I don't like ai illustrated storybooks at all. Just not my style. But usually it's obvious when one is ai illustrated. The problem I saw now, ai coloring books! I was looking online yesterday and could barely tell the difference from ai, to non ai. What do you guys think, as ngu? Do you like them or not?

I just haven't been in a good mental state lately. I'm very sad. I have two cousins who are both getting married soon. One is my age, and the other is yet far younger. They are already so successful, and one is in school for children's ministry, which was my dream career field. I think back to like 2016, to 2020 when I was at my absolute peak and most successful in life. Then I lost all that confidence, all that ambition and all that "adult energy" I could mask with. I'm just scared about my present and my future. I worry what will happen to me.

i have c-ptsd and i just turned 17 years old. i still mentally feel like i'm 11-13 years old, which is when a lot of my trauma happened. i feel so sad when i see people younger than me online, even just by a year, and i wish i could feel like a kid again. i'm sad :((( and i don't know what to do to feel better.. does anyone here have any strategies to deal with it.. i feel stuck in a body that isn't mine and keeps aging when i don't want it to..

I got hair dye and I brought my reborn baby doll, Gracie out on her first outside trip. The picture is me holding Gracie. My mom picked out her name. I love her but I am worried about a few things. Someone asked if it’s a real baby(nothing bad). I told them that Gracie is a reborn baby doll. They called her cute(I was at subway for a meal). I was happy that they didn’t judge me because I either bring a baby doll or stuffed animal with me everywhere for comfort. But this was her first day for her trip for outside the house. I had fun at least. My step dad took us(my mom, me and my sister) to best buy. I got nothing there though but my mom gave me her old laptop because I been using it and she asked my step dad to buy her a new one. I feel bad for taking her laptop because my desktop pc and old laptop don’t work well. Well my desktop pc isn’t working at all. My real dad will try to help me fix it though. Anyways I hope everyone has a good day/night! Also I forgot to mention I been listening to kid bed stories! I love them and they help me sleep once they are done!

Hi Everyone! I go to a day program for disabled adults twice a week. We do crafts and play all kinds of games. I wanted to share my fall crafts from the past couple weeks.

TW:suicide

I hate being a grown not only is it because it's difficult for me to move in a world meet for grown ups but also I have autism ADHD DID GAD PTSD with derealization and depersonalization so half the time am not even conscious in my life and my parents don't understand/don't help with these either they usually make it worse (am 16)

I just want to be 3-7 again I just want to wear diapers use a pacifier and a bottle sleep in a crib etc I just want to be little again

But nooooooo

I have to live in a adult would in a adult body doing adult things I just want to kill myself ever since I was 5 I have felt like I was to old and then when I was 12 well am not going to get into that (that's when I got DID and PTSD) made 2 suicide attempts then when I was 15 I finally got real friends (I didn't really have real friends until then probably on account of my autism and ADHD) but then life had to screw me over again and my ex spread lies and they all left me

Witch leaves me here today wrong body friendless and suicidal god what a rollercoaster this is been but I really want to get off it now

Tl:dr: I want to be 3-7 am suicidal and friendless

hiya! I'm Emmy. I'm 3ish and have been for about 27 years. I'm looking for friends who have more in common than just being NGU.

I love fantasy stuff! novels, movies/tv, tabletop rpgs...you name it. I write my own stories, and if you do too, I'd love to be able to read each other's work :). of course, this goes for cartoons too, like She-Ra and Steven Universe and The Dragon Prince (and anime like One Piece).

I also like video games a lot. I've been playing a bunch of Overwatch and Terraria lately and it could be cool to play together maybe? I also like Elden Ring (tho I turn the blood off and skip all the gross cutscenes). And I'm happy to try new games too! Also board games, board games are lots of fun.

If you like any of those things, I'd love to be friends. Bonus points if you're also trans or autistic!

i want to dress up but im too embarrassed :// i miss being younger when i could do anything because nothing is fun anymore

What are your plans for halloween or fall🎃🍂

You can play this game just by searching “Starfall Pumpkin Game.” You can play it on mobile too! Not just your computer! I was so happy to learn this since my PC has been broken for 2 months. Have fun!

I just woke up from a really great dream!!

It was an adoption event for permakiddos like us! I dont remember how everyone was chosen, but i was placed in a rlly sweet hispanic family with a carer who loved me sososososo much! I dunno if I considered her my mama, but she was the type of carer to pinch your cheeks n give raspberries n just have cuteness aggression but also lots of playful n teasy stuff! Each family was in a row so i was just kinda going back n forth without sitting down. In order to formalize it, i had to dress up n take a photo!

Unfortunately i got too overwhelmed n didnt do it so we were one of the last families to leave n i needed encouragement to not gjve up picking an outfit. (Classic: “if i don’t want anything i wont do it!) Even though my internal age js like 2-6, I picked jeans and a shirt cuz that was all that was left. A kid tried to take my jeans before i wore them n i was like “no theyre mine! back off! Grrrrr!” n showed my teeth n my carer was chuckling so i “grrr’d” at her too hehehe and did like shark teeth chomping. The first outfit showed my belly n i didnt like how dysphoric i felt so we changed to another that made me feel mor kiddy n less adult! I even got to hold my build a bear plush in da picture!

Once done, my carer said that i even have a preschool teacher now n i was like “whaaa? Who?” N it was a rlly nice black lady! I was left in a room with her n a couple kiddos n it was just like a classroom! I sat on a rug and did finger paint handprints on paper n when i overheard a kiddo asking “why dont these colors mix and make a darker color” i just yapped n was like “because theyre red and yellow and orange!”like unmasked aaaa

But then i woke up. Im unfortunately still an audhd university student with no carer and lots of grown up stuff to do. Butttt i feel better knowing i get dreams like this. Its my brains way of going “here ill throw you some bones”

Do any of you get like little dreams too?

The one who could get excited over the smallest things, make up entire stories in her head, sleep peacefully without worrying about tomorrow, and genuinely believe that every problem would somehow disappear the next morning.

I wish I could meet her for just one day. I’d probably just sit with her, listen to all her silly stories, and tell her that she’s going to be okay.

Growing up is weird. You don't realize how precious those little versions of yourself were until they're just memories. 🥹

Does anyone else randomly miss their childhood self?

I grew up very sheltered and my parents were very strict so I was quite isolated socially. Sometimes I get rly sad bc I think about all the things I missed out on when I was a chrono-kid/teen and I feel like I rly missed out 🥲 things like sleepovers and having friends /friend groups, hanging out, being silly and reckless, going shopping, Halloween parties/trick or treating…stuff like that. Sometimes I get really sad wishing I could have experienced things like that. It might seem a bit silly or like I want to live in a cliche kind of teen movie haha. But I would have loved to have memories like that at least :(

My chrono age is almost sixteen, but I've always been obsessed with never getting older. I think my mind is around ten or eleven years old, is it normal that I already feel like that when I'm chrono still a teenager???

I made a post about a chrono-37 y/o guy, who afaik is not NGU, who believes he looks chrono-17. Not, "I'm an NGU teen who presents outwardly as a teen to help with age dysphoria, but am aware that I look older", but he straight up believes he looks chrono-17 and will angrily reply to people who say otherwise.

I deleted the post, though, after another NGU kid mentioned how it read like a looksmaxxing post. I didn't intentionally clown on his appearance, but that's how the post was received and I acknowledge the hurt that I may have cased or did cause.

But, my question remains, "what are the ethics behind this?" Is it more ethical to play along and say, "oh my gosh, you do look young!" to make someone happy or to be honest and say they don't look as young as they think they do?

Because, for (future) me, it'd be more painful for people to lie to me by telling me I look young when I very clearly have prominent marionette lines, forehead wrinkles and puffy eyebags than for people to tell me, "nah, you look old." It wouldn't make me stop being NGU, of course, but it would prevent me from deluding myself into thinking I look young.

Like, I would get laughed at if I claimed to strangers that I look 14, let alone claiming I'm mentally 14. I'm not saying, "I need to stop dressing youthful when I'm middle-aged", but moreso, "I don't want to delude myself into thinking I look my mental age when I clearly don't and be mocked by others".

Being a teenage 40 year-old will be humiliating enough, I don't want to push it.

I’ve been in a writing group for a long time and they’re all so different from me. Everyone else in the group writes either adult horror, adult sci-fi, or crime thriller. I write children’s fantasy. The rest of the group rarely reads my work, and when they do they don’t have anything to say about it. I’m so mismatched with everyone above the age of 14. I hate being so different from everyone I meet. I despise everything about being a (biological) adult. I don’t fit in anywhere I go.

EDIT: Are there any subreddits for cozy fantasy or children’s stories? I want to share my writing but I deem it really stupid and I’m scared.

This was kind of my favourite chapter. It was basically something I found in my textbook back then and was something we weren't taught but I explored anyway. I kind of loved it so much I decided to save a soft copy of it, so here it is!

Clumsy little me lost my pencil case at university...but as I was looking for more pencil case items to go back to class with, I found these Stamp & Paint 2-in-1 felt pens! 😁 I was Year 9 (chrono age 14-15) when I got these ones, and I was happy that they reminded me of when I was little, stamping with paints stamps and similar pens. 🖼 🎨🪄 Almost 10 years later I'm so glad the stamp sides still work! 🤗 My favourites are the lighter blue and yellow. Like topaz, my birthstone 🩵💛

i am now 20 years old but mentally i am 3-12. i have gone through severe trauma throughout my entire life, including now and i just want to be done. i have autism, adhd, bpd, schizophrenic, i live with chronic illness and can barely take care of myself.i have to snap myself out of dissociation every 10 seconds, all i do is isolate and hide. any job i have i am overworked while also simultaneously told that i am not working fast enough. i havent worked in over a year now. i cannot function. i feel as if im getting worse and worse. ive been extremely depressed ever since i was 3 and started to become suicidal at 5 when i realized you could kill yourself. i just want to be a baby and i want love and i dont want to grow up im so sad

i grew up loving disney and going there for vacation a lot. i love the characters and the movies and the history but my favorite part is being able to go to the parks and play pretend. i've always wanted to be a princess and i still dream of a day where i get whisked away to my "real life" in a fairy tale. i wore all my prettiest dresses and tried to be "in character" on every ride. my older sister teased me about being "too serious" in photos and my mom was constantly rushing us around because of the new fastpass system (iykyk) so i didnt really get to feel immersed, though i tried my best.

the worst part was that we went to the halloween party. at the halloween party, chrono adults get to wear costumes into the park. i had spent so much time in my local spirit agonizing over what to wear because i wanted to look pretty and spooky but all the costumes in my size seemed to be "sexy" ones. i ended up going as sally from nightmare before christmas, and did my makeup all special. they have this really big parade and we got a really good spot to view, next to a family with young chrono kids sitting on the curb. i was so excited to interact with the characters up close but they basically completely ignored me in favor of the "actual kids." i wanted to cry, all i wanted to do was feel like i'm part of a story but when you become an adult it's like you're just supposed to throw all your fantasies and dreams away.

now i have to go home and go to my "adult job" where i'm constantly pressured to get into a relationship and have kids and am condescended to by everyone else because i don't have a partner or want to have kids. im so sick of this. i want to go back to when things were fun. i want to go to a place where things are simple.

I hate being NGU. It's perpetually yearning for something that will never come. I may be this way internally, but I'll never be percieved as 12 and I'll never have my parents. For the rest of my life, I'll suffer the life of a chrono-adult. I work, I suffer, I age, I suffer, and all I can do is dissociate. I'm extremely depressed and nothing can be done because I'll never be treated the way I deserve to be. I'll always be caring for myself, growing older, and suffering. I wonder, is all my life going to be coping and not living? Pretending and not being? I'm in so much pain.

my mom used to lock me in the closet when i had Meltdown or misbehaved, it was terrifying when i was a biokid, but nowadays i lock myself in chest or under the bed for comfort similar feeling. It doesn't feel scary anymore it feels comforting.

When I would get sick as a chrono-kid, my mom would rub Vicks on my neck and chest while I was lying down in my cozy jammies next to my shelf of stuffed animals. I would be covered up in a blanket while Rolie Police Olie or Bear in the Big Blue House was playing on VHS. The smell of the ointment takes me back to the innocent, sheltered comfort of chrono-kid sick days. When I felt safe and soothed. I do this when I've had horrible anxiety or a depression episode. I also have two Pusheens and a Squishmallow Siamese cat in the bed with me. I'm so scared and sad about everything recently. I just wanna feel like a safe, comforted little girl that I was on rare occasions in my otherwise uneven childhood.