What did you identify as when you were a child?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

I need something lighthearted after the incredible grimness of the thread about police intimate searches. As a SA survivor, flashbacks a-go-go

So I was thinking, what kinds of weird shit did you pretend to be when you were a kid? And how would your life be now if the adults around you had taken you really seriously?

My 3yo just announced she is a Terrible Potato who lives in a cave.

As a kid, nothing as far as I remember - but I had a zooful of imaginary animals, literally herds of creatures that followed me everywhere. My kids have always played out characters from books (I suspect my teen thinks she's some kind of Pokemon right now though).

As an adult I was Batman for an entire week - DH was having life-saving surgery, DD2 had a horrifying rash that didn't go away with a glass, the cat was sick everywhere, and I still got DD1 to school on time with everything every day. So it made sense in an odd way, to step out of being me and don the metaphorical cape (or rather, the t-shirt, on the worst days). Nothing could defeat me. It wore off when DH started to get back on his feet and I fell to bits with something like delayed stress.

A cat, I wore a cat costume for about a month.
I'm used to crawl everywhere and drink milk out of a bowl on the floor.

Also I wore my brothers clothes for a year, even his football kits of the team I didn't even support.

Then I was a emo.

I was always a girl, but I read a lot and was quite dramatic, so would usually be a Victorian orphan or famous child star or something.

A dog, then a cat. I had a name which is still a sort of secret. Used to dress the (Siamese, willing and totally laid back) cat up and also make him a palace out of the clothes horse and my mums scarves. I think it’s because I read ‘jennie’ by Paul Gallicor - about a boy who wakes up as a cat.

I was convinced the Royal family had misplaced me somehow😳🤣🤣

Princess Leia. Who wouldn't?

An archer, solving crimes. More Robin Hood/The Hood rather than long running radio farmer.

Used to make bow out of wool and beansticks - wasn't too bad at shooting them until someone reckoned I shot at them I didn't it was A Accident honest the bows were confiscated and I had to play something else.

Tried archery several times over the prevailing decades and I am, without doubt, truly shite at it.

I was always a dog when we played families at primary never wanted to be mum /dad or a child! I used to run around barking & playing fetch.

I definitely wanted to be a boy at one point because I thought they had it easier through puberty.

I'm sometimes normal now & definitely a woman.

Remember the Hells Grannies? I had an imaginary motorbike that I would drive around the playground.

I was a talking white horse or sometimes a squirrel who was the sheriff of a wild west boomtown.

When I was 5-6 years old, I identified as a dog when out walking our dog, and embarrassed my Mum by pretending to sit down to pee and poo when the dog did

By the time I was 10, I spent all my time pretending to be identifying as a horse.

When I was very small I used to pretend to be a character out of Dickens. I remember making my brothers eat bread and milk because that's what Victorian kids are. I was a voracious reader very early.

I was the leader of the girl gang in our cosy little neighborhood. We used to play cowboys and Indians and cops and robbers. My two DBs were in the girl gang too.

Then I became a horse and was one and off for years. My friends and I used to put up jumps in our gardens and have homemade gymkhanas. On camping holidays I would be a pony all day long. Cantered everywhere.

One of my nieces was a lion cub for years.

my daughter is often a mermaid. I remember being Littlefoot from the land before time her age

A weather witch. Me and my best friend would race around the playground trying to control the elements.

I would spend any remaining time running laps of the playground, training for the Olympics.

I read a lot of Enid Blyton and was a fairy for years and years. I had dozens of imaginary fairy friends and wrote lists of their names. Some of them were good and some were naughty.

I moved on to being a spy. I loved those books for kids about how to be one.

I also thought I was halfway to being a trapeze artist, because I could hang upside down from a climbing frame by my knees.

Farinthepast

That is genius.

Did she get her own back when you were a teen?

Johnny Only by reminding me about the dog thing in public occasionally 😀 Being a horse (who jumped imaginary fences all along the pavement) was my secret.

A palomino horse.

I was a Shakespearean actress for years. Our neighbour was a retired actor and had an attic full of costumes - I used to borrow them and parade around in them. I had a star on my bedroom door and a dressing table full of greasepaint. I used to memorise pages of Shakespeare and recite ti to my obliging family, ha ha.

A cat. I still closely emulate it through my love of napping and becoming very grumpy if woken up. I have no dc obviously so i have the luxury of napping most evenings.

A horse. And sometimes a teenage mutant ninja turtle (showing my age).

I was a girl with twelve brothers who went to a boys' boarding school and was super good at Latin and cricket despite everyone telling her girls couldn't do that.

My sister was a dog.

A boy.
A different girl (an imaginary girl, just one who wasn't me) who wore a weird fuzzy hat.
A centaur.
Diana Rigg as Emma Peel. I had a spud gun and a black leotard, and by god I was going to make them both work for a living.

(I loved my spud gun. It was heavy and metal and how the hell did I grow up to be a pacifist?)

I pretended I lived in a world where people were basically kind and accepting and didn't make fun of marginalised groups on the internet for laughs.... shame on the lot of you.

As an only child I had quite the vivid imagination. Imaginary friends galore, my backyard could become any location in any time. Never was I told girls don't play with or do that. I always knew I was a girl. The only time I didn't identify as me was around 3 years old when, I was insistent on using another name (still a girls name though).

I loved Scooby Doo, Nancy Drew etc. we had a book called 'Into the Unknown' that was filled with fascinating topics like Ghosts, Witches, UFO's. I would check out the library for more information on whatever subject took my fancy.

Just prior to the onset of puberty, I had what could probably be best described as an existential crisis. From memory someone was critical of my mother for my lack of religion. Apparently I would be damned to the hellfires or some such malarkey. Anyway I decided to research different religions and came across the concept of reincarnation. I became quite convinced that my soul had been here before (Ancient Egypt and Witchcraft Trials) and was destined to walk the earth until my karmic debt was repaid. I also developed a fascination with Wicca, well before The Craft and Charmed was even a thing. I genuinely believed that I needed to work on my spirituality to allow me to help people. I did have some grown ups telling me that I had natural ability and to attend this course or that course - all $$$ and I simply couldn't afford that type of money. Perhaps I did have some type of psychic ability, because I got the sense a lot of them were charlatans telling me what I wanted to hear.

Now if I was actively encouraged to pursue this and had the cash it probably could have gone one of two ways.

1. I could have cleaned up big time with talk shows/live shows plus merch.
2. If I was a sociopath I could have started my own cult.

I need to also say I still see much beauty in Wicca, more so than the common patriarchal religions.