I thought imaginary friends were just something in the movies. Kids actually have them?
Where do you think religions came from
Mental illness and greed.
Also true
When we were kids, my sister (4 years old at the time) had a friend named Jennifer who “lived down the street” none of us had ever met. She went to play with Jennifer every day for hours on end. We moved to a new town and my sister again disappeared for several hours. When she came home she said she had been playing with Jennifer because Jennifer had moved too. Sister later confirms that Jennifer was an imaginary friend, but has no idea where she was going every day or what she was doing. Now my parents are so much more worried about where the grandkids are when they visit. My sisters and I tease them about where the concern was when we were growing up.
This convinces me further that imaginary friends are only supernatural if real at all
Seriously! Her son now talks about our uncle who passed, says he comes to visit sometimes. Big yikes from me.
I don’t remember having imaginary friends but my aunt and grandma have always told me the story of how I was sitting upset one and time and they asked me what happened and I told them there was an older lady scolding me. From what I described to them they were convinced it was my deceased great grandma that had been giving me shit for something or other. Apparently she was a bit of a grouch and had died in that house. House was also super haunted in other ways from what they say.
I imagine a lot of kids would use this excuse to just go play by themselves in the woods or whatever. Or, they could have been hanging out with other kids. So in this case it’s less an imaginary friend and more of a fake friend.
Welcome to being autistic. Except it has nothing to do with imaginary friends and everything to do with culture.
What a weird thing to say.
I’d like to know more, please do tell!
I don’t understand what you are trying to tell, sorry.
As a French, it’s not in our culture these “imaginary friends”. Kids don’t have them (at least I don’t know anyone that used to have one), we don’t speak about it, we don’t have stories and fairy tales about them…
I think it’s an American thing. The new movie “IF” is uncanny for me - It’s like the girl is batshit insane and I was waiting for a twist with here being in a psychiatric hospital or something.Not French but francophone so maybe it is an English thing, because I heard so many anecdotes from Anglophone relations about their imaginary friends growing up, and mon doux jesus I tried to have an imaginary friend, but sadly found myself impotent in that regard.
It seems to be a swedish thing, but sweden is loving US/UK culture so maybe we hear about it but doesn’t have them.
For what it’s worth, I grew up there and never met/heard of anyone having an imaginary friend, but I do remember it from TV. Hmm, maybe a german film? What’s about you, germans?
No, I was a lonely nerd so I just had imaginary friends. I think I stopped having a specific imaginary friend when I was about 5 and moved on to playing out larger imaginary scenarios. In high school I got into tabletop RPGs, and today I still play them now and then, and I like to write stories and do other creative activities.
I feel like my imagination has enjoyed a long and varied career, and I look forward to several more decades of day dreaming.
No, but I intentionally mispronounced spaghetti because the kids who couldn’t say it correctly got more attention.
When I was 5, I went to a speech therapist for an S lisp. I remember first thing they told me was that I’m meant to keep my tongue behind my teeth. I had to say, “Sammy the silly snake slithers by” and nailed it. I forget all the other stuff, but never had a lisp after that very brief and distinct moment.
All I remember before that was adults saying to me, “No, like this.” and would just hiss at me. Who’d have thought a few seconds of explaining something would actually work.
Most of the time people don’t think about things thoroughly enough to describe them usefully. Or they don’t have the language to describe them.
Most people can’t articulate how things are done, it takes a professional. That’s why a lot of scientific and mathematical discoveries seem so obvious. Knowing how to do something, or how something works, is not the same as being able to define how it is done in a provable and repeatable fashion.
Edit: congratulations on overcoming your lisp!
I was in speech therapy all through elementary school. The only thing I remember was being told “smile when you pronounce your R’s.”
I honestly should’ve taken a class on how to hold a pencil. Instead of teaching me properly, they just let me type my assignments. It wasn’t until high school that I learned to actually write by staring at a classmate’s hand as she wrote and copying her form. My handwriting is still shit btw. I just don’t get cramps as easily.
Yes! Everyone was talking about theirs and I just made up one but felt like a fraud. I literally had to take a real animal toy of mine to base my “imaginary friend” on.
I did not have imaginary friends, but I imagined lots of DBZ like battles in my mind IRL scenery, does that counts?
My imaginary friend was dripped-out Goku as well
Did that with DBZ and MegaMan
Which MegaMan version?
I’m talking Nintendo 90s MegaMan using the circle shot.
None of my friends had that, so neither did I
Me too! Drop Dead Fred made me think it was a thing! Also Phoebe Cates is so convincing
No, but I definitely had the thought that, “Wow, it’d be really cool if I could imagine something that strongly like everybody else. I want a pet blue eyes ultimate dragon”
No
I thought I was adopted before I’ve heard or understood the concept of it.
Were you really?
Not really. It’s just my parents had a hard time when I was born (russian 90s + medical issues) and I lacked contact with them working long irregular shifts. When I was failing in something or just sad, it was easier to imagine I’m of alien origin and don’t belong there, than to talk this out with them. It’s probably not on them, and far from the worst stories other lemmings can tell, but it did hurt.
My siblings just did it as an insult, “ugh I must be adopted because you all are dumb!”.
There were some fun jokes at times, but my sister insisted even to others. Ironically, she has shown to be one of the less wise children with how she’s developed her life.
That’s incredibly sad. Kind of reminds me of my dad. My mom was better, but depending on the context she could be just as bad.
It’s great we don’t depend on them anymore but it sure raise a question of how to be better than them, to tell when a kid is in trouble and to know how to help them even if it’s hard.
Yeah no