Thoughts on Reborn Therapy Dolls After My Son's Murder

By Wendy C Allen

I found this video interesting and thought, maybe you guys might want to see it, so here it is, but also here is the comment I left for her video, that explains why I liked it…

https://youtu.be/yr5t0_cfrBc?si=XC8zeomvm27JD18c

I quite enjoyed your video, and see that you were wanting context from people who had these dolls, and I have one, and can give you some answers, at least from my own perspective of owning one of these dolls.

I am personally in the "mid range", meaning:

1: I am not a doll collector with art dolls on a shelf. So there is no "collection of many dolls."

2: I'm not role - playing, not making videos, not acting out feeding, not taking doll shopping trips, my doll does not have a room or bed or wardrobe, or anything like that, etc. So there is no "daily feeding routine".

I am in the therapy range in the middle. Mine stays in a cardboard box, wrapped in a soft blanket to protect the silicone from getting dirty/damaged by sun, etc, when not in use. When in use, the doll sits on my lap, or sits on the bed/chair beside me.

I do not refer to myself as a "reborn mom" nor call the doll "my baby", in fact, I've had the doll a few years now and have not yet given her a name. I never felt a need to.

I do however say "her" or "she", even though my doll technically could be with male or female as there are no "gender body parts" on the doll. I'm not sure why "she" is what I use, why not "he"? I have no logical reason for it because I did not actively think "I'll call it a girl", it was just I realized one day I always refer to her as "she". I think it must be because my real baby who was murdered, was a boy, and my mind subconsciously defaulted to "this baby is not him and not real therefore say "she"??? I don't know.

Perhaps an interesting note is that I DO, however take the doll with me when I go places. BUT, its not like going shopping or taking the doll for a walk in the park type of thing. My job is such that I go to a lot of events, conventions, festivals, fairs, carnivals, ect and sell items from a sales booth (think classic circus, sideshow, state fair type carnivals, and me selling handmade items out of a tent) Meaning, I'll be sitting for many hours, interacting with customers, and, sitting in my chair beside me or on my lap, is the doll. You should understand this better once I explain why I have the doll.

So, I have a reborn doll, but its the "child type" not the baby type. Mine is quite large, she is 25" (the size of a year old toddler) . Most are 13” to 18”(the size of a premie or newborn), so mine is a bit different then ones commonly seen. While there are others with toddler sized babies, we are the minority within the reborn community. It was actually quite difficult to find any 20” or bigger. She is just the right size to sit on my lap, which she does for hours a day, because:

1: I'm using an ambulatory manual (not power) wheelchair, and carrying a small, head-floppy baby-size is a bit inconvenient, meaning, it'll roll off my lap onto the floor when I'm using my hands/arms to roll the chair around, and then I'd have to deal with now not falling out of my chair while trying to reach the doll off the floor… so, for me, the larger toddler size works better.

2: I have a desk job that is 90% typing for hours on end. So she sits on my lap while I work. Being a toddler size, the doll is big enough to sit up by the table beside me, and doesn't have the "floppy head" feature found on most newborn types.

It is my only reborn doll, though I have considered getting 2 more, I simply can not afford them (the two others I wanted were mass produced Ashton Drake vinyl with cloth bodies and each in the $300 range, so on the "cheaper" side, but still way out of range for what I can afford.)

Mine is partial-silicone, meaning it's just head, hands, and feet made of soft squishy silicone. The body, arms, and legs are a waldorf type cuddle body, very soft velour, but also made "ball jointed" which is kind of uncommon to see cloth that is jointed. But it makes her very posable.

She is also quite heavy. In addition to the heft of the silicone head, the body is stuffed with a mix of glass beads and poly, and overall she weighs around 10lbs. VERY heavy for a doll (most reborns are only 2 to 4 lbs) but similar in weight to both a real toddler or a weighted lap blanket. She is a one - of - a - kind hand-sculpted (not from a mould) doll.

I have her for therapy reasons.

Previously I was using a weighted lap blanket, but she works better.

She is not a hyper realistic doll though. And that was deliberate on my part. When my therapist first suggested a reborn, I had never heard of them before and when I went looking for one, I was immediately creeped out, very uncanny valley type of creeped out, over how real they looked.

I REALLY do not like the hyper realistic baby dolls, because my mind just things "OMG! that's a dead baby!" even though I know it's a doll and not a dead baby, but there is also a reason my mind triggers this way.

So, trigger warning, I had a baby who died, but not like, just died from illness or something expected… my 8 month old baby was murdered in a parking lot, by a random stranger, November 14, 2013, and has not yet been caught or even identified, and the FBI murder investigation has been ongoing for now thirteen years.

I have MS and endometriosis and so getting pregnant at all is difficult I've had 7 miscarriages and then the 8th one the first baby who lives (named Xavier Octavian because he was my 8th baby… all the previous seven were also named Xavier with different middle names, Ocavian means "eighth".

Anyways Xavier Octavian died at 8 months old. He was murdered by a woman with a golf club, she also broke my spine and WHY I'm now in a wheelchair and told I'm unlikely to have more children due to injuries the golf club did to my ovaries (my left ovary is ruptured and has turned into a massive "tumour" that now weights almost thirty pounds. I can not afford the $37,000 surgery to repair my spine nor the $18,000 surgery to remove the tumorous infected ovary.

My doctor tells me that even if I did get pregnant again, it'd be very dangerous to my health and it is highly unlikely I would live through it.

There is an active FBI investigation trying to find the woman who did this to me and murdered my son, but as yet she has not been found and we still don't know who she is or why she attacked.

But also as I am in America and over 45 years old (I am over 50, but the law says 45), so I also can't not adopt a baby. (I am over 50 and when I tried to adopt, was immediately told by the Maine department of human and child services that America has a law where you must be under 45 years old to adopt a child who is not a teenager.)

So this is all very devastating to me. People are like, well get a dog. I have a dog and 3 cats and it is not the same and they just don't understand that.

Well, so, I check out reborn dolls because my therapist said it might help, and immediately I get creeped out by the fact that they look too real, so real that it actually makes me feel NOT comforted because my mind kept thinking “not another dead baby”. So it had the OPPOSITE effect on me, because they were so real that they made me think “dead baby” instead of cute doll. It didn't matter how much I knew these were dolls, my brain was just having gut reaction repelling me from them.

I really don't like the ones that are “sleeping” especially, because so much “omg that looks like my murdered son in his coffin” vibe it sends in me.

So, for me, the hyper realistic reborns are very stress inducing because they look too real and trigger PTsD attacks over my son's death.

The ones with eyes open are not as bad, because they look less "dead" to my mind, but still the ones that look too real even with eyes open freak me out.

So, I simply was not able to get one. And there was a period of close to a decade of my therapist continuing to tell me "try reborn dolls, just get one and see", before I actually ended up getting one. My mind was just registering them as "real dead babies" even though I knew they were dolls, because they just looked "too" real.

And while researching I found the roleplay videos and those creeped me out too. I don't understand the whole taking the dolls out in public thing, or changing diapers or feeding them.

And yet, I ended up with a reborn. Why?

But… then in my searching I found Fantasy Reborns. The demons, Fairies, and such, and these didn't creep me out. My mind registered that these were dolls not dead babies, and so these I could pick up and hold, no problem.

So, I changed my search to looking for Fantasy reborns and I finally found the one I got now. It's a “Christmas Elf”, white wool hair, huge super big eyes, exaggerated chubby cheeks, and little snowflakes painted on.

It's very cartoony, not realistic but also realistic at the same time. And as soon as I saw her, I just bought her immediately, I didn't even think about it. There was just an immediate reaction of “that's the one”.

Anyway, I bought her, not expecting she would help, but I figured why not give therapy dolls a try at least. If it doesn't work, well, at least I'll have a nice looking doll to sit on the shelf. So I was sceptical and not expecting much.

But then she arrived. And, while I never got into the roleplay aspect, and likely never well, because doll role-playing is just not my vibe, I was however surprised by the calming effects of just holding a baby doll, while I go about my day.

Because I'm in a wheelchair now due to the same attack that murdered by son, and have a desk job, she just sits on my lap for hours on end every day and I have her in a papoose sling on my chest when I'm up moving around doing chores.

I have about 4 sets/changes of clothes for her, so that when I go to events, her outfits is the same colour theme as whatever I'm wearing, and changing outfits before events is the only time I change her outfits. When I get back from an event she just wears whatever she had on at the event for the rest of the year until the next event.

So she's just sitting on my lap while I work or hanging in her sling on my chest while I work, and for some reason that's enough to have a calming comforting effect on me.

So, why she goes to events with me: I have post traumatic stress disorder. The attack that crippled me and killed my son, happened in public, in a parking lot, at Southern Maine Community College Buglight Lighthouse Art Studio, where I had just come out of the bathroom, and went out the beach side door, to my car in the first parking spot by the building, just in front of the dock to the lighthouse. I was born legally blind, almost deaf, and partly mute, so I did not see or hear the golf club woman come up, nor could I call out for help when she attacked.

So, in addition to the injuries I have, and having post traumatic stress disorder, i also have agoraphobia (which is NOT fear of going outdoors like media falsely says - it is fear of going into large public spaces with crowds of people and no roof/canopy over head). Meaning, there is a need for feel enclosed/covered which weighted blankets and a head scarf help, but still make my return to selling from a booth in festivals where there are large crowds of people extremely difficult.

Prior to the attack, I was at a different event every single weekend all year long, 50 events a year.

Since the attack, I have only been able to go to one event (PortCon Maine) each year… the addition of the doll, has given me a bit more freedom in that I can hug her while at the events, and so, she is now incorporated into all of my CosPlay costumes for conventions now.

It's really strange and I don't have an explanation for it, but it is just very comforting to hold the doll.

As for the TikToks you mentioned… I personally find many of them to be highly offensive. Not all of them, but, certainly the majority of the ones I've seen.

To me, most of the tik toks do NOT feel like a therapy thing. A few do, but most don't. To me, most of them feel like someone who thought "OMG I can cash in on a trend and make money by dressing up dolls and pretending they are real! Yay money, money, money, money!!!!!" That's just the vibe most of them give off to me.

Thing is I've never once thought of making videos with my doll or treating my doll like a real child. So, I really just can't wrap my mind around the idea of making those sorts of videos to begin with. Its like they are preforming for a stage play, and not doing any sort of actual therapy. I have seen a few that feel actually genuine therapy, but, for the most part, I just can't see putting a performance on tiktok, feeding formular to a doll on tiktok, ec as therapy. Maybe it is, but to me its like, uhm… why is showing off feeding real food to a doll therapy inducing? Like I get how feeding a doll is therapy inducing, but I don't get how doing it on a YouTube livestream is therapy inducing?

But also, most people (both online and offline) have no clue I even have a reborn doll, as I just don't talk about it.

If someone is visiting, I just put the doll in her box and back on the shelf, so she's not even out on display either. And when I've got her out in public, I'm dressed up in a huge elaborate CosPlay custom (due to my job) and so, people just assume her to be part of the CosPlay.

But anyways, yeah, hopefully that answers some of your questions about reborns from an inside the community perspective?

Do you have information about my son's murder and need the FBI contact information:

If you have any information about my son’s murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

Looking to find out more about my son's murder, that information is on these pages:

How did the FBI get involved?

Never Forget my son was murdered

Do you know who this woman is? And no 146 Portland Ave is not for sale.

Thoughts on Reborn Therapy Dolls After My Son's Murder

And if you're one of those lunatic jackass bullshitting alien abduction UFO freaks, looking for haunted cars, Stephen King, cryptids, or EBEs, first off, you can go fuck yourselves. I am so damned sick of you conspiracy brained motherfuckers harassing my family and turning my son's murder case into a circus of you psycho deranged bullshit. Here's some pages for you:

Debunking The World's Most Haunted Car aka "The Goldeneagle" aka "The Real Christine"

"Etiole" and My Thoughts on UFOs and Aliens.

The Rapture is Coming...

This page was written by Wendy Christine Allen of 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

While there are around 20k pages on this website, most of them are blocked from search engines, with only around 800 of them available for appearing in Google/Bing/etc search results. The remainder can only be accessed via the various links found throughout this site. This was done deliberately on my part, and I did it because the bulk of the pages on this website are chapters from 138 novels and 423 novellas, so only the first page of each novel and novella indexed by search engines, and the remainder are linked in order, one page at a time, via clicking "next page" at the end of each. So if you are looking for a specific page from a specific novel, Google can't help you.

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