Breaks from the Hobby

Yes I think breaks are healthy. I don't want to consider my dolls as a burden. I just moved and can't wait to get them out of their boxes and play. Going to forums like this keep me engaged when I am unable to physically play with my dolls. Great topic

 

I just came back after about a five year break? I would occasionally get together with a couple friends and their dolls, but with college, everything was hard :/ I was working while going to school, so I didn't really have time for hobbies while being a student, worker and wife, haha I've been graduated for nine months now and it finally dawned on me that I can do doll things again! I used to sew and take pictures of them all the time, so I'm hoping I can find the spark again. I really missed being part of the community and being creative. It's crazy how everything has changed while I've been away XD It feels quieter here now, haha. Our local community is a lot smaller too. I guess other people have fallen out as well?

 

I had an accidental break - had some health issues, my dolls got packed away while tidying for a house inspection, and I just kind of... didn't get them out again. I realised while they were packed away that I had overwhelmed myself when I started out - I kept buying and buying when I should have spaced things out more, so I hadn't enjoyed them as much as I should because I kept moving on to new things, and I still haven't made the majority of things I said I was going to just for my first doll!

So I'm selling a few off, consolidating my collection down, and bringing them out one at a time so I can take my time making things for them. I'm annoyed at myself for going overboard buying but what's done is done, so now I'm being more intentional about things. I think the break helped in learning what I actually want - for example, Puki Pukis are completely adorable and I like looking at them but honestly, I'm into making props in a larger scale, which means bigger dolls suit me better.

 

I took a break due to health problems for a while. I'm back now, and I'm coming back swinging!

 

I've never taken a long enough break for anyone to notice, but I do take periodic mini breaks when I'm busy with classes or life things.

My dolls sit out on display, so I see them every day. I can always pick one up and snap some photos of it when I have a chance, which isn't a luxury everyone has. I do worry that I'll have less and less time for them as medical school gets more demanding, but I also think it's important for people to keep up with their hobbies. The BJD community makes me happy, and I hope to stay in it for a very long time!

 

It's totally normal to take breaks. I was gone for a few years...college was crazy, and then I jumped into the working world and that is kind of an overwhelming thing sometimes. Now that I'm settled back in though, it's so comforting being back. I started collecting really young so I have this deep nostalgia with my BJDs that's great, but also it's fun to expand upon what I once created with what I know now. I think any hobby involves breaks, especially one that ends up being as costly as this one. You always end up coming back.

 

Whenever I don't feel happy with them I'll put my dolls away somewhere I don't see them going about my day (they usually live in a very obvious display in my bedroom) and wait til I find myself missing them or wanting to work with them again and then I'll take them back out again. By that time I always am either excited about the hobby again or have determined what felt off to me with them and start down the path to change that. Usually that process only takes a week or maybe a few weeks at most though.

When I first joined the hobby I had a bit of a rough patch with my first doll. I had her out all the time and she made me kinda start to resent the hobby, but now I've found those small break really help me stay excited about everything and that sometimes I just need to step back and reevaluate.

 

I do take breaks from time to time. I have other hobbies that I enjoy as well, and I just can't focus on them all at the same time. I was surprised when I checked my flickr and saw that the last pictures I had taken were from 4 months ago, but I've pulled a few dolls out recently and would definitely miss them if they weren't here. I still usually check DoA even if I'm not interacting with my dolls as often.

 

So, have you ever totally left the BJD hobby? If so, how many times, why did you leave, why did you come back, did you sell all or some of your dolls when you left, did you regret that afterwords? Tell me all about it! I have never left the hobby the two years I've been in it, don't plan on doing so ever either. But I hear a lot of people leaving permanently or temporarily over what sometimes seems like very silly reasons. But hey, I'm no judge!

 

I went on a long hiatus a couple of years ago. It lasted about a year. I was struggling with clinical depression and didn't have the energy to really deal with life in general. I kept all my dolls and things, but just couldn't do anything with them, and I stopped posting here and on social media. I always intended to reenter the hobby though.

 

I've never 'left' a hobby, lol. I've gotten inactive in some (photography, for instance - long hiatus), or ceramics cause there's just nowhere to do it here anymore.

 

I took a rather large hiatus for awhile. Partially because of moving..and partially because it seemed like the hobby at the time was being over sexual-ized. You'd have heaping big 65cm men with itty bitty baby faced 42cm girls...and everywhere you looked there were 'naughty' photos of them together. Now, I am all for size different couples...but these girls were portrayed as children while the males were portrayed as men. Sure, they have their place in the hobby but it was too much for me at the time. It felt a little gross browsing the gallery and seeing so many of them. Then you'd have your little 'yaoi fetish' and your 'yuri fetish'...

It seems almost silly since I've come back to the hobby and things are far more perverse. I mean, Angel Philia has a tentacle stand for pete's sake...there are squishy chest pieces/backsides...and it seems like everyone has to have their hands on one. Luckily for me it seems that as long as I stay away from facebook group postings DoA doesn't have a whole slew of such things.

I sold off my dolls back then, but I don't really regret it. My taste in dolls have changed and even when I received my dolls in person they weren't how I thought they would be based off of the photos.

 

I have had days when my role-playing wasn't working the way I wanted, or a selling or buying process was frustrating, etc. but sleeping on it and taking time to realize that the doll hobby is just kind of a part of me made me want to stick it out.

 

I've taken a few years break due to school and other obligations. I always kept my dolls with me so they moved around a lot, even if they just stayed in their boxes.

I decided to come back into the hobby mainly because I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. I've had to stop working for medical reasons and started feeling quite lonely; I needed to find a community of people, a club or something to get me out of being isolated most of the time. I remembered that I still had my first BJDs and that there was still and active community when I had left the hobby, which then led me to finding Den of Angels again and finally getting the chance to join. Thanks to this forum I found a local BJD community that held meetups regularly and met a lot of friendly BJD enthusiasts! I can't work on BJDs as fast as I would like to but it's fun to write on forums and chat about dolls on a regular basis, especially since I don't know other people that are into this kind of hobby. I still feel lonely sometimes but I feel a lot better knowing that I'm actively seeking being around people by joining different communities and taking classes instead of always moping around and waiting for my friends to come see me.

 

I took more of a hiatus for about 3 years because I was tired of the RP community and lost interest in my dolls. I also ended up getting busy with work, but I came back because something didn't work out and I realized "I could buy a doll instead!" and that's where I am right now! I saw the Bimong 58 Narae body would be perfect for one of my characters, so that pretty much single handedly brought me back in and I bought it and then a few other character perfect LE/rare dolls that popped up.

I don't think I would actually leave AND sell all my dolls though, because they're still very very important to me. If I left again I'd just take another hiatus without warning. However, in the time I've been away I've learned that the only person that needs to be happy is myself and I keep my characters to myself now.

 

It would be interesting to hear from people who actually left for good, sold or boxed away all their dolls and haven't returned since, because I imagine that their experiences would be somewhat different from people who go on hiatus because for better or worse they're occupied with other things... But obviously the problem is that those people won't be around here to share their stories.

 

Well, I actually left the hobby for 7 or 8 years. Just after getting my very first doll. I couldn't bond with her: she didn't have any faceup and doing it was way more harder then I tought, the wig and eyes I got for her didn't fit, the clothes and shoes I bought seemed less nice than on the photos... I couldn't manage to make her look as pretty as I imagined her to be. And it was after a lot of hard work and sacrifices to get the money to buy her since I was 15 and didn't have any regular income. I was so upset that I stopped participating on forums, reading the BJD news etc... I would rather hide my doll out of culpability (I regretted so much spending all of my money on her... I nearly hated her). So she spent those 7 years in her box. I dreamed about selling her A LOT but I didn't know how to do this and my parents weren't able to help me. But she was in my mind all of the time (in the more negative way).

But now it has been several months that I'm in the hobby again. Thinking about it, I don't think those years were a ''pause''. I see the hobby in a very new way. I'm starting something new and not returning to the old thing. I bought other dolls that I love to play with.
But I still have the first one, slowly learning to love her as she deserves I'm training myself to do better faceups, I'm searching how she should look and I'm thinking a lot about a name for her... I even think I will add the ''abandon" to her personal history because now it is a part of her and me.

It feels good to talk about it since I was feeling very guilty for the hate I had for her. I'm glad you made this thread @SeraphBJD

 

I had a giant hiatus between roughly 2012 and 2016 when I wasn't doing anything with my dolls. However, at the same time, I have never sold any of my dolls and I kept two of them on my shelf on a stand kind of like a decoration, so technically I never quit "owning" a doll. But taking a break doesn't need to be bad. It's good for reflection on what we actually want from this hobby.

 

I have left once, it was for a year I believe. I moved to a different state and it took me forever to get the energy to start again. Once I brought out my doll and dressed her up I was rite back in though!