Imaginary Friend

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Yes... I don't know if it was because of autism, or if it was just that I had no friends my own age (partly by choice). I best remember the imaginary friend years as appx. age 7 or 8 to about 12 or 13.

Charles

I had imaginary friends very early and it went on for many years. My first two imaginary friends were rather abstract, they had names and outfits they wore but I didnt know their faces. They played with me outside when I was alone.

Then later I developed an imaginary husband, and children and our imaginary friends were other couples (one based on my childhood best friend who I had moved away from). I played with them for several years and even took them to school with me but I never told the kids at school about them (for obvious reasons). I never knew this was weird until much later!

My Buffy doll is my imaginary friend that I can see!! !! !! She is beautiful!! !

I used to have an imaginary enemy, actually.

It was a creepy girl that hides in dark places around town, waiting in ambush to kill me. She wore an armored coat... and that's why I called her "Armorine". I was very afraid of her. She could be lurking behind every dark window or doorway

I've had 2 since I was quite young (5-6) I remember one of them, whose name is Fish, popped up because I had a dream that I found a dying fish on a wharf and picked him up and put him back in the water.
For some reason he is of Native American descent, probably because that's one of my special interests and everything in my room at that age was something related to Native American's.
He's always the one I ask for advice, heheh.

The other is sort of a psychopath. I'm deeply interested in psychology and serial killers and all that, I have quite an expansive book collection on the subject as well, so I'm pretty sure that's where that one generated from.
Psychopathic imaginary friends are quite productive plot thinkers, which makes for great story-telling.

I talk to both of them a lot, usually in my head, when I have to leave the house for any reason, just as a way of coping with social anxiety. I wish I could record the conversations, hah, they can be really interesting.

I have imaginary friends. It began in childhood and never really stopped. Probably because my imagination has always been a huge deal to me - it's not just something I have; it's part of who I am.

I have never been good at creating my own imaginary friends, so I take my favorite fictional characters from whatever movies/TV shows I'm into at a given time and make them my imaginary friends.

I had imaginary friends up until I was 27, which is when I met my husband. Sometimes they seemed so real that I believed they were real people I'd created a psychic link with. Sometimes now I wonder if my husband is actually one of them.

I do talk to myself, too, but that's a different thing: more like giving a speech.

I had alot but they come and go quickly. I designed an automatic AI hologram one time on paper and it once was my imaginary friend years ago.

I don't think I really understand what people mean by "imaginary friend"

I mean, do kids/people invent friends and talk/play with them like they would real people?

Do they know the friend is imaginary or do they think they're interacting with live, real people?

Would giving a teddy bear/doll a personality and interacting with it be the same as an imaginary friend?

I'm just confused by what it means and how it works out..

That is also why I'm unsure what to call the "fantasy persons" I've made up.
I don't talk to them, play with them or interact in any way, they're just people I made up, like you make up characters in a book or movie.

If I ever do interact with them it would be like in a daydream or fantasy, with a version of me AS me, in the fantasy.

They're very personal to me in a way that they're my "fantasy family", and the kids (twins, a boy and a girl) have always reflected me in age and personality.

The boy was the first one i came up with, when I was very little, 7 or so, but when I daydreamed I daydreamed AS that boy, I didn't interact with him as a person. Later I "invented" his twin sister, then their father and it grew and grew into a whole fantasy world/society that I still take comfort in daydreaming about.

At some point I separated myself from the boy and inserted a version of myself as myself, but the twins have always reflected me in age, looks and personality as I grew, so I don't quite know what to call this, but I do know enough about pshychology to make some assumptions about alter egos and their psychological functions..

I also have a firm grip on reality and have never believed any of my characters to either be real or that I am them, so I have no fears about being schizo or having a split personality.

But is that "imaginary friends"? I think it's a stupid term...