When I was eleven, I once stood in the KB Toys store located at the Outlets at Hillsboro in Hillsboro, Texas, and saw the most beautiful doll in the world. The outlet mall is dead now. You can find videos of people touring its abandoned shop fronts on YouTube if you like. The Outlets at Hillsboro were the halfway point between my house and Waco, which was itself the halfway point between my house and Austin. 

My family drove to Austin every so often to visit family. I didn't really care about seeing my family as a kid, though. They never gave me a reason to want to see them. Birthdays and Christmases were usually turned into excuses to fight, throw tantrums, and air long-held grievances while I waited to have a piece of my birthday cake or open a present.

But going to the Outlets was like a special occasion. You only got to stop at the outlet mall if you were really good. Or if your parents were making up for something. Even if I couldn't get a toy, I liked to go there just to walk around and look at the stores. It seemed so much nicer and grander back then. The dead mall tour videos really put it into perspective now.

On that day, my mother said I could pick out any doll I wanted. She wanted to make up for something that happened. I was nervous and excited and relieved. My mother and I had gone to Waco to do something really important, and now I was going to get a doll.

Me being me, a working class kid from a small town in Wise County, I didn't want to spend too much money on myself. I wandered the store for far too long, too late in the evening, examining every doll on the shelf. Checking price tags. Checking for clearance stickers. Finally, after surely irritating my mother with my indecision, I spotted her. The most perfect doll.

The 1996 Marvel Special Collectors Edition Storm by ToyBiz. She had two removable fabric outfits and combable hair. I wanted her so badly. This was a Storm Barbie doll. I cannot convey how incredible it was to find out they made superhero dolls with real hair.

I don't remember how much she cost. My mother said it was okay even if she was a little expensive. With what we had just been through, I had earned a doll. However, I do remember hugging her the entire way home. I had earned her.

Storm became my favorite doll. No other doll, not even Barbie herself, could compare. I have warm, clear memories of gently combing and styling her hair. Dressing and redressing her, making sure the velcro on her outfits laid flat and the cape wasn't wrinkled. Putting her on display because she was too pretty to play with like the other dolls, who had chewed on feet or singed hair or scuffed faces. Storm was perfect, and I had earned her.

It didn't occur to me until I was up at night last summer, sweating through a panic attack as a swell of memories washed over me, that my doll was less a doll and more of a bribe.

I've learned a bit about my inner child lately. I had to do some reading about her and fill out a lot of worksheets. That's mostly what PTSD therapy comes down to. A lot of reading, a lot of writing. A lot of reading what you wrote back to your psychiatrist. You get used to it pretty quickly, no matter how awkward or fumbling you sound. Your ego can't withstand that kind of constant dissection for long. 

The idea of an inner child is kind of cliche these days, isn't it? It is to me, anyway. As a geriatric millennial, all I ever hear about are the inner children of my generational cohorts. Their cartoons, their Happy Meals, their action figures, all put on pedestals and encased in glass. Plastic refuse sold as precious memories while 40-year-olds on TikTok cosplay as their middle school selves and perform a sort of heightened, overly processed nostalgia. We all have to heal our inner children, I'm told. I just kind of doubt that getting into yet another internet argument about the representation of trauma in MCU movies is accomplishing much.

So when I got to the chapter on self-esteem and the section dedicated to inner child work, I had a hearty laugh to myself. I didn't say that to my psychiatrist, of course. What does my inner child have to do with my self-esteem? I know why my self-esteem is in the toilet. I have the worksheets to back it up. The book wanted me to do visualization exercises to tell my inner child that I loved her. To write letters and to tell her it would be okay. That it was okay that people didn't love her the way she wanted to be loved. What did that have to do with anything? She wasn't really there. She didn't exist anymore.

Then I got to the part about forgiving who we were as children for the things that others did to us, because we couldn't do anything to stop it. To stop being angry with who we were for surviving impossible situations. 

I filled out a lot of worksheets about that.

Then I started thinking about my Storm doll.

Recently, I was walking through the craft supplies section at my local Walmart, looking through some rhinestones and buttons. As I chose between colors of artificial plastic gemstones and animal-shaped clasps, I noticed the small display of embroidery floss. Cheap, unassuming, arranged on the shelf in candy-colored rainbows of thread. The sight snapped me back to my eight-year-old self's sparse white bedroom in Wise County, like breaking a twig. I hadn't thought about that sort of stuff in years. I think it was lost for a while, if I'm being totally honest.

"I used this stuff to make dolls," I explained to my mother-in-law, who joined me and my partner on a stroll through the craft section. The memory flowed over me and through me, falling excitedly from my mouth in that bright shock of recollection. "I took wooden clothespins of every size I could find and painted them in different skin tones, and then used the embroidery floss to wind around them for the clothes and hair."

At some point, I had complete sets of clothespin families in every color of craft paint I could find. I didn't play with them. Or the dolls I made out of yarn and beads. Or the dolls I made out of dried corn husks. All of these dolls, seen either in craft books or at farmers markets, were created and recreated lovingly over months and years to sit on shelves. Display pieces, really, before I knew what that sort of thing even meant. Folk art as play thing.

I have no idea what happened to them.

I probably threw them away.

They weren't worth anything, after all.

I left Walmart with some tiny rhinestones and pearls. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet.

August ran past me. That's why this newsletter piece is a little delayed. Well, there are other reasons.

It's strange to think that it's already been a year since I put out my massive undertaking of a personal essay series on Neon Genesis Evangelion: Made with Human Hands and Stories, Like Houses, Grow. I spent a year writing, researching, revising, and compiling for those two pieces. They weren't really essays so much as exorcism. Born from recovered memories, like those of the clothespin dolls. Coughed up and spat out like a part of me that wouldn't stay put anymore.

The troublesome thing about recovering memories is that it makes living with what you thought you knew difficult. I always thought I just didn't remember things. That I had nothing in me worth remembering. My parents always told me that I had a good childhood. They bought me a lot of toys, you know. That's what counts.

It turns out I just couldn't bear to live with the things that happened in my home. So, as a child, that inner child, I forgot. These were scary things that I forgot. Sad things. Things to do with dead dogs and screaming children. Being told to protect others from the kinds of deep, lasting harm I could not possibly protect them from. Being told to stop crying. 

Those aren't the kinds of things you put in a newsletter like this, but they are alive and well in my head now. Bright, hot, searing to the touch. They're the kinds of things you write exorcisms to deal with.

But an essay isn't an exorcism anymore than it's medicine. 

A thing very few people know about me is that, for many years, I collected Monster High dolls. This was during the 2010s at the height of the doll line's popularity. I was in my 20s. To say I collected Monster High is kind of laughable now that I am somewhat acquainted with the adult doll collector scene. I didn't collect so much as I took whatever I could find. If I saw a character that I liked, I would wait for her to go on clearance, or go to the Mattel outlet store on the way to the Dallas International Airport to buy her for a few dollars. 

I was far too old for the cartoon or movies, and I didn't actually keep up with doll releases. I only knew about a new doll if it made its way to the shelves of my local Walmart. Most of my collection was budget dolls from the much scoffed about second generation line, and a few nicer ones found on sale or received as Christmas gifts. I got a few at the pharmacy and dollar store, too, when swimsuit or pajama dolls would trickle in.

At some point, I had 40 dolls. I saved my meager paycheck working as a restaurant hostess between the occasional community college semester to buy two coffin-shaped Monster High knock-off dollhouses at Costco. They were the last two available during the post-holiday clearance sale. I dedicated time to hunting down appropriately gothic or spooky dollhouse accessories on Etsy and making things from dollar store craft supplies. Whenever I found cheap plastic doll furniture, I would paint and repurpose it to suit my needs. 

By the end of my many years' dollhouse-making adventures, I had a coffin duplex. Each house was topped by wooden shadow boxes, painted pink and decorated with craft paper, cutesy paper skulls glued to the walls like sconces. The coffins were joined by a makeshift patio supported by a small table I got on sale at Target. There was a bathroom with a bloody tub and a squid toy climbing out of it, a mad scientist's laboratory complete with Frankenstein's monster, and a slimy kitchen full of creepy cakes and pastries. A parlor with a miniature Ouija board and crystal ball, a dressing room, an art room, a patio for fake Venus flytraps, and a lounge.

I didn't tell anyone about this for years. Somehow, it embarrassed me. All this work, all these hours of assembling and painting and decorating, felt like a joke. Or something unearned. Undeserved. I posed and dressed and dusted my dolls, caring for them regardless of their low value, but I always felt stupid for doing it.

When I moved from Texas to Florida, I took my dolls, furniture, and bags of miniature things. My parents eventually shipped the dollhouses. It all remained in the back of my closet for four years. I gave the dollhouses away to some people who live in my apartment building. I gave the dolls away to a girl who works at my partner's job. She always wanted Monster High dolls as a kid but couldn't afford them.

Now she has 39 of mine, at least.

I kept one. The first one I bought on sale, Skelita Calaveras. She just has such a pretty face.

The years have been hard on Skelita. Glue seepage from inside her head had turned her hair to mush. This happens a lot with dolls made by Mattel, it turns out. I spent about a week cleaning the gunk from her hair. Washing with dish soap, coating in baby powder, rubbing with tea tree oil. Then I found a cute little dress and stockings for her on Etsy.

Skelita may be my favorite doll, depending on my mood. 

The idea of collecting things, of being a collector, exists in a contradiction with my principles as a leftist. To exist in the global north is to live in a bubble of consumption. Your needs -- material, social, spiritual -- are not met by the frameworks you operate within, but there is a product or service that can make you forget that temporarily. 

At least, that's what you're promised. That you can shop your way to peace and fulfillment. You're one purse, gaming console, or car away from a better night's sleep. Just one more Shein or Amazon haul. Another toy unboxing video or Stanley cup. Amassing piles of useless things, often in the name of collecting. All while profiting off the exploitation of lives and labor of those both here and in the global south who provide those goods and services.

But also, like, you know. People have collected things for as long as there have been people to collect things. You know? Grandmothers with spare bedrooms of old Barbies or porcelain dolls spring to mind through cultural association, but so do the well-weathered, much-loved baby dolls, wooden figures, and soft toys spotted in family photo albums. People collect folk art and costume jewelry and coffee mugs and pennies and stamps. Guitar picks and model trains, seashells and ceramic cats. Cool rocks and old animal bones. Knives and stuff.

I have a small collection of preserved insect specimens and decorative resin skulls. That feels fine to me. It's appropriately edgy such that mentioning it can be polarizing in some circumstances. Collecting dolls and figures, while widely normalized to some extent or another, makes me feel anxious. Buying all this plastic. This junk. It's easy to quickly become cynical when you watch 35-year-olds online complain about the latest Barbie release meant for small children not appealing to their tastes. Photos of landfills piled high with unopened Funko Pops make the impulse to hold a doll in my hand even more distasteful. It all predicates on petrol and factories, machinations that actively degrade every aspect of life on our planet to sell products none of us actually need.

I wish I lived in a different world than the one that's filled with plastic. But I like my little plastic people just the same. 100 years ago, they would be made of fabric. 100 years before that, too, reaching back into the past. If I were living in a farmhouse on the plains, I would probably still want a doll, likely made of clothespins or corn husks like I used to make.

It's a land of contradictions. I don’t have any answers. That’s a cop out, for sure, but I also know an anarchist who collects X-Men figures and vintage game cartridges, so, you know. It is what it is.

My psychiatrist said I need to play more.

Trauma robs you of your interest in play. In pleasure. In relaxation. She's right, of course. I write because I've never not written because I absolutely love writing. But when that's all you ever do for fun, it is exhausting. Your brain is never off. You're almost always alone in those moments, focused on your work. You can't relax unless you're writing, but you can't write unless you've relaxed enough to do it.

It becomes a cycle, like other things in your life become cycles.

So, back in May, right before I committed to my PTSD program, my partner Melissa bought me a doll for my birthday. Together, we collect dolls and figures. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Sailor Moon, LOL OMG, Rainbow High. A Barbie here and there if we see one we like. Some little flocked animal figures from Five Below and Ddung dolls when we spot them at the Korean store at the mall. Nothing of value, and certainly nothing to completion. If we see a doll we like, and it's at a good price, we buy it. Vibes-based collecting, you could say. They go on the shelf like any other decoration.

In this case, the doll was the then new and quickly selling Victoria Whitman from Rainbow High. I didn't want her for her, but to turn her into my character Alyena Tatarinova from the book series I'm working on. I had been taken by an urge to make something, and all I could think about was a doll of my character. 

I cut and styled her hair, darkened her eyebrows, added some more blushing to her face, painted her nails, and darkened her lips. My little Alyena has furniture and accessories I've picked up along the way, dresses from Etsy and coats from other dolls. I change her outfits and purses every week or so, fixing her hair and stockings. Fussing over her. She lives on my nightstand beside my bed, a representation of my work to remind me to keep doing it.

And that I am allowed to have fun.

I just have one last week of worksheets left in my PTSD therapy program. Then I'll graduate from weekly psychotherapy sessions to monthly check-ins to monitor the dosage of my antidepressants. I haven't written hardly anything since I started the program. Just the newsletter pieces that, I assume, you've been reading this summer. It's been too difficult to return to my manuscripts when my head is split open and spilling out everywhere, pathways rerouted and habits broken by repetition. The months of worksheets. The writing. The reading. The reading aloud.

I'm looking forward to picking up where I left off. The world feels less heavy since I last opened my book. Less oppressive. I cry less and sleep more. I can go weeks at a time without panic attacks. I don't agonize over leaving my house or feeling like everything I say, think, do, want, or need is a mistake.

I've also made a friend or two who collect dolls. It's a relief to be able to talk about this to other people.

Since I started therapy, I took up a hobby. Wild, I know. I've started buying fashion dolls secondhand on Mercari and eBay. They have scuffed faces and ratty hair, their bodies dirty or stained. I buy them for $5, maybe $10, then clean them up. Scrub their bodies, wash their hair, reset their curls. When they're clean and dry, I get to work. Some dolls get new makeup while others get haircuts. Sometimes I paint new details on their faces or glue on rhinestones for earrings or facial piercings. 

Next, I find a few pieces from my drawer of doll clothes, or order something cute and custom-made on Etsy or eBay. I love to buy stuff off eBay moms who make doll clothes for fun just to see what they come up with. I even bought some clay to sculpt horns and fangs for some dolls, to varying degrees of success. All my art and crafts supplies are cheap, but they get the job done.

Then I put them on my shelf, or give them away. They don't mean anything except to me. I've made an effort to be okay with that.

Maybe one day I will find that Storm doll again. I'd like to see what I do with her now.