Dollphobia?

I was also afraid of porcelain dolls as a kid -- my mom had a few and they were honestly so lifeless and terrifying.
I also had a weird combo of a porcelain clown doll / puppet that my uncle gave me and it scared the ever loving hell out of me.

I feel like there's a difference between bjds and other dolls though that makes other dolls scary, but not bjds!

Regular porcelain dolls are really lifeless and just sit there, unmoving, just staring at you.
But bjds are more interactive -- they are as they are because the owner customized to their liking. It's harder to be scared of something that you helped create. (:

 

There is something I find a little unnerving about those porcelain dolls, though I've never owned any. For me, it's just that I don't usually like dolls that look like children. I still have no idea why. But the more little kid bjds I see, the more I'm getting over this silly uneasiness, and the cuter I find them.

But no, I've always loved dolls on a general level. Though I was a little afraid of the clown porcelain dolls my dad had... And now I have an intense love for clowns, and the specific clowns of his that I was afraid of. I don't get it. Fears are funny.

 

In my household it was the opposite. I loved porcelain dolls, but the rest of my family was unnerved by them.

As for my ball jointed dolls, my family has had mixed reactions.

 

I agree that most of those older porcelain dolls are creepy. For some reason, though, I feel like these modern bjds are sculpted in such a way that they don't come off creepy. (Except certain off the wall sculpts, of course). Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that I'm the one who does the face-ups

 

Mostly, I've never been creeped out by dolls. I've loved all kinds of dolls since I was little.

But I did have one who freaked me out. When I was 11, my grandparents gave me a porcelain doll in a pink satin dress. She had dark curly hair and was gifted to me because they thought she looked like me. I loved her, named her Jennifer after my best friend at the time. During the day, she was great. At night, I swore she was watching me, and in the dim lights in my room, it looked like her eyes were moving or her expression would change from neutral to sad or angry. I'm sure it was one of those things where the doll looks different from different angles, but she creeped me out so much I ended up putting her in my closet at night and tying the doorknobs shut. XD

Other than Jennifer, I've never really been bothered by dolls.

 

I was never scared but my son was and still comments occasionally now that he is grown. When he was small i had a nice sized collection of porcelain doll collection in front room. We had to put them in back room out of site because they scared him. Wit my bjds he still comments when he visits. Still have the porcelain dolls in closet the is referred to as the creepy doll corner.☺

 

Oh yes, I was scared of dolls as a kid. Not Barbies per se, but those close-to-anatomically-correct baby dolls and the ones that close their eyes when you lay them down. Someone once gave me a closing-eyes doll as a gift, and unfortunately I have never been able to look at it (let alone play with it). I would even run past it when my grandparents put it on display in the corridor. Even though I've gotten over most of that baby/porcelain doll fear, I still get a tiny sense of heebie-jeebies when I have to see one close up.

 

Maybe during that time when that creepy doll movie came out??I forgot the name of the movie, but does anyone remember? The storyline was there was a serial killer getting sentenced to death and some how his spirit was trapped in a doll, and that doll start killing people?

 

@hsifalissa
Are you thinking of the Chucky movies maybe? First one is called Childs Play, and I remember a few sequals.

 

Never! I have always loved them. Always will.

 

I've always really liked dolls of most types. Only ones that bother me are the "real baby" ones. All my friends really hate my bjds though and don't even like to see photos of them, much less go in the room where they are. I think its some kind of brain thing.

 

Ever since I was young have absolutely hated porcelain dolls they where like little living creature that judged and haunted my every waking moment. But for my family sake I could walk past them and be fine as long as I didn't make eye contact. Then one Sunday (I was 6-7) my grandmother let me watch Chucky and then I heard those stories of dolls used to hold the souls of the dead and well that just didn't help me at all. It only got worse from there (no thanks to my aunt who loved the things.) But even though I am over my fear for the most part I still get chills from time to time. Still I bought my first BJD and looking at all the different kinds online are helping me even more. (strangely I really liked robots that where humanoid and the like)

 

For a while a lot of dolls, until I was old enough to understand Chucky wasn't real and that gore movies didn't actually kill people. My poor young child mind kept trying to understand what was so amazing about fame to be worth dying in a movie for.

...I digress. My sister had one of those baby dolls that opened and closed its eyes; I think to simulate being awake and being asleep. I forget how it worked, but more or less the eyes would roll open and shut depending on how you held it? I'd have to go look it up to be sure. Anyways, I swear that thing would always be watching me and it felt like if I ever showed my back to it, I wouldn't get out of the room alive. Gave me shivers in all the wrong places just having it within viewing range. I can't tell if it was the concept of a doll with moving eyelids or just that doll in particular, but it always scared the living daylights out of me.

edit: I think I found it; a doll matching what I remember called My First Baby Annabell is still sold on the Toys'RUs website. Goodness gracious those eyes...

 

I've never understood a person having a fear of dolls. I personally have never had this fear. When people call my dolls "Creepy" I am really offended. Does that make me creepy too because I like them?

 

Oh yes! Alfred Hitchcock really played into my suspicions when I was a kid. Even though my sister and I played dolls together, it was very hard for me to be "stared" at by a doll and I couldn't sleep with them "looking" at me. And I do remember staying over night with one of my mom's friends. She had a room roped off and if you peered inside, she had these child sized dolls standing in the middle of the room, in the dark, and all staring back. I had to sleep in the room next door and just couldn't shut my eyes. Mostly because it was too dark to see if they were actually dolls or something else. But I wasn't allowed past the rope to check.

It took me a long time to get past my fear of dolls. I loved them, but I was also unnerved. :P

 

I was never scared of dolls in general. My first doll (and a few others after that) were those that have eyes that open and close depending on how you hold them and it never bothered me. In fact, I really liked that aspect of them, how I could put them in bed and they'd look like they were sleeping. I've had a few of those so I suppose it was a fairly common doll thing too? Regardless, I've had all sorts of dolls over the years and none of them bothered me, but my cousin had this one doll that I was terrified of. Then again, can anyone blame me? That thing looked like it came from the darkest corner of Hell. She kept it at the end of a hallway that you had to pass by to get to her room too so I couldn't even go play with her without a test of courage first, haha.

 

I have never been afraid of dolls, so long as they are under 5 feet tall. I'm terrified of mannequins and lifelike android robots, as well as wax figures of human beings and wooden statues, but dolls have never scared me. I have a strong appreciation for porcelain dolls especially, as my grandmother's gift to me every year would be a porcelain storybook character or fairytale princess. I gained a keen affection toward porcelain dolls in particular because they remind me of my grandmother.
Just keep the life-size BJDs and wax figures away, and I'm good.

 

honestly porcelain dolls are somewhat unnerving to me but not scary. however my mom gave me an old doll from her childhood (a giant baby doll) and it kinda scares me so i keep it in the corner with a blanket over it haha