I will begin this with a light trigger warning just because of the mentions of mental health and different diagnosis, However; if you read the title and thought this would be another tale of a little who was ostracized for just being themselves, think again. This crazy story has a good ending ☺️ I can’t speak for everyone but I think it’s a good read for everyone; little or big. Yes it’s a longer read but I encourage you not to scroll past. (However the bottom has a summary // tl;dr)

Monday evening was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was coming back from a wonderful, fulfilling vacation, ready to take my flight back home. Everything was fine, until I got to the airport. At the beginning of my time at the airport things were going ok. But being alone on (basically) my first flight back home and all the little stressors of being in the airport got to me, to say the least.

With every test of my emotional regulation at the airport, I could feel my mind deteriorate more and more. The first and main thing that eventually spiraled me into insanity was missing my flight. I was alone, I couldn’t stop crying, I felt so many emotions, and I just couldn’t pull myself together like I usual have been able to do.

I tried to be an adult. I tried my best to be a big girl, I swear. My original plan was to stay in the airport until the next flight at 5am (8rs away) and hopefully find some private room/hotel/ resting lounge where I could rest and regress until my new flight. I never made it to the next flight.

By my 5th crying episode, I knew I couldn’t do this alone. I was scared and without a caregiver (other than myself) so I turned to family. I locked myself in a bathroom stall and called my brother. Talking to him I started having (what I thought was simply) a panic attack. But then it turned out to be more than that. My memory of what happened was pretty vivid, however it’s kind of hard to write out exactly what happened in a clear manner. So I’ll try my best (as humans, that’s all we really can do, right? Is to try our best)

Well. It wasn’t just a panic attack, I also had a mental break. I no longer had a hold on the little side of me vs the ‘regular’/adult/caregiver side of me. On the phone I was switching between little Angel and ‘ANGEL Angel’ mid sentence… I had no real control over what I was saying. Little me and normal me were competing to talk and little me was mostly winning the battle. Normal me was forced to just take the back seat. I was forced to show my family a side of me I never would have thought I’d have to exploit. Just think of a person you have seen with DID. I had 2-3 ‘people’ in me coming out randomly, my brother had to constantly remind me that ‘we’ were all one. It didn’t feel like we were all one. It felt like I was 3 people ‘stuck’ in one brain/ human vessel. And nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

My mind said that ‘we’ didn’t have time to wait for a private place to regress, ‘we’ are going to shut down some parts of your brain and FORCE you to regress because everything combined just made ‘us’/me way way wayyy too stressed.

When normal/caregiver Angel was able to come out, I would say stuff like “I’m back guys! It’s me!!” I’d go into planning mode on how I can navigate this situation and I knew I only had a limited amount of time before I switched. When little me came out, I was the extreme version of little me. I was definitely a chatterbox x3, nervous about a lot of things, clingy to my family, and just wanted to talk about stuff like Disney, pizza, my switch, and wine about how heavy my backpack was 😭

With the attempts of wrapping up this post and making a *longggg story slighly shorter; my brother eventually added both my sister and dad to the call. On the call I was little me 85% of the time. My family just sat with me that whole 3 hr phone call. They engaged with little me and talked to me as a child (I really was basically just a 6 y/o without a parent who was lost in the airport) they were patient even when bratty me came out and tried to not listen. My brother encouraged me to grab my stuffed animal, blanket, Nintendo switch, or whatever other comfort item I had in my carry on so that I could try to relax in a scary time. They reminded of stranger danger and that no one was judging me if I wanted my comfort items, need to cry, or do whatever. My brother was 3,000 miles away, and my dad 1000 but they were STILL able to order me an Uber and help me find the pickup spot just so I could go back to a private safe space, which was my sisters home.

I am SO GRATEFUL for my family. After the fact, They’ve been asking me what to do if the switches happen again, how to support little me, and just asking all the right questions with no judgement. The other day they FaceTimed me to show me a gift! On my bed was candies, a couple new stuffys, toys, a pajama set, hello kitty pens, a coloring book, some books, a teether, and a fluffy blanket!!

Now it’s a few days later and I have every side of me completely Under wraps. I feel like my normal self but am still unsure if I’ll ever just lose control and switch like that again. I lost my luggage, I should have been back home 4 days ago by now, I’m strapped for cash and trying to figure out how I’ll get a plane ticket just so I can see and hug my family again. I’ve also been recommended to stay in a hospital for a bit just so I can get the care I need. but at the end of the day I’m safe and even though I was physically alone, I really wasn’t truly alone. And my family accepts me completely as I am, no matter what that might look like. And Im wishing that everyone reading this will eventually have that some day too if not already. ❤️❤️❤️❤️✨✨

TL;DR: In a very scary and stressful moment of my life, I had a mental/psychotic break and my different personalities or sides of me started separating and switching very similarly to someone who has DID or multiple personalities (disorder?) ((NOT TRYING TO BE RUDE, HOPE THATS THE RIGHT TERM)) Little me came out; against my will, and my family supported me all the way through.