill and lays where our consciousness is and how we perceive and interact with the world on our most basic, instinctual levels.

Similar to sexuality, I also believe little personalities is on a scale, though likely multiple scales in terms of those who desire to live fully as a regressive versus sporadically and maybe a scale of where our little ages fall in terms of typical infantile through teenage perceptions and how we relate, and can minorly fluctuate some over time as one discovers more about themselves. Just as you can't really choose who you fall in love with, you can't really choose how you naturally, biologically view the world.
A homosexual-identifying person isn't going to just completely forget about being homosexual, even if it's what they really desire, and become straight even in a few years time but they may feel they identify more as bisexual as they have more life experiences and learn that their partner preferences are more extensive to include a handful of opposite-gendered interests.

I believe littles were naturally born to be little and to have a regressive base personality. Even the mothers of newborn babies can tell you that each baby born has their own, individual personality. What I'm getting to is that I believe that littles are likely biologically little or biologically inclined to develop a little personality trait if they go through certain major life experiences.
I believe that littles were taught by their parents to buffer and dull those traits so that they would fit into society's expectations. I think now we, as adult individuals, are realizing we have this particular personality type and it will take us many, many years to stop buffering ourselves and overcome our now developed hesitation about just being ourselves.

Aside from all of that, if what you're experiencing now isn't normal and typical for you then it could be you coming to terms with being little or it could be as simple as other stressors or changes in your life or body. For example a female may experience premenstrual symptoms right before menstruating each month, and for many women that means being overly emotional. Often women have bouts of "crying for no reason" or "crying over the littest thing" during this time.
Males also experience hormonal fluctuations as they age, through diet, by stress, and sometimes serious medical issues also cause hormones to be unbalances and cause such irrational emotional reactions. Hormonal fluctuations can be triggered by things like stress too, and based on other postings you have on the forum recently I sort of suspect that something major is happening in your life right now, whether you realize it or not, and you're under some type of stress. It might be worth it to see a doctor and make sure that your body, including hormones, are well and at percentages they need to be at for your age and gender before chalking all of this up to you being "more little" than previously. You only get one body and it's worth just making sure everything is okay and to solidify your personal progress you have in your self discovery and self acceptance.

In terms of what you should be doing as you realize you experience such extreme emotional reactions to feelings of rejection or trivial loss, you should absolutely find outlets to vent frustrations and express your emotions that you do hold back. Nobody should be bottling up how they feel over time. It's healthy for a person, whether little or not, to do activities that help them to cope with life stress. Perhaps you can schedule yourself more time to indulge in littlespace, pick up a leisure sport, schedule yourself gym time to help work out your body, start a long-term game that you can play on your own, or start an easy hobby you can pick up and put down in your spare time. Journaling for feelings is often very helpful as well as seeing a therapist to have someone to truly vent to without personal judgement. I feel like, "I cry when I didn't do something perfect," (whether it is losing a game or not performing to perfection on a task) is not necessarily a reflection of being little but, rather, being a bit emotionally unstable and in need of adequate outlets.

That's all I wanted to say.

Best of luck.