Using fictional characters for help with transitions/soothing/skills?

[Coupe]

When I was young, there were certain animated characters in movies and TV shows that I would get really emotionally attached to - some of these were Dumbo, Simba and Nala from the Lion King, Barney and Baby Bop, the 101 Dalmatians, the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White, the Winnie the Pooh characters, Sesame Street muppets, Toy Story characters and others.

When my parents would realize how much I liked certain characters, they would (I think) use it to their advantage in order to persuade me to attend to the tasks of daily life, or soothe anxiety.

For instance, I used to have a set of brightly colored soaps in the shape of Pooh characters that I loved to use in the bathtub, along with a dispenser of bubble bath shaped like Bert from Sesame Street. These made having a bath more fun. I can remember my mom also quoting from the scene in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" where they all wash up for dinner when she tried to entice me into the tub...she would say, "Don't forget to "warsh" behind your ears!" in the best imitation of Doc she could muster, and I think I even made her replicate the motorboat noises the Dwarfs made as they washed their faces, at one point.

There was also a bottle of hair detangler in the shape of Baby Bop, and like a lot of sensory defensive children, I hated to have my hair combed in the morning when it would be tangled and matted. So, when my hair needed to be combed, my mother would say, "Come here, Coupe, Baby Bop is going to take the tangles out of your hair." There was also a box of 101 Dalmatians band-aids that diminished the trauma of minor cuts and bruises.

I also remember generalizing my favorite characters to their real-life counterparts, as well. i.e. All lions were either "Simba" or "Nala," all teddy bears were "Pooh," all elephants were "Dumbo," around the holidays, all snowmen were "Frosty," etc.

As I got a bit older, I watched PBS all the time, when they played cartoons (such as DragonTales, Clifford the Big Red Dog or Arthur) meant for teaching preschool-aged children social skills such as sharing, being patient, expressing anger appropriately (that is, without screaming, throwing things on the floor or threatening to hit, all of which I would do if pushed far enough), following instructions, and being assertive. I would watch carefully and apply what I learned to social encounters in my real life, but it tended to be kind of hit-or-miss as to whether I would be successful. I also utilized some scripts from these shows - mostly phrases that yielded more or less positive social outcomes in the cartoons I watched. Regardless of how any given day full of social interaction at school or church went, it was made more bearable with the knowledge that as soon as I returned home, I could watch a movie like Finding Nemo or Chicken Run in order to decompress. I still consider the characters from animated movies and cartoons to have been my first and foremost teachers, protectors and friends in my life.

This sort of reminds me of the "Disney/Affinity Therapy" that Ron Suskind talks about doing with his autistic son Owen in his memoir "Life, Animated" - that's probably why I loved the book so much when it came out. I kept hinting to my dad that he should read it too, but he's only gotten so far into it and he keeps insisting that Owen is "nothing like me" and that his therapy was nothing like what he and my mom did with my favorite characters. :/

Did anyone else rely on fictional characters in this way?....or maybe you still do to an extent?

 

[AsheSkyler]

I've heard a lot of autistics or Aspies tend to deeply bond with characters on shows, and lots tend to use them as guidelines for social interaction and other things.

We did tons of movie quotes when I was growing up. Particularly all the funny ones because we'd get to giggling. As we got older most people couldn't quite understand what was being said between me, my mom, and my sister because that became how we communicated to each other. Somehow I seem to be the only one scoring as an oddball on the autistic tests.

And a spoonful of sugar does NOT help the medicine go down unless you're chugging large amounts of it. It spoonful of sugar turns a spoonful of medicine into a sticky paste worse than peanut butter and nearly chokes you to death. And umbrellas aren't very good for softly floating to the ground either...

 

[Pondering]

This makes a lot of sense, actually. Not so much anymore, but when I was a lot younger I used to immitate certain characters when I wanted to be a certain way. So when I wanted to get away from the walls of reality I sort of would pretend to be Spyro the dragon and run everywhere with my arms behind me like wings. When I wanted to be free, I would run like my favorite horse character from an animated movie. Characters considered 1uirky typically were my normal. I knew movies spoke to people in ways I could not, to a degree. So I would really quote from tv shows and movies most of the time. But it did make me feel more comfortable in my own skin. In a sense, I guess the characters wete like my friends.

 

[Alex Dame]

I most certainly do rely on fictional characters, and I have done for as long as I can remember. Maybe it's just that some part of me refuses to grow up, or maybe it's just that I find comfort in cartoons and fictional characters that I grew up with, that I trust them like someone would a teddy bear or other stuffed animal. At any rate, I think I can understand what you're saying. New situations and everyday life can be extremely stressful, and if you used to admire a fictional character, or still do, it might not be unhealthy to ask yourself what they'd do, or how they'd handle it. Personally, I've got a cartoon obsession, and to me, there's absolutely nothing wrong with going to fictional characters for emotional support or a morale boost. Many people, including myself and my mother, find a lot of emotional support in praying to God. I'm not saying he's a fictional character here, but there are certainly some who think so. Personally, I find things like cartoons particularly comforting when I'm home alone in the evenings, which is more often these days than it used to be.

 

[Larisa]

I relied on the 'Transformers' cartoons (1984-1989) characters: the situation reflected my survival in my unfriendly family (the decepticon headquaters) and I felt myself along the certain character who tried hard to fit with others, be helpful and still got himself rejected from the group. I admired his acceptance of the fact and him finding his own separate way and his own interest in life.
I spoke with quotes from the cartoons, I could not form my own words and define my own position in the world: everything was too difficult and uncertain from my point of view. I had problems with understanding my personal and physical borders - because nobody ever respected my personal space and I did not know I always had the right.
So I spoke with quotes because they were predifined - what message do they carry and what reaction they get from other people.
It's just ten years as I started to speak from my mind and choose the words to describe what I feel and think - and even now I sometimes use the quotes from cartoons and anecdotes when I see resemblance of certain scenes with my current situation.

 

[Cyrano]

Not animated characters, but Mister Spock and Captain Kirk were positive role models, particularly Spock. I practiced maintaining my emotional equilibrium from lessons gleaned from watching him interact with humans. It worked well enough that I was told by a girl who was in the band with me that in the four years she had known me, she had never seen me smile or heard me laugh, and why was that? I explained that I simply saw little to smile or laugh about, and it took more than the juvenile humor inflicted on me by our schoolmates to make me laugh. She challenged that, and I responded by delivering all three parts of Bill Cosby's classic routine "Noah," word for word, pause for pause, intonation for intonation. She allowed as I had a point.

 

[Coupe]

I remembered something else related to this topic just this afternoon - when I was a kid, my mom would take me to the local JC Penney's for haircuts. I didn't really like getting my hair cut back then, but the woman who cut my hair was always very nice, and in her drawer full of equipment, she had a small handful of California Raisins toys from the 80s. She would let me play with these while she cut my hair, and the experience was usually a positive one for me, then. So, the California Raisins ended up being included in my "cloud" of favorite animated characters, along with other characters from the 80s that I wouldn't have known about if not for seeing residual 80s memorabilia in various places during my early years in '92-'97. There was a teenage girl who lived down the street who would babysit me sometimes and introduced me to the Pound Puppies, Care Bears and My Little Pony characters she enjoyed when she was my age.

My dad also liked the California Raisins, too, since they sang "Heard it Through the Grapevine" (his favorite Marvin Gaye song) in their commercials.

 

[DogwoodTree]

Not cartoons for me, but Star Trek, especially TNG, had a humongous influence on me. I still go back to Star Trek reruns when I need help grounding and balancing my emotions. Also, MacGyver, and Airwolf's Stringfellow Hawke, played extremely significant roles in the development of my inner world. Some of those characters were more real to me than any of the real people around me. If I felt any love from anyone as a child, it was from some of those characters, not from "real" people.

 

[Silverwhistle]

I think favourite characters in books/films can be a comfort. I didn't have many real friendships till I got to university, and people I read about (historical or fictional) populated my imaginative landscape. They still do: they inspire me, and they live in worlds into whicI I can escape imaginatively when I need to. What's interesting is that I now recognise at least some of them were probably on the spectrum.