Does the hobby stress you out sometimes?

I'm currently impatiently wait for my popo68 body... the tnt is not as good as other courier company, i've called them twice already and my item is still showing in my city waiting for delivery... uh, and they won't call you to try to get the item delivered...

i think the longest wait for all my dolls were 4 months, which compare to lots of ppl is nothing... but still 4 months sounds too long to me, i will get panic if i didn't hear anything from the doll company after 3 months...

 

Right now I'm mildly stressing because Angell-Studio keeps taking several days to reply to my emails, even though I deliberately try to send the emails during business hours in China. I'm making a special order (a doll in a custom skin tone on a different body than its default) so I can't just use their site to pay...come on, tell me how I can go about paying for this already. >.< I mean, I'm sure they'll get back to me before the winter event ends. I hope.

My main worries right now are related to money, though. I'm unemployed and I don't have to worry about rent and I have enough to cover all my expenses but obvs there's not much for dolls.....once I finally have a job I'll be so relieved. And go crazy with the dollie purchases ohoho.

 

Yes, absolutely. Money, or the lack of it, being the biggest source of anxiety. I sometimes need to manage up to 3 months with only the monthly income from my work which is around $30. Kind of stressful when you're in the middle of paying off a layaway and you need to make a payment of a certain amount every month (amount that most often exceeds the $30).

I've become pretty good at waiting with the hobby, but when I've paid for an item and I'm promised and update with the tracking number in a few days, but there's still no word after 3 weeks, I start to feel a bit antsy. I know at this point I'm more than justified to find out what is going on with my purchase, but it's really difficult for me to confront people when there's a "problem".

Not bonding with a doll is often very stressful as well. Selling is always an option, but there's no guarantee I'll recover the original cost of the doll and the amount spent on the face up by a professional artist. Whether I sell the doll or wipe of the face up and try to go with a different look, I'll most likely at least end up loosing the $100 spent on the face up.

I really need this hobby because it helps me to cope with my anxiety, but it also causes me more anxiety often so... I don't know. Maybe someday I'll learn to just enjoy things instead of worrying all the time. Fingers crossed.

 

Wow, there are some big issues here. I can only hope the bjd hobby will somehow get better in the future.
Selling in online auctions has its aggravations, too. Sheesh - I gotta get to the gym!

I feel like I have to write my auctions like a comprehensive legal contract. Even so, some transactions go bad.

 

I do truly feel like good things are worth waiting for, but I understand your frustration when the end is so clearly in sight; you've spent time poring over options and have found exactly the item you've wanted, you've taken time to save and budget the money for it, and now you're on the final leg: waiting for shipment/arrival. This can honestly be the hardest part, because there is really nothing left to be done on your end except worry.

It's real easy to say, "Well just don't be impatient!" Do remind yourself though that BJD time moves at a glacial pace owing to small companies, making items to order, etc. All of this points to long wait times and delays that can feel unbearable. If you're feeling stressed, try to step back from the situation and focus other things.

Also, it's definitely scary to put your hard-earned cash out there and not know what's happened to it, but just remember the waiting game is kind of the industry norm at this point. However, if you're seeing warning flags all over the place it would be a good idea to follow up and send some polite emails to clarify what the issue is (though I would do so only after you de-stress for a bit and feel more calm and collected).

It sounds like you're also overwhelmed by the amount of "unfinished business" with your dolls and I can sympathize with that for sure! Most of mine are largely incomplete, and it's occasionally frustrating when I realize some of them have been this way for literal years. I am able to make myself feel better about the situation by reminding myself that it's not a race, literally no one is in a hurry to finish these dolls except me. There's no deadline I have to have them done by, and real-life commitments often prioritize my time and money. Plus, in my opinion, it's half the fun to watch these guys come together over time and slowly become the doll you've always dreamed of. ^^

 

I am new to the hobby...so for me the stress is discovering a doll that you love but it is unavailable. That seems to be quite common. Then efforts turn to finding the doll second hand. It takes a lot of work and research.

 

There's always more than enough stress to share when waiting for news or a doll or anything serious in this hobby!! Hang in there!!

 

I'm not sure stressed is the right word, but certain aspects still certainly make me anxious even in my eighth year in the hobby. The worst was a transaction where I sold a head and the package got lost on the way. In itself this is stressful enough, but I was trying not to panic and wait for the postal services to conduct their research so they could give a refund. As many of you probably know, this takes AGES! I was more than willing to refund the buyer, but I didn't have funds at that point, so I needed this refund to happen first. Unfortunately the buyer wasn't very patient and went from "OK, we'll have to wait" to messaging me almost daily about whether I had heard anything to messaging several times a day to "I want my money back NOW". In a matter of days, even though I had warned them that the post had already estimated the research to take at least a month. In the end, they stressed me out so much that I refunded them with borrowed money, until the post eventually came through. I could understand the stress on their end, but they might have stated that they weren't willing to wait the month a bit earlier on. They pushed me so hard that I still think of it with a sour taste in my mouth and it was 4-5 years ago now.

My other hobby worries are on a much smaller scale. Things like have been mentioned above: the feeling that certain dolls will never get finished, not being able to find a doll for a particular character, things taking ages and costing a fortune and then ending up all wrong/not fitting/vastly different from expectations. Not being able to get face-up slots, or favourite artists closing shop, sculpts being discontinued. I can deal with most of them, because in general I'm of the "it'll be fine" frame of mind. However the waiting game is something I have never entirely mastered. My attention span is sometimes quite short, which means that I might have already moved onto other plans, other stories, other characters by the time certain things arrive or I have secured a face-up slot. With clothes I have solved this by making most of it myself, for eyes and wigs I can always reuse them on someone else, but the dolls themselves are a different matter. I need to make very sure I really want a doll before I enter a wait that is longer than say 3 months. I waited 9 months for a Lati and I'm approaching 10 months currently for a Dollshe, but I'm fine about them because before I ordered I knew I wanted them badly enough that it didn't matter when they arrived. They didn't have a set character and my Dollshe still doesn't, on purpose, to keep me sane. But for character dolls I have nearly always not-coped by impulse purchasing in the meantime to ease the wait. I ended up with some amazing dolls because of it, but also some less amazing ones.

At the end of the day, it's all in good fun. I have had two instances where it wasn't anymore and I solved that by purging a large part of my collection. By the end of that process I was perfectly content with this hobby again and I have a feeling that's how it will always be.

 

I've only been back in the hobby for a matter of months but I had no idea people had such intense issues with finishing dolls. I can't believe it's common to have to wait for months for an order for your doll. As much as I love the hobby...they're dolls. What could possibly make it so impossible to receive an order for a doll.

 

@PrinceColumbine Good question. Glad you're back in the hobby!

 

The waiting is the worse! Also the fact that even after the thing arrives you have to acomodate for issues you didn't forseen, as broken things and/or quality issues. I'm having issues deciding on my first bjd because of it - the endless waiting time to produce the doll, and specialy managing the right time to order. Argh. I lost several preorders, and that drives me insane.

 

My stress comes from the financial side of this hobby. I mean, this isn't a cheap hobby, even little dolls cost well over $100 USD. I always have the internal struggle of 'well, do I really need this? I could be spending the money on xyz' whenever it comes to any hobby purchase, or I'm feeling 'out' since I don't have the newest and greatest. But that is a personal struggle for me to overcome.

 

I am glad I got my Dollshe when Dollshe was going fast. I would have stressed myself to death if I had to wait 6 months or so since at the time he was my most expensive doll.

I think I tend to stress when I break a new highest price. I have been hybriding and secondhanding a lot of my recent dolls so the cost is split up or lower, so my wait for my new Iplehouse doll is driving me up the wall. I think girl dolls also tend to stress me because I have flipped every single girl doll I own in like a year or so... Like I want a feminine character but a lot if the time it doesn't stick. And selling on the secondhand market takes way longer than it used to. I am fortunate in that I haven't had much money drama in my life, but it is still frustrating when I feel like I have wasted money on a doll I don't like and it seems like nobody else wants it either!

That "keeping up with the Joneses" feel comes from time to time. I need to tell myself "Inspired, not jealous!"

 

I've been in the hobby for 2 1/2 years and sometimes I get stressed out! The most recent time was I've been stressed was a week ago. I was restringing my tiny for the first time and I had trouble getting the elastic to go down the right leg. I eventually got it and now everything is okay. Another thing I stress about, and this happens every so often is that when I have a little extra money to spend on my dolls and then I don't have enough for all the things I want. Then I have to gather the prices of everything and figure out how I'm going to spend the money. It sounds kind of silly I know, but it happens. When things get to stressful for me I put the bjd stuff aside and try not to think about it for a while.

 

I'm actually just coming back into the hobby, because I stressed /myself/ out! I let myself get so wrapped up in everything, and didnt feel like i was doing anything "right", and was having a hard time and getting discouraged making clothes...I wasn't enjoying the hobby anymore. At all. But I'm glad i can come back with a different mindset and try again!

 

I don't know that I'd say that the hobby itself stresses me out, but the way I was overly-involved in the shopping aspect of the hobby a few years in (I always call 2010/2011 my year of too many dolls) stresses me out now.

I'd gotten into the hobby 10 years ago with the idea of owning somewhere between 2 and 5 dolls. But then there was that year and a half where I bought too many dolls, and while I stopped buying a doll a month, that still meant a couple of years ago I had 30 dolls. And while some people love their collections that are that large (or larger), having that many dolls (frankly having that many of any item) started stressing me out. And since selling is such a slow process, it's not as simple as with some lower-priced collectibles (I did some similar overshopping of vinyl figures that same year that I've now sold off), I still have a closet full of dolls that I don't display.

Of course I have no one to blame but myself, but I still feel the stress rising whenever I open that doll closet.

 

@Hervoyel Yep, I'm in the same place. I overbought years ago and now the amount of stuff I have is stressful. Selling is not nearly as easy as buying. I need to get busy and get rid of things this year. So, yes, one can have too much stuff! Wishing you well!

 

For me stress comes from interpersonal stuff, like bad transactions or meetups with wonky social dynamics. Thankfully these are rare.

 

I am extra careful when handling my dolls because I am terrified of breaking them. I am also overly pedantic when it comes to keeping my dolls clean. I cannot stand dirt on them and try my best to avoid getting scratches on them. It stresses me out sometimes because this sort of behaviour prevents me from fully enjoying this hobby. I really want to get past this fear and have fun handling my dolls without any restrictions. ;-;