Have you ever struggled with the love for your collection? Story Time

[aquamarinemolly]

I am very lucky that my family and friends have always known and appreciated my personality- sweet, independent, blunt, and a bit of a weirdo. No one was really surprised when I told them about ponies...I was "in the closet" for a while, but as time went on I became more involved in events and planning, met more and more people in our community, it stopped seeming shameful or like something I wanted to hide. My interests are my interests, and when I told my very wise best friend about ponies, he said "Being successful at something when you feel second-hand shame from other people about is the best way to neutralize their unkindness. I think that you f**king rock."

However, now that my collection has grown in size and value, I feel more conscious of how much space ponies take up in our tiny apartment. I mean, in 800 sqft a bookshelf stacked high covered with like 100 ponies is A LOT...and there are 150 more on my wish list! Proportionately my collection is kinda small and definitely not encyclopedic; I couldn't fill a pony room if I had one! Although I'm proactively planning how to display my collection and prioritizing larger items (already got my dream castle and any G4 MIBs I care about), it's still tough to justify occupying such a large percentage of our home with My Little Pony. Hubby is a wonderful and supportive partner with his own bookshelf of board games...but visually it just doesn't dominate the same way brightly colored joyful ponies do. To be continued when we move at the end of the summer...

[Taffeta]

There are some great stories on here.

I hid it a lot when I was a teenager, but as an online collector...once. I didn't get any abuse in real life. I never have had from anyone. People who didn't know, didn't know. People who did have been ok with it. One friend I told recently was all like, "oh, I had them, I still have them back home!", so that was nice. I'm going to try and persuade her to dig them out when she goes back next, but she's not from the UK and it's a long way back, so that won't be soon. I'm just curious to know what ponies she had xd.

I had my biggest issues online. I was stalked, essentially, by two pony collectors.

I'm not going to give names, both have gone and I've heard explanations for why it happened, although I think the people who received those explanations were lied to, as most of the information they had was incorrect.

Let me be honest from the start - I am still quite blunt and I know I am (and you guys probably do too >.>) but when I first came online I was much more direct with how I dealt with stuff, and very naive to the idea of people and trusting them. I thought all pony people would be nice because they liked ponies, and I was punished for that fact. I probably offended some people - I know I went and found a lot of people I thought I might have offended after I had my diagnosis, so I could clear the air from my teenage pony soapbox rants (they were worse than my ones these days, I promise >.>) but I never did anything with any malice.

Around 1999-2000, when I was dealing with a lot of real life issues as well, I had a couple of people making threats against me online. They created other online IDs to come and stalk me and pretend to be someone else. They would play good cop bad cop on me to try and get me to react. I traded with one of them and never got what I was owed - I still didn't get what I was owed, and they claimed the box got lost, but I know it didn't as items that were meant to be in it turned up later in a different context. And because they had the address, one of them then told me that she was sending her boyfriend to come get me if I didn't take down my website (on UK ponies, which at the time also had variants on).

I had a complete emotional breakdown. I wasn't diagnosed with autism then, but ponies are and were a big coping mechanism for me growing up. Those people took that and destroyed it. It took a long time to get that love back. It is now back. I don't care about those people any more. When their names come up and people talk about them like they were not monsters, I get a twinge inside of me - but it's over and I've let it go. I'm not a child now and I won't let them or anyone take away from me something that's precious.

The only issue my family have with my collecting is space. They get that it's important and that there's this weird element of my brain that the more complex and academic I become with my PhD work, the more childish I then become with my hobbies. So it tends to go something like this:
Analyse text. Translate text. Come up with a theory linking texts together. Go away and brush (x doll/pony)'s hair and braid it.

As an adult and 34 years old now, I've finally accepted that that is part of me. The adult comes with the child. The two have to work together or I don't function to my best ability. My family know that I achieve more if I have my collections, and MLP has helped me hugely over the years. Even despite the above experience, it's because of MLP that I went to a pony meet, met pony people, made new friends, connected...

So on balance I owe a lot to my ponies. And even though there have been bad times in the past, I'm so grateful for having them now. Even when I'm away from them in London, like now.

This thread is really uplifting and inspiring in a lot of ways, though it's sad that so many people have also had struggles in regards to their collecting. There are far worse things you could be doing than collecting ponies.

[Chelsea7]

Thank you so much for writing this, it makes me feel better about my own insecurities involving my collection~

When I was a kid, I always loved playing with toys, especially anything MLP or Pokemon related. My two siblings are 13 and 15 years older than me, so for me at the time I was essentially an only child and I was bored for a lot of the time. I also struggled a lot with social skills (as I have a relatively mild form of OCD, although I am much better at communication now) and when I was young I was a bit.. energetic, so a lot of kids tended to avoid me. So toys were my only real solace.

I always had my little ponies, and I loved them, even into my teens. I started out with the G2s, and used to keep them in my room. My mom knew how much I loved my toys, especially my ponies, and she never really discouraged me from making up my own "stories" for them, or imagining them going on adventures. Because of this I even went so far as to collect G3s in the early 2000s, but by then I mostly hid them and played with them in my basement, because it was odd for a pre-teen to play with toys..

I had some G4s in high school, but that was when I said to myself "Chelsea, stop", and ceased collecting for fear of being "weird" and having a toy collection at 16. I still watched FiM, although closeted, until this very kind boy who was into G4 (a true brony) showed me kindness and told me to ignore everyone who would give me gripe about being a pony fan.

This changed my view on my toys somewhat, and that's when I started to collect G1s. I was never big on 80s things, and I will admit at first I wasn't sure about the 80s ponies, although they were original. I grew up with G2 (which I am now aware was detested in the US ), but I figured it would be wrong to not own at least one G1. I purchased SS Shady, and that was it. I liked her, but I didn't love her, and I said to myself I might consider collecting more, but not until I had enough money to spend. This was my Freshman year of college!

By sophomore year, I was in a new relationship (I had been in one in HS, but it was a mess), and I was having an extremely tough year in the biological sciences (I am a B.S. in Zoology, so it worked out). My boyfriend, as well as great friends kept me in good spirits, but I found myself kind of wishing I was a kid again and thinking a lot about when I was younger. This carried well into Junior year, and I found myself toy shopping again for fun, just to see what I could find. This time I found a SS Paradise, and I bought her. She was a wreck; her flocking was yellow, her hair was stringy and dry, and she looked awful. But I found a de-flocked picture of a Paradise, and I said to myself: "I can do that, I can fix her". So I did, I cleaned her and re-haired her.

I felt amazing

It had been so fun to make her look that much better, that I decided I wanted to start collecting ponies to make them look like new. The true collecting began this year, the beginning of my senior year of college. I went from 2 ponies to 40 in a span of about 8 months. At first it was easy to hide them. Dave, my boyfriend, was a little weirded out (and still is) by the fact I collected these things, but he was for the most part encouraging as far as me having a hobby. I lived with him and 5 of my closest friends, and about halfway through the year they were kind of curious as to why I kept bringing home horse shaped packages.

Finally, one day when I was out and they were taking care of my hamster, they saw the shelf..

I was mortified.

They didn't react negatively, although they did poke fun at me for having so many dolls. I was embarrassed, but they never brought it up in conversation willingly, and the few times one did arrive at the door my roommate Sarah would simply say "A pony came for you" with this funny smirk on her face. I wanted to disappear at those points, and at one point considered shipping the lot home. But I didn't, and I survived the (gasp) embarrassment

I felt like my whole life I struggled with finding friends, maintaining relationships, and trying to be an adult. I just graduated college in May, I have my first real adult job as a veterinary assistant, and I am living well enough that in a few years (hopefully one) I can move in with my boyfriend in Portland, ME. But the one thing that was constant was having my ponies around, even if they weren't visible.

I am still planning to collect (heck a pony just arrived on my doorstep yesterday) and I don't want to stop. I won't thrust them in people's faces when they enter my life, but they are there and present. While I like to keep my collection private, I have found the more people that find out honestly do not seem to care. One of my family's closer friends is a thrift store frequenter, and she is starting to look for me.

I guess to end my story I can't really go anywhere but up from here, I am coming to terms with what my hobby is, and I don't plan on letting someone's sour opinion change my personal likes and dislikes.

Thanks for listening to this long rant 

[WaterRaven]

Oh, it's been a sort of rollercoaster for me and my ponies since I started collecting '06 xD
my ex didn't really support it, and the first time I "fell out of love" so to speak with the ponies (I didn't really, but I got fed up with it all because of our situation) when he made it clear it was only OK for me to have them in the room where I'd have my art supplies, hamsters etc. basically the room he never entered. It was done in a very condescending way and I gave up on art, on ponies and I'm sad to say the hammies got a bit too little attention, too. But it's a whole other story.
After I kicked him out, I moved back in with my parents and put EVERYTHING on display, and started buying a bit again. This was when g4 was new, so I was getting into those as well.
Then I started working, and could afford BJDs and got into that hobby, which made me sort of once again fall out of love with ponies, but I kept them on display.
Fast forward couple of years to when I moved in with my fiancé at his parents', where I couldn't keep ponies xD I ahd one pony there, maybe two. Our room was super tiny. I just focused intensely on BJDs, and we started collecting nendoroids, and I sold a great chunk of my collection. I enjoyed it, but it was never the same as the ponies.
Couple years forward yet, we got our own house, and I got shelves to display my ponies. Finally!
We're now on our third year of living in this house, and I've just started getting back into ponies again. I had a spell last summer where I did, but our economical situation went down the drain due to one of our cats having a lot of medical issues. Now everyhing is stabilizing, and I am enjoying buying a pony every now and then
We're even going to reorganize the collection together. my fiancé is super supportive of my ponies, and he has since day one.

When it comes to others judging me for it... One of my friend's ex teased me for it. He thought it was silly. I never liked him anyway, so I don't care. My other friends have all just accepted it, luckily. But if they can't accept me for who I am and for the hobbies I have, I figure they're not worth my time
My collector's pose collection is basicallly the centerpiece in our living room, and then I have another display above our bed, so they're definitely very in your face if you visit our house. (fun times if that ever collapses. we'll be buried in ponies xD )

It sounds like we both had "winners." My Ex would have never understood it either and he left me homeless and jobless-- after my dog died, she was my rock. I miss her everyday. Thank goodness they're gone. It's great to read that you have someone now who's supportive of you. That's great news. I am so sorry to read about all your struggles. I hope your cat is better?

I have BJDs too actually, around 4 I think? But the hobby just isn't the same for me either. I like them, I love one or two of them, but they are SO expensive and I constantly battle over just buying a shirt or a wig or something! I try to make as much stuff at home as I can, but sowing is just not my forte. I keep telling myself I need to learn.

Here's my only human girl bjd sporting a fakie pony shirt and fakie with her bud Clawdeed:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


I like messing around with repaints/face ups.

Hooray for having better partners and congratulations on being engaged! Thank you so much or sharing!

Post Merge: June 23, 2016, 04:29:54 PM

Welcome back!

You'll have to excuse my typos I usually post from my phone.

I grew on a huge farm, and I've always had horses. Horses have been my everything for w very long time or were. I collected ponies and model horses and had them everywhere. When I got older and went to college I left my real horses and toys behind. I eventually met my ex wife and moved with her working different jobs and away from horses. It had been almost ten years and at one point when our relationship was starting to break I found ponies. It was after the friendship is magic started and someone mentioned it and I thought about my old ponies. My ex wife mentioned having had a lot of them but they burned in a fire when she was a kid. I started secretly buying some for her for Christmas when I found the arena and surprisingly bought myself some too.


My ex didn't like to spend time with me, and we were in a different place all alone. I used to have horses as my outlet to make me feel better, but they were gone and suddenly I had ponies. It wasn't healthy, but I ended up having several and we got into it. My ex hated them, thought they were weird and made fun of me constantly. She wasn't working and eventually  I sold most of the ponies when I had a little mental meltdown from work (I worked in a bad school with lots of drugs and violence) and relationship problems.

I've come to the community off and on for years since then altough I cut ties with basically everyone I used to talk with much. About a year ago after moving home and finding a job close I wanted my own horse again. I searched and bought Nevada before my relationship with her finished dying. Before she left I had sold most of my ponies and in an angry fit I sold most of the rest of them.

I've slowly come around again to the fact I love my ponies and horses and have started collecting again. My new girlfriend is so supportive and sweet about it. I'm not going to feel bad they make me happy, and I love that Amber is so sweet about my ponies. They make me smile during times when I cannot get out to Nevada.

Thank you for the welcome and hello fellow horse lover! My family has horses and I've had my horse since she was 4, she's now 19

I'm sorry to hear about how unsupportive your ex had been, but I think it's great that that relationship brought you back into the hobby, even if only to come back to it again later. I am really glad to hear you've found someone new who supports you fully. I let go a lot of my ponies just because I thought I should, that I needed to grow up, but now I realize toys have nothing to do with age, they are feeling. Toys and hobbies are their for good feelings. There's so much crap going on, we need something to make us happy. I see that, especially after all these posts.

Do you collect breyers or grand champions? I just found some of my horses boxed up and can't wait to unbox them and dust them off!

Post Merge: June 23, 2016, 04:39:22 PM

Oh my goodness!!! <3 <3 <3

Thank you so much for reading my article and I'm so glad it was able to re-ignite your passion for collecting! Ponies have absolutely changed my life for the better. I know I focus a lot on my husband in the article, but I mainly wanted to write it to contrast with all the negative collecting articles and T.V. shows that are out there in abundance...from My Strange Addiction to Hoarders, to articles about how an obsessive collecting habit ruined someone's life.

I wanted to show that there IS a healthy way to collect something, and that fandom can be wonderful and positive!

Thanks again for reading my article. I'm so flattered. <3 I love my pony people!

I'll be at the fair this year, dressed as G1 Starglow. So if you see me, feel free to come say hi!

I wish I was going! I didn't know about it till last year! I came across the pony fair on Tumblr. I would love to come and meet you and fellow pony lovers! I am getting married like a week after the fair, lol, and I am in Canada. I am going to talk to my fiance about going to the fair for 2017 though!

I think your article could not have come at a better time, especially for someone who not only gets childhood joy from her ponies, but uses them to refocus thoughts away from traumas. I really was having thoughts of "am I a hoarder?" and "what will people think" "Is this ok?" and when I read your article, I felt SO MUCH BETTER. When I read that you were a writer, I felt even more connected, especially since I had just left working part-time to write full-time.

I saw you sent me a PM, I'm off to read it! Thank you again!

Post Merge: June 23, 2016, 09:38:25 PM

I am very lucky that my family and friends have always known and appreciated my personality- sweet, independent, blunt, and a bit of a weirdo. No one was really surprised when I told them about ponies...I was "in the closet" for a while, but as time went on I became more involved in events and planning, met more and more people in our community, it stopped seeming shameful or like something I wanted to hide. My interests are my interests, and when I told my very wise best friend about ponies, he said "Being successful at something when you feel second-hand shame from other people about is the best way to neutralize their unkindness. I think that you f**king rock."

However, now that my collection has grown in size and value, I feel more conscious of how much space ponies take up in our tiny apartment. I mean, in 800 sqft a bookshelf stacked high covered with like 100 ponies is A LOT...and there are 150 more on my wish list! Proportionately my collection is kinda small and definitely not encyclopedic; I couldn't fill a pony room if I had one! Although I'm proactively planning how to display my collection and prioritizing larger items (already got my dream castle and any G4 MIBs I care about), it's still tough to justify occupying such a large percentage of our home with My Little Pony. Hubby is a wonderful and supportive partner with his own bookshelf of board games...but visually it just doesn't dominate the same way brightly colored joyful ponies do. To be continued when we move at the end of the summer...

Thank you so much for sharing. I am so glad your family and friends have been supportive!

I don't have the largest collection either and what I do have is currently only one big bookshelf's worth. Tomorrow I am going to pick up the biggest lot of pony stuff I've ever seen in my life and now I'm all like: "Where am I going to put this? Is this too much?? We just live in a townhouse!" LoL, but I'll just weed through it and only keep my favourite stuff. If you do get a pony room, I'd love to see! After you've moved and settled and all  ^_^

There are some great stories on here.

I hid it a lot when I was a teenager, but as an online collector...once. I didn't get any abuse in real life. I never have had from anyone. People who didn't know, didn't know. People who did have been ok with it. One friend I told recently was all like, "oh, I had them, I still have them back home!", so that was nice. I'm going to try and persuade her to dig them out when she goes back next, but she's not from the UK and it's a long way back, so that won't be soon. I'm just curious to know what ponies she had xd.

I had my biggest issues online. I was stalked, essentially, by two pony collectors.

I'm not going to give names, both have gone and I've heard explanations for why it happened, although I think the people who received those explanations were lied to, as most of the information they had was incorrect.

Let me be honest from the start - I am still quite blunt and I know I am (and you guys probably do too >.>) but when I first came online I was much more direct with how I dealt with stuff, and very naive to the idea of people and trusting them. I thought all pony people would be nice because they liked ponies, and I was punished for that fact. I probably offended some people - I know I went and found a lot of people I thought I might have offended after I had my diagnosis, so I could clear the air from my teenage pony soapbox rants (they were worse than my ones these days, I promise >.>) but I never did anything with any malice.

Around 1999-2000, when I was dealing with a lot of real life issues as well, I had a couple of people making threats against me online. They created other online IDs to come and stalk me and pretend to be someone else. They would play good cop bad cop on me to try and get me to react. I traded with one of them and never got what I was owed - I still didn't get what I was owed, and they claimed the box got lost, but I know it didn't as items that were meant to be in it turned up later in a different context. And because they had the address, one of them then told me that she was sending her boyfriend to come get me if I didn't take down my website (on UK ponies, which at the time also had variants on).

I had a complete emotional breakdown. I wasn't diagnosed with autism then, but ponies are and were a big coping mechanism for me growing up. Those people took that and destroyed it. It took a long time to get that love back. It is now back. I don't care about those people any more. When their names come up and people talk about them like they were not monsters, I get a twinge inside of me - but it's over and I've let it go. I'm not a child now and I won't let them or anyone take away from me something that's precious.

The only issue my family have with my collecting is space. They get that it's important and that there's this weird element of my brain that the more complex and academic I become with my PhD work, the more childish I then become with my hobbies. So it tends to go something like this:
Analyse text. Translate text. Come up with a theory linking texts together. Go away and brush (x doll/pony)'s hair and braid it.

As an adult and 34 years old now, I've finally accepted that that is part of me. The adult comes with the child. The two have to work together or I don't function to my best ability. My family know that I achieve more if I have my collections, and MLP has helped me hugely over the years. Even despite the above experience, it's because of MLP that I went to a pony meet, met pony people, made new friends, connected...

So on balance I owe a lot to my ponies. And even though there have been bad times in the past, I'm so grateful for having them now. Even when I'm away from them in London, like now.

This thread is really uplifting and inspiring in a lot of ways, though it's sad that so many people have also had struggles in regards to their collecting. There are far worse things you could be doing than collecting ponies.

I am so sorry to hear about the stalking and the effect it had on you. I am really glad it's over and didn't completely destroy the hobby for you. Thank you for sharing.

I'm 32 and I do the same thing. Right now I am in the process of editing my third book and I'm planning a wedding-- and then I'm customizing ponies and taking photos of my collection and writing stories for them on Tumblr... It's how we de-stress and unwind I agree with you, there are far worse things people could be into. Thanks again for sharing!

[SilverHorsey]

Aw  That's great. I was a little quieter about it at first, like I said, but now my mom brings ponies home for me from the thrift store and so do her friends, lol and they all get so excited about it. Hehe. Even still, sometimes I still ask myself "Is this weird?"

Do you collect breyers? I have some retired breyers that I've been thinking about putting up. I used to collect grand champions too. I think you're right, people are more accepting of realistic looking horse models and toys than they are of fun, colorful little ponies. And I think @brightberry had a point as well, people tend to also be more accepting over boy toys-- like model cars for example.

Thank you so much for your story and your encouragement   I hope your collection grows!

Yes, I do collect Breyers, please PM pics of the Breyers you are putting up, I always love getting more

I mainly collect pony parade size models like Schleich-S, Collecta, Safari ltd etc. because there are no Breyer resellers in Estonia So I order them twice a year and they are the pride of my collection

[JazzMatazz]

Thanks for the welcome! I totally get it, I go through periods were I'm totally into it and then I'm "meh," and that happened when for two years I was just lugging them around and had a lot of other things to worry about, but when I fell into an emotional crisis, I was really happy I started up again.

I would sit on it for a while, though two years seems like a long time--- lol, I'm not sure, now...  You'll figure it out, I'ms ure I will say, I tend to sell off the ponies I am not "wild" about or don't "need," so my collection is relatively small. I just circulate through some things and keep the things I really value. Maybe downsize a bit? Get rid of some the things you're not wild about? See how it goes/feels?

I love TMNT <3 Heeee and Disney too of course. I don't collect the turtles, but I have a HUGE Disney VHS collection of the original movies that we just kept through the years, and there's a handful I found at the thrift store. I plan on watching the crap out of them until they wear out and then breaking and buying the new movies. I've just heard about something to do with voice overs or different music or something and I was like... NOPE.

I have a ton of hobbies as wellt. Sometimes I'm all over the house with the house plants and gardening, then I'm painting and drawing, then I'm writing, and I had a thing with bonsais for a while and I've got a couple MH dolls and BJs... I'm all over the map 

Only a few of the movies have major cuts or music/voice Do overs. Things like Make Mine Music, Melody Time those two are heavily edited in the USA and the only full unedited versions are European exclusive. Aladdin had to redo the song so there is not a single DVD version I know of that does not have the edit where they cut out: "In a land where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face" As the Arab communities were very upset about it. Um... let me think here Muppet Christmas Carol they cut out an entire song when they bought up muppets so you need a jim henson DVD or a very specific one that has the full length movie in full screen format. However no where on the dvd says that it includes the cut song in the full screen option.    I can't think of anything else off the top of my head other than that stupid phase of them re adding cut songs to movies granted they give you the option at the beginning of the dvd but still Lion King and Beauty and the Beast I didn't care for the re-added songs. Pocahontas has a cut scene I feel would have added so much more to the movie but the test audience children it didn't go over well. Probably my favorite song in the entire film as an adult.

My main collection the last two years has been upgrading my VHS to dvd and or blu ray. To be honest I've been thinking about selling off my Munchy and getting the Cogsworth Clock to go with my Lumiere lamp. 

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Nope... my ponies are on my terms.  If someone doesn't like them, me and the ponies leave.  :-p

I don't have any friends to make fun of me or comment.  Nearly all of my family is dead so they can't comment.  I don't tell people that I collect.... because then they assume I have money to spend on collectibles.  I already get mocked at work for shopping at Value Village for clothing... can't imagine what they would say if they knew I also bought housewares and toys too.

[SkyCakes]

Well, here is my story. When I was little I went into special classes. No idea the reasons behind it I never found out what "challenge" I had. I suppose I collected ponies to cope but I am not sure why. I was teased a lot by the other kids. They made fun of the special kids. I'm very sensitive to this now as an adult. I was often told I was strange or odd. I never payed it any interest as a kid though deep down it hurt. I still don't really care now as an adult though I handle the teasing better. I really just love all ponies even the weird quirky ones. I guess that is what me and the ponies have in common or the odd ball ones. :/

[WaterRaven]

Yes, I do collect Breyers, please PM pics of the Breyers you are putting up, I always love getting more

I mainly collect pony parade size models like Schleich-S, Collecta, Safari ltd etc. because there are no Breyer resellers in Estonia So I order them twice a year and they are the pride of my collection

Oh, I meant like put up on some shelves! Sorry about that. I'd still love to post them though and share them with you if you want to stare at each other's breyers? I may not keep all of them. I haven't seen them in so long, I can't remember all the ponies I have. I know I've got Misty the pony, I think? With her foal... a beautiful black unicorn with a broken leg :/ I'm going to fix it though, I'm must better at restorations now and the fighting mustang stallions. I know I have those for sure. I'll get them out and start snapping some shots! 

Only a few of the movies have major cuts or music/voice Do overs. Things like Make Mine Music, Melody Time those two are heavily edited in the USA and the only full unedited versions are European exclusive. Aladdin had to redo the song so there is not a single DVD version I know of that does not have the edit where they cut out: "In a land where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face" As the Arab communities were very upset about it. Um... let me think here Muppet Christmas Carol they cut out an entire song when they bought up muppets so you need a jim henson DVD or a very specific one that has the full length movie in full screen format. However no where on the dvd says that it includes the cut song in the full screen option.    I can't think of anything else off the top of my head other than that stupid phase of them re adding cut songs to movies granted they give you the option at the beginning of the dvd but still Lion King and Beauty and the Beast I didn't care for the re-added songs. Pocahontas has a cut scene I feel would have added so much more to the movie but the test audience children it didn't go over well. Probably my favorite song in the entire film as an adult.

My main collection the last two years has been upgrading my VHS to dvd and or blu ray. To be honest I've been thinking about selling off my Munchy and getting the Cogsworth Clock to go with my Lumiere lamp. 

Thanks for the info! That doesn't sound too bad, though I am REALLY curious about this Pocahontas song!!!!! What's the name of it? I'd love to look it up.

We're slowly updating things and now that I know that the Disney edits aren't too bad, I might be able to let my VHS's go.

We just but the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action movie and my fiance LOVED it. It was in the $10 blu ray bin at Walmart. I love those beautiful bins <3

Nope... my ponies are on my terms.  If someone doesn't like them, me and the ponies leave.  :-p

I don't have any friends to make fun of me or comment.  Nearly all of my family is dead so they can't comment.  I don't tell people that I collect.... because then they assume I have money to spend on collectibles.  I already get mocked at work for shopping at Value Village for clothing... can't imagine what they would say if they knew I also bought housewares and toys too.

You get mocked for shopping at Value Village? That is literally the FIRST place my fiance and I go and we have a BLAST. We love getting deals and secondhand things. I graduated university in an environmental major, so I prefer restoring, repairing, and reusing, so maybe that's just ingrained in me, but I also think it's so fun! In the area we live in too, people use something once, and then just donate it (we aren't wealthy, but it's a wealthy area). I saw a dress that is literally $200 on the wrack for $7 at Value Village. I couldn't believe it. It looked like it had never been warn.

I am very sorry to hear about your family. I am sad too that you don't have friends to share your interests with-- maybe it's a choice though, I don't want to make assumptions. I'm glad we can all connect on this forum though. I love being around people with similar interests

Well, here is my story. When I was little I went into special classes. No idea the reasons behind it I never found out what "challenge" I had. I suppose I collected ponies to cope but I am not sure why. I was teased a lot by the other kids. They made fun of the special kids. I'm very sensitive to this now as an adult. I was often told I was strange or odd. I never payed it any interest as a kid though deep down it hurt. I still don't really care now as an adult though I handle the teasing better. I really just love all ponies even the weird quirky ones. I guess that is what me and the ponies have in common or the odd ball ones. :/

Well, I don't think you're an oddball and considering how many people are on this forum and MLPTP, I'd say this is way more normal than any of us realize. We're hobbyiest, plain and simple. The world is changing and even though Bronies are considered weird by some, they are actually breaking a lot of social norms and more and more people are getting back into their childhood interests.

I am very sorry to hear about the way you've been treated. My fiance is incredibly smart, he can do fractions in his head and build anything (he's a carpenter), but for some reason a teacher was hard on him at school and peers called him stupid-- all because he had a different way of seeing things or learning. Some school systems just really aren't there yet. I live in Canada and they are trying at least, but it's unfortunately way too slow of a process.

I am glad you're a pony collector and on this forum 

[Sugarberry]

Welcome back!  I come and go too as life, family and time permit, but ponies are always a constant source of enjoyment.  I also have ptsd, and completely understand the relief that comes from them. 

I was born in November of '73. Always horse-crazy, I was taking riding lessons and doing ballet classes and gymnastics when two major factors collided that started my pony collecting.
The first was my father's work.  He worked (and still does at age 85) for a family-owned die casting business.  There was a significant trouble there when one son began murdering the rest of the owning family off with arsenic.  The plant closed for a few years, and during that time my dad was out of work and the family had no health insurance.

Cue the second factor.  Strep throat.
At 6 years old, I was hit with strep so hard that it wiped out my immune system and left me paralyzed from the waist down for two weeks with arthritis.  The hospital bills nearly bankrupted the family, but I didn't know about that till much later.  Although the swelling subsided, the arthritis was permanent.  I couldn't move well, and had to give up all those extra activities.  Mom became a girl scout leader so I could still do some outdoor things, but it was leading to child's depression.  In school I needed glasses, but we wouldn't know that for another 4 years.  Together with the arthritis, I couldn't see to catch balls in gym, couldn't play with the other kids, and became withdrawn- choosing to read in a corner instead of go out to recess.

 And then they appeared.  A family tradition is to go out for a birthday dinner.  Toward Christmastime, we went to celebrate three of our birthdays all at once.  There was a huge commotion in the diner that night.  A man choked or had a heart attack, the waitress spilled food on my brother and some other stuff happened.  Two hours later we were still waiting for food, so mom took me for a walk next door to TRU.  Beautifully colored horses were on the racks right at the front of the store! They had sweet eyes and gorgeous pictures on the package. 
And best of all, they were only $3.00.  It was a lot of money back then for us, but mom saw the change the ponies made right away.  She began using them as an incentive to turn in my school work.    Ponies went everywhere with me, Applejack first, and then others followed. One every couple weeks if I did well on homework.  Mom picked up a part time job in the school cafeteria to get money and then I got to work with her, washing trays.  When the second surviving son of the die casting plant recovered from the poisoning and his brother was arrested, the plant reopened.  Dad became plant manager there. 
Years later...my eighth grade graduation gift would be Paradise estate. 

Struggles.  There is a constant guilt now when I see so many others selling their collections.  Friends have passed away or are going through hardships.  I feel bad for them, and I've not bid on some of the collections because I don't want to be ---well.... a vulture.  On the other hand, bidding helps those friends out and in my collection, I can remember where every individual item came from and who it came from.  Good memories of good friends. That is one struggle.
The next would be money, and space.  Spend money on collections or spend it on family activities?  With both parents being 85, time is precious.  My husband has a truly golden heart.  He says buy anything... he's too supportive sometimes.  I have to keep myself in check!   Space too.  Ponies have filled the bedroom, the computer room and are spilling out into the dressing room.  I gave him the end room to have for his own space and I'm trying to corral my stuff.  Sharing transformers, some overlap happens, but everyone needs their own space!
And trading struggles.  I remember online fights and saw so much horrible stuff go on that I mostly stayed quiet and stayed out of things.  After being burned on a few trades where folks didn't send or else they demanded I pay mailing from my end, and that I also pay their end, or international sellers fixing prices and rising postal costs, I pretty much gave up on trading for many years until just recently.  A few recent dabbles have been super nice though, so it is a struggle I have to work through a little at a time.           

[SkyCakes]

Well, here is my story. When I was little I went into special classes. No idea the reasons behind it I never found out what "challenge" I had. I suppose I collected ponies to cope but I am not sure why. I was teased a lot by the other kids. They made fun of the special kids. I'm very sensitive to this now as an adult. I was often told I was strange or odd. I never payed it any interest as a kid though deep down it hurt. I still don't really care now as an adult though I handle the teasing better. I really just love all ponies even the weird quirky ones. I guess that is what me and the ponies have in common or the odd ball ones. :/

Well, I don't think you're an oddball and considering how many people are on this forum and MLPTP, I'd say this is way more normal than any of us realize. We're hobbyiest, plain and simple. The world is changing and even though Bronies are considered weird by some, they are actually breaking a lot of social norms and more and more people are getting back into their childhood interests.

I am very sorry to hear about the way you've been treated. My fiance is incredibly smart, he can do fractions in his head and build anything (he's a carpenter), but for some reason a teacher was hard on him at school and peers called him stupid-- all because he had a different way of seeing things or learning. Some school systems just really aren't there yet. I live in Canada and they are trying at least, but it's unfortunately way too slow of a process.

I am glad you're a pony collector and on this forum 

Well thank you that is very nice of you. I live up here too. I used to live in the US in California. Though I met my husband who is canadian and the rest is history. Also it took a long time for me to get my citizenship though I do have it now. I think ponies make the world a lot nicer or that is the way I see it. I think its therapy in a way.

[JazzMatazz]

Thanks for the info! That doesn't sound too bad, though I am REALLY curious about this Pocahontas song!!!!! What's the name of it? I'd love to look it up.

We're slowly updating things and now that I know that the Disney edits aren't too bad, I might be able to let my VHS's go.

We just but the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action movie and my fiance LOVED it. It was in the $10 blu ray bin at Walmart. I love those beautiful bins <3

That would be the song: If I Never Knew You. Quite easy to find on youtube. Congrats on the tmnt blu-rays I had a friend gift me the 4 in one collection to upgrade my VHS

[Duenia]

My collecting struggles were more getting started. I wanted to start back in 2007 but didn't. For some reason it was okay for my little brother to have them. But any of the slightest interest from me resulted in large amounts of ridicule from my family. Although to be fair that happened with almost anything I found interesting. So I got a few of his doubles as long as I acted like I was taking them to do him a favor. I even covered for myself at one point when I ran into one I wanted in the store and said it had caught my eye because I though he'd like it and his birthday party was that night.

I started collecting I think around December 2015ish? I was after just the small Funrise plush toys. Apparently my mom had a change of heart and decided that now it was okay for me to like ponies. She gave me a little Twilight Sparkle as a gift after she found it in her closet and saw that I wanted it. Since then she's kinda flips back and forth about it although it's becoming less than a thing. My brother thinks it's awesome. Her husband likes to make fun of the ponies, but not me for liking them. According to him Buttonbelle has a rat tail hanging off the shelf.

Now my mom will actually help me look for ponies which is nice. I still have this one guy at work who tells me I'm lame because all my interests are lame. But after everything that's come from his mouth I really can't even think much about it. At this point I will tell almost anyone if they ask what I'm interested in. If they don't react well then that's their problem, I just won't deal with them.

I'm significantly happier now than I was before, it feels like something that's been missing from my entire life. At this point it makes finding good people a lot easier.

[Pinkie-kitty]

To answer the essential question- yes.
A little backstory:
Before collecting mlp, I had a small/medium size collection of Hello Kitty. I had began collecting Hello Kitty in middle school and all through high school. I never knew why but it always just made me so happy. For awhile I would try to hide this love. I wouldn't have friends over because my room was filled with pink, Hello Kitty everything. I wouldn't talk about it or anything. Only my girlfriend at the time (and my mom) knew my love for it. After some time, a family tragedy forced me to move. My mom and I packed our stuff and moved from California to Oregon. To say that this move was hard on me is an understatement. I was about 16 at the time and I fell into a deep depression. I couldn't handle going to a new school. I hated where I lived. Family issues made my days so unbearable. I began to spiral downhill and I spent my days wallowing in my own self pity, pretty much. I pushed away the little bit of friends I had, broke up with my girlfriend, and I isolated myself completely. And then one day something just changed. I was at Micheals craft store with my mom and they had a Pinkie Pie plush on sale. I picked her up and stared at her for awhile and I felt a very familiar feeling. I got that same happiness that I got years ago with my Hello Kitty collection. My mom bought it for me and when I got home I pulled out my boxes of my Hello Kitty collection. I set it up all across my room and I felt a weight off my shoulders. It was so comforting to me to be surrounding with the things I loved. This is pretty much how my love for mlp began. From there I began to research mlp, casually buy things, and watch the new FIM show on Netflix. Within a few months my collection exploded into something that has brought me so much joy. I know that non-collectors will never understand this, but My Little Pony brought me out of my depression. And because of that, I have never been ashamed of my collection since. My ponies and toys have brought me so much and the very least I can do for them in return is to display them with pride.