Brantley N. -Sock Monkey

Dad made him. Just before I was born, while I was in the womb, my dad was making this for me. It was my first Christmas gift.

The T-shirt came around when I was like 4 or 5, a huge trend. It was like a trendy stuffed animal thing, T-shirts and stuff for kids in the 2000s. The shirt looked really good. It looks very dapper. It fits him well.

I grew up with divorced parents—they divorced when I was two. I spent a lot of time with my mom. Having sock monkey was kind of like having a way for my dad to still look over me. The relationship between them was bad, but I didn’t know it until I was a teenager. They were very good about being civil and just co-parenting. I had a decent childhood, running around. I grew up running around the prairie with the dogs, and every other weekend with Dad. Sock monkey stayed on my bed all that time.

I don’t take it with me anymore, but he sort of sits on the headboard of our bed. That’s kind of where he’s always been. He wasn’t tucked in; he sat out, with his head above the sheets, watching. That was always my thing; he was like a guardian, looking over everything.

He couldn’t be under the blankets with me. He couldn’t be with the rest of my many, many stuffed animals. He had to have that vantage point. He had to be the overseer.

My dad noticed last time the stuffing inside him is getting clumpy. He wanted to replace it, and I was like, “No, that’s part of him now.” He’s just him. Textured and clumpy.

Cassandra S. - Bear Bear

If I’m having a really hard day, he does ride passenger princess. He will go on a car ride with me. Every trip I’ve ever been on, he’s been to England, he’s been everywhere.

I used to write stories about him, like little picture books on computer paper. He didn’t have a voice so much as a personality. It wasn’t like a Winnie the Pooh thing where he’d talk back. He was just there, and he had kind of an all-knowing, omnipotent presence. Like, “Would you make that choice or not?” He was a voice-of-reason kind of character.

There was a long period in middle school when I didn’t have any friends. I’d go to school and be miserable, and then I’d come home and be like, “Bear Bear, guess what happened today?” I didn’t have a pet or anything, so rather than talking to myself, I’d pick him up and just talk to him.

He’s still my best friend. We still sleep together every night. He still goes on trips with me. To me, he’s just the ultimate definition of a friend. I know that sounds silly, because he’s an inanimate object, but he’ll never abandon you. And he’s always there. It’s a staple. It’s a comfort.

One time, I left him in a Sam’s Club bathroom stall. We were going to a birthday party at a bowling alley in the same plaza. We get to the parking lot, and I go, “I lost Bear Bear.” My dad was so upset, we had to go back to the Sam’s Club parking lot, which was a nightmare. My mom is frantic; she knows how much he means to me. And then, there he was right in the bathroom stall, sitting on the little sanitary napkin thing. Just waiting for me.

He’s always had a smushed face. This eye used to be completely covered, and that was really important to me. If someone tried to uncover it, I’d be like, “He doesn’t look right, don’t do that.” His fur is really important, I rub it on my face or arms to ground myself, remind myself I’m in reality.

And sometimes I just look at him and go, “Oh wow, that’s Bear Bear. That’s him.” Everyone else is like, “He’s so ratty, oh my gosh, he’s so scary.” And I’m like, “He’s gorgeous, I don’t know what you mean.”

If he looked any different, I’d be upset. I actually have a copy of him from eBay. I don’t sleep with the copy the same way. I’m not attached to it the same way. I just have it for memory or posterity’s sake. If anything happened to how he looked or felt, I’d be devastated.

I think he’s ever-changing. I think he’s just always been attached to me. So it doesn’t matter what phase I go through, he’s the staple fixture. Like, they say you can go anywhere, but you’ll always find your way back home. Bear Bear is that for me. He’s the homing device. Like, “Hey, you were a little girl once. You should take care of her.” But also, “Hey, you’re a big girl now. There are things you have to do.” It’s a nice combo.

Daisy A. - Praying Bunny  

Originally, my older brother (this was his when we were kids), I remember we went to the mall, and there was a Hallmark store at the time. My mom gave us like $10 and said, “Hey, go nuts.” And nearing the time when we had to go, my brother couldn’t find anything, and he wanted to spend the money; it was burning a hole in his pocket. So he went into the Hallmark store and came back with this little angel bunny.

We were all like, “What?!” because he wasn’t the plushie type of guy. It was just random. It was an impulse buy. And we kind of made fun of him like, “That’s random. That’s something girls like. You should’ve given that to Daisy!”

After he passed away, I was cleaning out the house because we were getting evicted. My parents let the house go to shit. I was boxing up things, thinking, “OK, I can only take a few items to my apartment. Some will go to storage, but I don’t even know if that unit will be there later, and then I came across the bunny. I was like, “You son of a bitch, you’re still here.” It made me laugh. It was something we kind of trolled him about, and now it’s this symbol of sensitivity. Then I saw the tag that said Grace, and it became a symbol of the grace I had to give myself after losing him.

It helps me make sense of my childhood. It’s part of putting the puzzle together. Losing my brother taught me about life, death, and forgiveness.

Daniella N. - Brown Baby

I was very outgoing and happy-go-lucky, but I had a lot of underlying anxiety. Still do—I’m a fraidy-cat. Didn’t like horror movies or anything scary. I had really bad nightmares. Bedtime was hard. I needed my comfort things; otherwise, my brain would spiral. Like, “What if there are vampires?” I needed my stuff around me to calm down. He came with me to college. I never hid him. He’s always been in carry-ons when I traveled—never checked baggage. That was for protection, never secrecy.

He was a replacement for Blue Baby, who was one of the last gifts my grandmother gave me before she died. I was five or six. So, when I lost Blue Baby, it felt like losing the last gift she could ever give. Getting this Brown Baby felt like, “I’m not going to mess this one up.” He’s important.

He’s the silent type. But I’d like to think he loves me as much as I love him. Velveteen Rabbit style. That book messed me up as a kid. But I’d hope he’d say, “I like being your stuffed animal. I like cuddling.”

Most of my memories connected to him are from early childhood. Even bringing him to college, it’s a memory milestone. He’s still a constant now, but he anchors me to who I was.

Ezra W. – Wubs

I only have six, but they're just little soft security blankets. They're kind of like one entity, if that makes sense. I only have two that have this little embroidery on them. So those two are special, but they're not like others.

I've been told I'm stubborn a lot. For example, my mother didn't like that I kept these for so long and would try to wean me off of them. And she was never successful, not because it was something I would not let go of, but stubborn is definitely a word I would use.

I would have them at night. If I had them, I knew I was safe and nothing was going to happen. Yeah, so they were a huge, like rock for that. It filled in a little bit of that sense of stability that wasn't there, which is why I did not want them taken away from me.

If I have people over, they're under my pillow all the time. If the people might be near my bed, they're inside my pillowcase to make sure nobody can see them. I don't like sleeping at other people's places, but I still do. I still bring them, but I usually don't have them; I'm very closed off about them.

There was one time when I had to go to the hospital, and they were the only personal things that I brought. It was the only thing that kept me tethered to the fact that I was alive and actually a human.

I'm not a child anymore, even though I have these things that I have had since I was a child, they look different because everything's different. I'm different. It’s still a part of me being young and going through all of that, but it's just very different now. And that brings a lot of safety.

I don't think I'll ever get rid of them. I think maybe there's a time when I won't rely on them as much. I won't interact with them as much, but I really don't ever see myself willingly getting rid of them or even just putting them in a box in a closet.

I think my relationship with them now is a lot different than when I was younger. The fact that a lot of them are stained and don't look as perfect as they did. Years ago, that would have sent me spiraling. And now it's like, oh, it's because time's passing, and that's okay. It just happens, and it's nowhere near as like an obsessive attachment, but it is very much a huge part of my life that it has them for so long that, I don't know, it's something that I've never really want to disconnect from.

Jose R. – Teddy

I had undiagnosed autism, so I was kind of “out there. I’d have meltdowns, but didn’t know how to convey them. Like if my socks touched my toes wrong, I’d just freak out. Inconsolable. I wasn’t a bad kid; I was a really good kid. I followed the rules. But when I had tantrums or meltdowns, they were like, Where’s his teddy bear? Because I couldn’t hurt Teddy. I would destroy anything I got my hands on, but not him. He calmed me down.

When the world seemed to be caving in on me, I felt completely unwanted. I remember being five or six and thinking, everyone wants you dead. They’d be better off without you. I knew Teddy was inanimate, but to prove my own misery to myself, I said: If you loved me, you would come to find me, then I flung him across the room. I waited. And of course, he didn’t come. I said, OK. You don’t love me either. Then I cried, eventually, I’d come to this realization: no matter what happens in life, or how attached we are to anything, we all die alone in the end. I’d walk over, pick him up, and say: Well, until that time comes… I guess we’re stuck together.

I took him everywhere. I had a lot of “what if” meltdowns as a kid. What if my parents never come back? What if my dad doesn’t come home from work? What if they die?
It would cause a huge meltdown. I couldn’t breathe. They’d say, 'You still have your teddy,' and that'd help. It was probably problem-solving for them. Because now, as an adult, I know, none of us have the answers. You just do your best. So Teddy became this symbol, no matter how bad things get, Teddy will be there. A weird concept to install in a kid, but it worked.

He’s a background character now, and he used to live in a drawer. Then the safe. Now he’s just around the room, my bedroom, here and there. I don’t go to anything for reassurance anymore. Nothing bothers me the same way. I’m kind of numb, but not in a dark way. Just accepting. Sometimes if I sit down and he’s there, I’ll hold him and say, Oh, there you are. That’s it.

He’s just… Teddy. Not in a morbid way, but it’s like carrying around the husk of a best friend. He was never alive, but I still treat him like you were significant. Now he’s just matted, torn fur that’s left. But I love him.

Kelly H. – Snuggle Bunny

She was a gift to my mother before I was born. I wasn't super into her at first, but I've been told that maybe around age 14 to 16 months is when I really started to latch onto her. I would bring her in my backpack, and I was aware that she was in the classroom with me. Even if the backpack had to be hung on the wall. I was like, she's there, and I was almost send my thoughts to her.

I was a thumb sucker until pretty late in age, like maybe like seven or eight years old, I was sucking my thumb. I had to have my hand a specific weight around, specifically that edge, not the other edge, and I had to have it a certain way and suck my thumb, holding it with like my nose kind of rubbing up against the tag. Her having this big blanket body was very easy to twist around different ways. I was always been very particular about having her ears a certain way. Her head can get switched into different shapes, and I kind of make sure that her head is in the shape that this kind of oblong shape compared to, she can kind of get squished thin like that, and I don't like that. I like it to be nice and wide and flat.

I think there were some parts where, you know, my parents were working or there were kind of crazy schedules and stuff like that, and I would be just home alone, just me and her.

My grandma took such good care of her, and it was always so nice to have her kind of refresh, we called it plastic surgery. She got a facelift or something like that. So I'm very protective of her, like her current quality, because how she is now is how my grandma left her. I was very, very close to my grandma.

Lain L. – Babbie

I'll come home from a hard day at work and just lie down and say out my whole day or the problems that I had. And, it's a lot more comforting to do that than to just be stressed and quiet.

I'll need to tuck her in or make her comfortable on my bed with the rest of my stuffed animals, and I can't just leave her lying there raggedy. My mom would take my stuffed animals a lot when I would get in trouble, but she would always leave her on my bed. I never got her taken away. I'll look at her and be, like, as, like, at least I have this one consistent thing. Like, throughout everything.

I think she probably represents just how everything changes, even though it remains the same. Nothing’s different and nothing's new under the sun, but no, nothing's going to stay the same. And nothing is linear. I never thought she would turn out this color with no face, and now she's this color with no face, but she's still a baby.

There's a prominent memory of how her face looks now. I think my mom and I were fighting when I was, like, probably like eight or so, maybe a little younger. I ran into the bathroom. I was so angry. I was yelling at her through the door, and she was yelling at me through the door, and I just got so upset and started drawing on her with makeup. And I took, you know, the scissors that are used for, like, your nails? I just took those and I just cut her face. She had already been missing her nose because my brother had ripped that off years ago.

That was one point where I remember being so upset and then immediately feeling better, and then being upset with what I had done. The choice I decided to make, and then I was reminded of that every time I looked at her for like two years. Yeah, so from then on in, I’d never have done anything purposely to her. I had never even thought about throwing her because I was upset, and then that happened, and I was like, 'Dang, I need to never do that again and take care.

Parker C. – Bullwinkle

I first got it at Christmas, so many years ago. It was given to me by my parents. They gave it to me because my grandpa had started calling me Moose when I was a kid. I’ve always kind of been a big kid, and it stuck. But yeah—I loved him from the moment I unwrapped him. He’s been with me since.

To use a more modern term—my spirit animal. He was just “my guy.” Bullwinkle. And I was Moose. So we were kind of the same. I never thought of myself as him, but we were both Moose like a little team.

He’s always a positive kind of feeling for me. And I think that’s why I keep him close.

Tyler S. – Granny loves Tyler

My maternal grandmother made it for me because I loved Batman and cats, so she made this kind of cat superhero hybrid. I think I appreciated it right away. It meant a lot to me from the start. I didn’t really reflect on what he meant until my grandmother passed away. That’s when the object took on a much deeper emotional meaning for me.

I talked to him as a kid. Played with him like an action figure, especially when I’d wear Batman shirts. We’d go to the living room and fight crime together.

I do find myself spending time looking at the little heart my grandmother sewed on his chest. Since I got sober—13 months now—I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting. My grandmother always believed in me. Looking at Cat Man reminds me of that. It’s soul-affirming. He helps me remember where I’ve been and the person who believed in me most.

When I was a kid, he was just a cool gift. But now? My grandmother taught me to sew on the same machine she used to make Cat Man with. She sewed three generations’ worth of wedding dresses on it. Most of my mom’s childhood clothes. I make my own clothes now, too. So Cat Man represents a lot, my identity as an artist, my family, and where I come from.

Blake C. - Coco the Second

I lost her, actually, playing at somebody’s house. We were all hanging out, and I was playing, and she just dropped her down the bed, and we could not find her. She was just nowhere to be found. I was devastated for a month. My mom took me back to the zoo to get another one.

I think I always wanted to be a happy child. Like I strived to be the good child, good at school, and good at home, and follow the rules. And I think internally, I was just very sad all the time. I have clinical depression. I was diagnosed in middle school. So it’s always been kind of part of my life. I tried to make everybody believe I was a happy child. I think the little things that kept me going were collecting things, like small trinkets. I used to collect like pins, stickers, and prints. My wall used to be covered in like posters and prints and things. And I think it just, like, brought me comfort, I guess, just kind of having things that were like, “These are my things.” And I don’t have to pretend to be any sort of way when I enjoy it. And I guess that’s like her, personified. She’s like my little buddy who will not judge me for anything.

I think after I stopped having imaginary friends, she was basically the replacement. I had her as my friend—kind of my buddy I would go everywhere with. I have family photos, like at family functions, with her. I used to carry her on my head, just walk around. I think she just brought me a sense of confidence. Like, I could be goofy, I could have her out in public as I was getting older, and not care. And I still do it. I still kind of carry her around every once in a while. She’s with me. So I guess she made me feel more comfortable being who I actually was.

I think the defining time when that fully changed from “this is just my comfort” was when I actually gave her away for a little bit, to my aunt, who was going through cancer. She sadly passed away a couple years ago. For a good long while, I just did not have her. She was with my aunt. And I think I didn’t need her, that was one of the first times I felt like, “I don’t need her, somebody else needs her more.”

It was very... it was good, because when I would go visit, my aunt would talk to me about how she loved having her there. She never had kids, so I was her kid, almost. She’s got a lot of good memories there.

She went from being something I needed to take with me for comfort to more of a reminder of my connection now. She’s a gift from my mother. She helped me through a really difficult time. And yeah, she kind of always has some of my other family’s memories, like, having her around.

She’s soft. And she’s little. I think I enjoy the fact that I can hold her, and she’s comforting. I can squeeze her. When I have panic attacks, I need to do something, to have something in my hand. I used to be a very angry child. When I got panic attacks, I used to break things. So instead, I would hold her and squeeze her, and that was fine.

She’s a reminder that I’m a whole person, and this is a process. And there will always be growth for me to go through.

Bonnie W.– Care Bear

I walked up to her, she was in this big blue box and she was at the bottom shelf because I was really short, and I just walked right up to her and I grabbed her and went out of the store and the security alarms and then they had to bring me back and I wouldn't let her go. So I distinctly remember the cashier picking me up, and I had the bear, and they were trying to scan me.

She's very cute. I cut her hair as well. I thought it would grow back when I was a kid, because spirit was so alive to me. I would talk to my bear in the morning, just constantly. Maybe for like an hour while they were having breakfast. She went with me wherever I went, so she was very comforting. She went to the grocery store. She went to school with me every Friday for show and tell. She went everywhere you can imagine, she had violin lessons. She was my best friend. She was my best friend for a long time.

She has one arm that's clearly weaker than the other. And that's because that's the way I used to carry her. I think her body tells the story of what she's been through, what she and I have been through.

When I was a kid, she was my entire world, so she knew everything about me. I spoke to her all the time, constantly. I would go to school, come back, and talk to her. She was my comfort, she was my best friend, she was, you know, someone who could replace frankly my family. Now she is somebody who accompanies my family.

I think she symbolized who I wish others would be for me when I was younger. But now I think she is who I wish I could be now, which is patient, listening, but also a strong advocate for things that you believe in, and how you feel, and kind of you know, defending the beliefs that you really believe in

In case there's a fire. I got my kid, I got my animals, my actual pets, my two cats and my dog, and then my bear, and they're all within one place so that I can have easy access to them

Jenna B. -Dolly Taffy, Rags

Dolly, Taffy, Rags—they’re always in chronological order, even though I acquired them at different times, they are just one unit. Wherever they’re going, it’s all three of them.

Dolly has always been there, because I got Dolly when I was born. So she’s always been important. I got Taffy when I was around four, so then they were a pair. I took in Rags around six, that’s when they became important as a trio, a conglomerate. From then on, they went everywhere with me.

They have to be together at all times. Like physically, maybe not always, but…
The middle one, Taffy, I always say they have personalities. Taffy is always the one who falls under the bed, ends up under a pile of clothes. I can’t find him.

They’re part of me, but also my whole world. I can’t imagine what would happen if I lost them. My husband and I have talked about it. I cry thinking about it. They’re my lifeline.
My comfort. My peace. Something not even a human can fulfill.

Lisa O. - Nightmare

I was 9 and first got him. I obviously liked him, but it wasn’t until I got older and my life got more hectic that I started to realize his importance. He’d just always been by my side through it all. He’s very important to me now.

I have a lot more Furbies, I collect them, but they’re all in storage at my sister’s house in a different state. I chose to bring him deliberately because he’s that important to me. I didn’t want to be separated from him.

I was really lonely and got bullied a lot. So I found comfort in inanimate objects, and he was the number one. I’ve had a lot, but no one tops him.

He reminds me that my life has been hectic, but I’m still here, and so is he. I don’t have a lot of things from back then. He’s one of the few. He’s always been there. I can just look at him and know, hey, I survived the past, he’s still here with me so I can survive whatever comes next.

I’ve changed a lot since I first got him, but he’s been there for every era of my life. He represents me in general.

Maritza V. - Benji.

I got him when I was six months old, so that's how old he is. He's been with me since then, and pretty much nothing except my family has been with me since then, for that long. So, it's nice; it's just a kind of touchstone to childhood.

My mom comes to my house, and when she visits, she says hello to him. She would say hi to my cat, and she would say hi to him. She will even move his little legs and be okay, sit him up. I'll leave him lying around, face up or whatever, and I'll be like, It's fine. My mom is always like, No, no, no. He has to be like this. She would rethread his nose, maybe, so that it was still black. His little red mouth, something happened to it at some point. I think that she put red thread here. He had an ear that was coming apart, and she sewed it, and she called it surgery. I don't remember when he became a significant thing, but then I started remembering those surgeries or those things when it was kind of like my mom teaching me he's really important. We need to take care of him, and we're going to try to preserve him, you know.

I sleep on my side and sleep with him, and, you know, he is a perfect little fit. I think his size, his, like that he's, like, fits perfectly in the crook of my arm, you know? He’s very compact. He's perfect, he's the perfect size for me.

It means something that he's still in my life. He's still on the bed. I still take care of him. You know, obviously he's not stuffed in a drawer or been given away. So in that way, I feel like you could look at him and say, he symbolizes that I'm a person that is sentimental or, you know, values things because they've been around a long time.

MD – Lamby

It's very much a companion role. I would joke sometimes as a little kid that she was like my sister even though I had a sibling.

She's very close to my identity, especially as I grew older and grew into a teenager and an adult. Becoming an artist, sheep became a part of my identity, so I used them as my profile pictures. I ended up naturally using them to represent myself in my art.

She was very grounded in real life, so it was kind of like writing in a diary. I talked to her about my day and she'd experience it alongside of me.

I don't know, feels very present in the past and the future, and there's also the stuff with how I identify with sheep so much now that she's kind of, like the cornerstone, she’s another little part of me.

Her fur texture has been very important to me because I don't think I have anything else that feels like this. It’s very comforting, especially since I did hold her all the time ,and how she size-wise fits perfectly on my shoulders, and also the texture difference because she has stuffing, but then she has little weighted beans in her feet. So there's that weighted aspect in the sound where if I pat her, I can definitely tell her apart just by sound from the rest of my objects. I used to carry her with me everywhere I go. There's a dent in her stuffing from where I would put her on my shoulder. She used to have a tag, but I chewed it off completely. I would smush her face into shapes, it could either be really flat or really long. And I usually have her sitting up ,and then sometimes I put my favorite bracelet at the time as a necklace on her and I would talk to her all the time.

Now, when I see her in passing, it's like, oh, oh, look at you.

She does kind of represent who I used to be as a kid, a teenager growing up. I feel like she represents me in the present more than anything, and then she'll keep being connected to me in the present.

Natalie M. - Tummy

When my mom was pregnant with me, I've always had the vibe it was near the end of her pregnancy, but I can’t confirm that. She had a stomachache one night and my dad, for some reason, decided to go to the fair. I don’t know why that was his response to her stomachache, but that’s how the story was told to me. While he was at the fair, he won Tummy and brought her home to my mom. They named her “Tummy” because my mom’s tummy hurt. Then when I was born, I just kind of… took her. Like, this is mine now. So, she was my mom’s for a very brief time, and then I took over.

I remember one time, when I was around 9, I was in therapy. I brought Tummy to every session. One day, I accidentally left her at therapy. I didn’t realize until I was going to bed, and I panicked. My mom called the therapist at 10 p.m. The therapist told me that she had tucked Tummy into bed, that Tummy was OK, that she was sleeping, and that I’d see her in the morning it was huge for me.

Tummy was my comfort, my family, my everything. She’s a symbol of strength. When I look at her, I think about all the hard things I’ve been through, and that she got me through them.
I’m just grateful.

Therese C. – Fluffy

When I get up in the morning, I always make sure that he's comfy. So like, I lay him flat and make sure, like, he's not all tucked weird or like his legs are all twisted or something. So I always have him right underneath my pillow and make sure he's just nice and flat.

I think it keeps me youthful, but that's kind of a weird way of saying it. It just kind of keeps me young, and I don't lose that. I feel like a lot of times when people get older, they lose their sense of whimsy and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And so, I think it kind of helps me keep that part of me.