Why adults also have “cuddly toys”

 Many adults have a small, very soft fetish object that follows them everywhere. "Doudou", "gri-gri" or "lucky charm", they reassure and soothe whatever the age.

A (worn) rabbit's ear protruding from under a pillow, a small teddy bear slipped into the pocket of a suitcase, many more adults than you might think have a favorite object, like Fabienne, soon-to-be grandma. mother, who at 49 says she always takes a little stuffed owl on vacation given by her father for her 14th birthday and which must be at her bedside. These childish manias are not always easy to assume, although it is agreed in our society that women can have a "sentimental" side that these "오나홀 cuddly toys" fill. But what about the many men who also confide in them an unlimited attachment to a childish object that follows them everywhere? For the psychologist, Catherine Pierrat, who often asks her patients the question, a lot of men, rather young, have comforters, real ones,

To comfort

Almost all of us have our “오나홀 cuddly toys”, even if they don't always come in the form of dolls or stuffed animals; for example, a t-shirt inherited from our adolescence, or even a cat or a dog that takes over the bed, curls up and lets itself be stroked. By extrapolating a little, the psychologist Catherine Pierrat admits that many objects have this function of reassuring and comforting us: from pebbles picked up on the beach and carefully preserved, to the communicant pen that we take out for important signatures. Even a certain type of favorite car can be invested with this function, such as the 2 CV for example. Even certain foods… when eating (usually sweet) comforts and even consoles, people think, and that's another question!

To facilitate falling asleep

There are therefore objects that we never part with, exposed, or buried in a box, but of which we always know where to find them, and those that have the right to a place of choice in our room, drawer of the bedside table, under the pillow, even between the sheets. These are really invested with the powers of baby comforters; they help us transition from day to night. For some people, bedtime is delicate, it requires rituals: check that the window is closed, line up your slippers, and provide your glass of water. They are intended as much to reassure oneself as to delay the moment of going to bed. In this context, plush, which does not change an inch in appearance and mimicry, volume, and smell and which is fidelity itself, relaxes and reassures; with its sometimes long past, it knows us, it seems, better than anyone. Betty, 37, says the prospect of finding her rag doll motivates her to go to bed instead of always finding one last thing to do before going to bed. Anne-Marie, in her sixties, does not hesitate to affirm that the mere fact of smelling her Pimpim helps her to fall asleep… and perhaps saves her from taking sleeping pills.

To calm anxieties

Darkness, silence, and loneliness can be worrying (hence the temptation to fall asleep to the sound of television). Going to bed and falling asleep that follow are moments of relaxation, of course, but above all of the abandonment, and therefore of greater fragility. Psychologists speak of death anxiety, in the face of sleep and the night, as if one risked, by letting oneself be caught up in sleep, falling asleep forever. Moreover, in the mouths of children, “someone who is dead is someone who is still sleeping”. The 오나홀 Doudou makes it possible to face this anguish of death. And then, the fear of rehashing the problems that we have put in the background throughout the day makes some people perceive the bed as a place of vulnerability. Sleep arouses deadly anguish against which we fight until the end.