In Which I Admit to Spending an Inordinate Amount of Time Playing With Dolls

"I collect Ball Jointed Dolls. They are made in Korea, Japan and China, and are sculpted by artists, handcast in resin, and strung together with elastic. This means they are not only very posable, but highly customizable. You can change their eyes and wigs, and paint or repaint them again and again. Collecting, customizing and photographing them is a very fun hobby."

That's the little speech I give to people when they ask about my odd hobby. These dolls are fun, but they're also fine art. I give them faces, sand them down, dress them up, make outfits for them and then take pictures. It's a model for photos that I can carry around and pose as I like! This gets more fun when you have other dolls they can interact or argue with.

I have lots of reasons closer to home for being a grown woman playing with dolls. Even if they are very special fine art dolls. Lemme try to explain. The long answer has a lot to do with art and crafting and customizing, but one deeper reason is simple: Therapy.

Someone said "When you play with the doll, like when you take care a small child, you heal the child you were and that is still in you."I haven't been able to put that idea into words myself but that's so true. I've often mused how Pip, with her dark brown hair and huge round blue eyes, looks very much like a four year old me. I've often called her an expression of my inner child- my eternal elfin child avatar. Through her, I get to have those happy little childhood moments and joys that heal me as an adult.

This is a very personal topic to me, and the biggest true reason behind my involvement in this hobby. BJDs have been one of the several good things keeping me afloat, one of my rays of hope that gets me out of my bed and my house and comfort zone to meet new people and make new things.

I live with Chronic Depression. It's kind of like a cancer or leukemia of the soul. It comes and goes, is beaten into remission and then flares up again. If you don't take care of yourself, it can even be very physically harmful, and for some people fatal.

When it's bad, I always find comfort and actually beneficial therapy in playing with my dolls. I discovered Ball Jointed Dolls over a year ago, and I think I was searching for something artistic and childlike that would let me draw out the innocence and strength I had as a child. Modifying and customizing these dolls is an amazing therapy. I find that doing faceups and making clothes for them is comforting to me, because if I have made something so beautiful, it must have come from inside me, and it shows me I am beautiful inside. I find that "taking care" of my dolls (Keeping them out of sunlight, making sure they are safely stored when not in use) reminds me to also look after myself, keeping me eating regular meals and sleeping decent hours. This hobby gives me something to do when I just can't sleep, and something pleasant to think about while I fall asleep. It gives me a safe common ground on which to meet total strangers and make new friends and feel comfortable doing so.

I plan to keep myself in this hobby for years to come.