Babying my new doll... Think I need to worry?
A few weeks ago I sustained a head injury. Not very serious (especially on the scale of head injuries), but it had a pretty big ripple effect on my life and kind of threw me off course in my career as I had to let my brain heal. I've wanted a bigger doll for awhile now to do more ambitious and elaborate projects for (I've owned BJD's for over a decade) and started shopping for one to give me something to do that didn't involve screens after screens became a significant symptom trigger. I found one that's a fair bit bigger than anything I've ever owned before. I was immediately interested, but I feel like on some level something is slipping for me with this.
I bought her furniture and clothes and I catch myself often thinking of it as something to nurture and spoil. I don't like or want kids, I've never lost a child, so it isn't that. I still don't want a kid at all, my accident didn't change that even a little bit. But the way I feel inclined to spoil this inanimate doll like it's a real thing is clocking something for me that I'm worried about. I don't feel like I can talk to anybody about it because it sounds so crazy. I feel like I'm retreating into a bubble some how. Like I just want everything in my world to feel safe and soft and this is helping me with that.
I dedicated a corner in my apartment that's decorated for her, she has her own furniture, clothes, she has more shoes than I do. While none of that is necessarily abnormal, it just feels different. Like everything feels more significant because it's for that doll. Everything in that corner is soft, and safe, and cute. I've had doll areas every place I've lived, but this feels different to me. Over the years my dolls have increased in size and I've never approached it like this, the line was always clear between me and "This is a doll", "This is my space", and "this is a diorama to display my dolls". The line feels blurry right now. This doesn't feel like a display area, it feels like her room.
Rather rapidly, this has increased in its significance in my life. When I get up in the morning, I go to get dressed and then change her clothes for the day since her wardrobe is right next to mine. I've thought often as I go to sleep that I need to be rested and take care of myself because she needs me, and I can't keep her safe if I don't take care of myself and keep moving forward in my recovery. Even on shopping sites like amazon. I used to just have one watch list "(my name) wants". Now there's 2, mine and "(her name) wants". My mom is the only person who knows anything about it, and it isn't much. She found a pair of baby shoes that were nearly identical to a pair I was obsessed with as a kid that I left out on my counter after they came in the mail.
She just commented "With all due love and respect, those shoes were not THAT cute that your dolls need them". I laughed it off and disagreed, but she doesn't know about her. That part of my apartment isn't where guests typically go. No one really knows about her. I feel embarrassed or ashamed that I'm babying a doll. I don't want people to know because I don't want to be compared to the really crazy doll owners. But I don't want to get rid of her either, I'm very attached to her. On some level I'm trying to rationalize it as an external way to baby myself after a really scary accident, since a doll can't get a TBI, or really get "hurt" from a fall or accident.
Dolls repair easily compared to people... but I don't know. I don't know when it's time to worry about it, or when I need to actually talk to someone about it. I feel like as long as I'm still questioning if I'm ok then I probably am... I don't know. I'm a pretty successful person, my life is comfortable, so one bump in the road in my career shouldn't upset me so much (especially considering this isn't my first health scare), but it did. All of it did, and on some level this does too, it's just easier to ignore it gnawing on my mind than everything else is. So for now, I spit this into the void so at least it's out of my mind for a little while.