Why Do I Collect Reborn Dolls?

Well, for starters, this onesie almost made me cry.

Well, let me start by giving a general overview of why a lot of ladies in the hobby collect such dolls. A Reborn Doll is an Art Doll that, due to how realistic they usually appear and to how realistically weighted they can be, can actually function both as a wonderful piece of tangible artwork and as a therapy tool. They are known for being able to help patients with Alzheimer's, Dementia, Anxiety Disorder and Depression. These kinds of dolls have also helped at least a few ladies in the community cope with some deeply affecting familial losses. Most though, collect these dolls simply because they think the art form is cute or because they enjoy baby fashion! If reading is a bit challenging, here is a video I found explaining the Reborn Doll collecting hobby for outsiders:

(Side note, I think Jess is really, really pretty and I love her channel.)

I will also include a video here of one of my favorite artists, NLoveWithReborns, assembling one of these dolls for your viewing pleasure, it can be quite interesting to see!

As for me personally, I have an anxiety disorder and depressive issues which my dolls sometimes help me to cope with, but those are not the only things that my dolls help me with, nor are they the reason that I got into the hobby in the first place. I actually got interested in the hobby when I was sixteen years old, after having been a doll aficionado my entire life before that. When I was a little girl, I loved playing with and cuddling my baby dolls and I often wished that they could pose more or look more realistic. At the age of twelve years old, my friends started to focus more on video games or hormonal behaviors, fashion, makeup... Teen girl stuff mostly. I, however, still just wanted to play with baby dolls. In fact, I remember one specific time when a couple of my friends were over at my house and when they just wanted to talk about boys, I just wanted us to take our baby dolls out in their strollers in the backyard. I never heard from those two friends again after that. It was clear that being into baby dolls was becoming socially unacceptable for my age group. So I forced myself to give up that interest and try to refocus myself on video games (and it did help that simulator games like The Sims existed for me to still find some way to play dolls, even with a video game).

However, I also, at that point, became interested in things like filmography, theater and animation. Most especially, Japanese animation. At the time, anime was on the rise in popularity in my country (USA), so a lot of anime conventions were cropping up across the map. Anime conventions are gatherings operated by and made for fans of Japanese animation, manga and video games, where vendors congregate to sell merchandise, artists show up to sell fanart, special guests from the anime industry come to talk directly to the fans and many show off their artistic abilities with brilliant cosplays. Now, this may seem unrelated to the topic of Reborn Dolls and it is, for the most part. However, it was at an anime con where I was introduced to the art form and the hobby for the first time. When I was sixteen years old, I attended a local anime convention as a cosplayer, as I usually did then. Something else I should add is that most anime conventions boast groups of people dressed in their best gothic finery, something that I have always loved to see as someone who felt she had a gothic heart but could, for whatever reason, not wear a gothic appearance herself. This convention when I was sixteen was no different when it came to that. I spotted a beautiful lady some years older than myself who looked almost right out of a version of Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd" and immediately approached to tell her how pretty I thought she looked. Imagine my surprise when I noticed she had a big, luxurious, Victorian style, gothic baby carriage with her! Before I could say what I had wanted to say to her, I found myself curiously looking into the carriage and I saw something that was an even bigger shock to my senses. Did I just see an actual werewolf pup? It certainly looked like it! Noticing my reaction to the little in her carriage, the lady smiled and offered to let me gently touch the pup. I was in complete disbelief, fully, cinematically believing for a moment that I was meeting an actual werewolf. She explained that it was, in fact, a silicone doll as she held him up for me to examine, but my disbelief was still suspended for at least several moments after I had gently poked the soft "skin" of the doll. The silicone felt so real to the touch and the pup looked so realistic that it took me a minute to realize it was a doll, even after that had been explained to me. When I finally did have that sink into my brain though, I started asking the lady where it came from, how to get one myself, etc. She explained a bit of the Reborn Doll hobby to me and offered me her card, as she was in fact, the artist who had painted and rooted the werewolf pup which had so impressed me. I was really excited!

But that excitement did not get to last. After I arrived home from the convention that day, I went online to look at her shop, only to find prices that, at the time, I could only ever dream of affording. I was unable to have a part time job while I focused on school, so my only shot at getting such a doll at the time was to ask my family for one for my birthday or for Christmas and everyone I asked saw the prices and understandably told me no. It was during that time that I discovered Orange Grove Nursery, whose Edward Scissorhands became my favorite and most-wanted art doll. I would sometimes spend hours just perusing her galleries and daydreaming about what I would do if I had one of her dolls. But for me, at the time, Reborn Dolls were a long way off. I did not gain access to the monetary means to purchase my own Reborn Dolls for another fifteen years. So basically, the short version is that I got into this hobby because I really liked the art form itself. It was not until after I had already received my first Reborn Doll that I realized how therapeutic it felt to roleplay with them and cuddle them. When I hold one of my dolls or engage in roleplay with one, I forget some of my worries for a little while and it feels very nice. I find it very calming.

Now, to discuss the other reason that I continue to be active in the hobby as a collector. My dolls do not just help me cope with my anxiety and depression, they also help me to cope with my own sense of loss. Personally, I have never even come close to being a mother in the same sense that a woman who has actually carried a child or a woman who has actually adopted a child has, so I will not pretend that my experience is even remotely the same. However, it is still a deep sense of loss that sometimes causes me to cry from the pain. This is where the onesie at the top of this page is going to finally be explained. When I was a little girl, I had two best friends- my lifelong BFF whom I have known since before I was born and my school BFF that still sometimes sends me random stuff online. When we were little girls, we made a pinkie promise one day at my house, all together, after we had a blast playing with some of my dolls. We swore that one day, we would all become mothers and that our kids would all get a chance to be the best of friends like we had been. I fully believed in that promise with my whole heart and for quite a few years, starting when I was fourteen, it looked like that future was unfolding for us, at least from my point of view. I thought I was just the first of us three to find the someone that they were supposed to spend their whole life with, the someone to have a kid someday with. Little did I know, that that someone would become fed up with me at twenty-one years old and take off with someone else after discovering that I could not do certain... adult things. Specifically, the very things a person needs to be able to do to have a child of their own. Instead of helping me through that heartache and having the patience to work with me, this person left me for someone else. I was devastated. I felt like my whole world had just been taken from me, and it took me an entire decade to heal from it. In the meantime, those two best friends both found someone else and had their babies. I have had to watch and cheer from the sidelines while wrestling with the idea that maybe being a mother was just not in the cards for me at all. I love my two BFFs like sisters and I really like my adopted nieces and nephew, but that does not mean that coping with that feeling of being left in the dust has been easy for me. I have had to go through the feeling of watching my maternal dreams literally just walk away from me, to go to someone else more than once. Every time, I have had to remind myself that it's probably for the best and focus on being happy for someone else, but the pain has persisted. The first time, I had to try to be happy in thinking that someone I loved maybe found someone they loved to have that dream with. The second time, though I nearly felt I was losing my "older sister" on top of it, I tried to be happy in knowing that she finally found someone she loved and that she would get to enjoy something I knew we all wanted. The third time, I felt I would lose my "school sister" but I was excited for her that she finally found someone she liked a lot after the absolute heartbreak she had recently had to face and that she would get to shower the baby she always wanted with the remainder of that previous love in her heart. The fourth time though was and still is the hardest for me to face happily. The fourth time it happened, it happened right in front of my eyes, to someone that I had had a romantic interest in. That someone happens to be related to my stepdad too, so I am treated to a front row seat reminder of what happened at every family function. It is also getting extremely uncomfortable for me, because I think the person that that person chose over me is... developing a liking toward me. Which reminds me a lot of the very first time I had to experience this sort of loss at twenty-one years old. The person that took my ex-person away from me also exhibited some NSFW desires toward me that I was not comfortable with. So as a result, I tend to rely heavily on at least one of my dolls when we have big family gatherings here. I run to my room, lock the door from the inside and just spend some time holding one of my dolls or if my mother feels I have not been social enough, I try to take one of my dolls out with me while I visit with the family.

So I have not actually carried or adopted a child of my own but I still feel a sense of having lost a future involving being a mother, involving having a child... and it is something that I have to cope with, as the desire to have that future did not just simply go away after I decided it was not for me. Reborn Dolls specifically help me cope with that for small amounts of time, because they allow me to pretend, at least briefly, like I am not missing out on that future- I can change their diapers, pretend to feed them, dress them up, shop for them, pretend to play with them, cuddle them, roleplay watching movies or TV with them and even read books to them and pretend they are listening. Admittedly though, it does get a little difficult for this coping mechanism to work properly for me when I am with either of my two BFFs and their real children. Most likely because some other heartbreaking issues arise when I am with them- I am faced not just with the possible future that I wanted but will likely not be getting but also with the reminder that this is not our childhood to make memories together with any longer. Also, bringing one of my dolls along with us is both a bit risky and sometimes also highlights, for me, what I wanted but will not be getting. Risky because their children like to mess with my dolls, which I am not always completely comfortable with and seeing my doll next to a real, living, growing little sometimes makes me focus on the fact that what I have is just that. Just a doll. But when it's just me here at home or me here at home during a family event, my dolls just make me feel pretty wonderful for a little while and to me, that's very worth it, regardless of the struggles I may still face with my friends.