I Think I'm Falling Out of Love...

[justkitter]

I've never been diagnosed with anything, but I'm sure there is something wrong with me too

Lately all I've been feeling is guilt over my collection:(  I still love them, ALL of them, but they are starting to pile up and I've got nowhere to put all of them.  I've started to buy doubles of the exact same dolls for no reason, I've started 2 or 3 other playline collections.  It's just becoming too much.  I wish everyday MH would be discontinued, because I know I can't keep buying like this.  I'm not rich and I don't have the space, and it's becoming a problem in my marriage:(  Sometimes I look around and think "What am I doing?  What have I done?" 

I also believe if I stop, I'll NEVER forgive myself.  I wish Mattel would meet me halfway and cut back on the new releases....

[angelponies]

I've been a "collecto" maniac all my life  I always seem to have to collect something and when I quit collecting one thing I bounce to another and another. I have sold tons of Coins, and 80's toys then She-ra and ponies etc over the years, I seem to start collecting them and everything is going swell until I get into the variants and the ones out of the Country.
I collect them like crazy, then I start to feel guilty when I start adding up what each item is worth and end up selling them off.
I end up missing them shortly therafter and start buying them back again , with each thing I have collected it has been like that until I get into something else, then the cycle repeats itself 
 I was into ponies before MH and it was getting expensive trying to collect them both, so I would sell off the MH and get ponies, then vice versa I'd get into MH again and sell off ponies to get MH. I have sold many ponies and MH I would have liked to have kept 
After driving myself crazy over the years, I finally decided to try something different. When I start to feel guilty or maybe a little bored with my toys, I put them away and don't buy anymore of them, so far it has worked great, the remorse feeling always passes, especially when I get on the pony boards and start seeing peoples photos of their MH  , it makes me want them again and I get interested in collecting again, but by that point I still have my dolls, instead of selling them off like I used to.
I have twice now collected an almost complete collection of MH and sold them off. I am on round #3 of getting them all again, I have gotten quite a lot bought again, tho they are getting more expensive this time around! Especially the boys 

[Varkolak]

i think my love for them is starting to pass. i mean, i love abbey and will always try to get the new versions of her i don't have, if i see them in stores, but i saw the scaris ones (all but abbey) and it just wasn't doing it for me. :/ kinda like ponies, just releasing the same old same old, over and over again. its getting boring. i love my little pony also, but there's just nothing new hitting shelves soon enough.

[DazzleKitty]

I get burned out in all my collections for a while but then return to them again. I am returning to MH after a dry phase there for a while. I see lots of new dolls that I'd like to get within the next few weeks.

[Zombelina]

Another obsessive/anxious goes-through-phases collector here My whole life I've collected one thing or another with PASSION for a short time, then bounced on to the next thing, then the next... there's only two that have stuck with me since I was a kid (Disney dolls and MLP!) 

Now I've been collecting MH for almost 2 years, and I haven't fallen out of love with them yet, so they feel like another of my rare permanent loves And whenever I feel a little blah about my monsters (like now, in the empty-shelves season) I obsess over my darling Pullip (and future Pullips)--I'm thinking Pullips are going to be another forever-collection, darnit    (...arrrgh why am I not rich...) So I've mostly stopped my collection-cycling these days and am pretty focused on the things I'm sure I love.

But, who knows, maybe someday it'll change again, and that's ok! I don't think there's anything wrong with cycling through collections at all. Enjoy what you enjoy! (Just wait a good long while before selling an old collection, is my advice! Even a few years! That's saved me lots of regrets. )

[Varkolak]

.
 (Just wait a good long while before selling an old collection, is my advice! Even a few years! That's saved me lots of regrets. )

definitely this! i sold my very first monster high dolls when they first came out, and i regret it terribly now. same with my tamagotchi's. i loved them, sold them, loved them again and bought them all back, then sold them all again, now wishing i would have kept a few certain ones, just to scratch the itch i get when i want to start one up for a short while.
i almost sold my bella sara collection, only to find myself adding things once in a blue moon, when i see something that catches my eye. its in the closet for now, but i imagine someday i'll get it back out and love it again. wish i would of stuck with it, i'll never catch up on all the card series i've missed since then lol!

[Salli]

Is this the bi-polar support thread? (Chi: I didn't know there was a bi-polar type 2  ) I am bi-polar + ADD.

I usually flip flop between dolls and ponies, although it's funny, when I think I am falling out of love I just re-organize them and get all excited again! I do tend to have a lots of custom things though, and they are like artwork that you just can't get sick of because they are lovely pieces of art, like a part of my soul. We'll see. They are also little muses for my fashion and costume design.

I think it's the bonding factor that I know was discussed on another thread here a little while ago. It's exciting to buy them, but that wears off. Then, I feel like if I don't play bond with them, it dies. It's when I give them an outfit and set them up with a significant other or siblings or friends (a back-story) that I really permanently bond with them. I do tend to feel more bonded over my OOAKs than the canon characters though. Mostly.

[Maniah]

I have a couple doubles.. Draculaura, Abbey, Frankie.. And I bought them mainly because of outfits. With the similar ones, at least my B&W frankie is different enough from GR Frankie, that I can love them both. But Signature Abbey and I<3 Fashion Abbey look identical, aside from different eyeshadow/lipstick. I am probably going to sell the nude Fashion abbey or set her aside to possibly customize in the future. Same with Draculaura. I have one of the beach ones.. I forget which.. Maddy got her for me as a christmas present so I could have her to customize and to rip her clothes up for patterns. She is similar enough to my Scaris Draculaura, that I don't feel any urge to keep her as she is.

For me, I just love the things I don't have. Mostly that means an outfit on a doll, and not the doll itself. I will reach a point where I buy ONLY new characters, or only dolls who are different enough to be special.. Otherwise, I will buy if I like an outfit, then sell or customize the nude.

So I won't say I am falling out of love.. I think I am just at a point where I feel I can relax. There aren't 50 things for me to obsess over getting. There are 5. So the thrill is vastly subdued.

It may feel like falling out of love, but it may just be breathing space combined with common sense. Just enjoy the ones you have, and wait for more to grab your attention. There will be more!

[Daiyuflower]

I also tend to cycle through my collections, but lately I've come to the conclusion that I've got to stick with just a few things instead of collecting everything I like   Collections I always come back to are ponies, Monster High and BJDs   One of my resolutions this year is to have a major cleanout of things I no longer collect before I get married in March.  Once my fiance moves in with me after that, I'm going to have even less room in my 1 BR apartment, so any extraneous stuff that I've left off collecting for a while has to go. 

I wish Monster High weren't so hard to collect though.  What makes me nervous about it is that it seems you can't take a break from it.  Last year when I took a hiatus from MH, I missed Gil, Toralei and Jackson.  I'm afraid to let that happen again.

[saply]

I'm not falling out of love with the line, but I do impulsively buy new characters because I like -one outfit-, and end up never bonding with them... so I end up selling them and losing money. ~_~ I've narrowed my collection down to just six dolls though, and I'm trying not to obsess over all of the new releases anymore.

At this point, the only new girl I'm looking forward to is Wydowna! Where she be at, Mattel

[Tribble79]

I go through collections also. I collect so slowly that sometimes I don't add a new figure to the collection for 2-3 years and then I decide I want to add something to  that collection. I am trying to cut down on my collections but I seem to stick with my Devil Doll/Devil Dog hellhound colletion, Monster high collection, Alien dolls (general aliens, including the Novi Stars I like and includes Star Trek, Star Wars and other SyFy stuff) Pony's (mostly custom) miniature dog figures (including toy barbie dogs etc...), Snakes (really cute/cool ones). This year I am trying to get rid of most of the other Toys that I collect including all these Stuffed toys that take up so much room.

[skyrocketneko]

The crummy part is that my first was Toralei, and I usually keep the firsts.  But she's worth the most!

[HollowZero]

There is nothing wrong with falling out of love with a collection. At times, any one of us can get too carried away with a collection, and end up collecting more than we can handle, or more than we appreciate, or more than we originally wanted.

That's when you just have to take a step back and assess. Why are you falling out of love?

If possible, the best thing to do would be to put them away from sight. Then, you may look at where they used to be and go "I really miss seeing Frankie" or whomever. Then you'll know to keep the ones you actually appreciate.

I can't relate on the doll front. I don't have that many dolls, all told. I have way too many Beanie Babies though--I stopped collecting them two years ago, I was just tired of the collecting. The collection won't go anywhere, and I still really enjoy them, but I won't add to it.

[Rhini]

I'm definitely in an out of love phase  I even considered moving them all off their nice display onto an extra bottom shelf. I think I need to do a big cull again. After getting my pullips, I just love them so much more and what's important is I actually DO stuff with them. My MH girls just sit collecting dust. *sigh* There's still so many I can't bear to part with though. And I am excited about some of the new releases, like catrine. So at this point i just don't know how to feel or what to do about them. 

[Icecrystalline]

Hello! Yes, me too, completely and utterly fallen out of love, of course, I have dolls I could never part with because some are very loved, but I don't feel that same excitement. That's why I stopped pony collecting from Dec 2011-Dec 2012, I've now gone back to ponies!