How has MLP helped you?

[CosmicHooves 2,705]

Has MLP helped you through times of roughness or have you learned something from the show that has helped you later on in life?

I know I have!

Tell us about it if the show has.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Psyco Dash

[CrestofReliability 28]

After the suicide of one of my dear classmates, I was genuinely upset and longed for an alternate reality where I could make a character that didn't die of deliberate drug overdose, and was still around to interact with the environment. MLP just worked out that way. Plus the relateable characters made me not miss my friends and family back home as much. Sure I still missed them but I could bear it easier when I had some relateable characters that reminded me of myself, my interactions with my siblings, and daily living in a new place with a new cast of characters as I went to college. For example, Rainbow Dash reminds me of a friend I used to have in elementary to middle school. He too was obsessed with athletics and being the very best. He also viewed me as lesser and weaker, much like Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Where I excelled in academics he excelled in both academics and athletics, to say I was jealous was an understatement. So when I see Twilight teaching Rainbow Dash about history and the Wonderbolts it makes me think what would have happened if I taught that late friend of mine some humility and such. Yeah, my opinion on Rainbow Dash is heavily biased but not unfounded. So that's why I like the show, the escape to an alternate reality that helps deal with the grief of a lost friend, and relate to characters as I go into a new type of life. 

[M'aiq the Liar 5,804]

After returning from Afghanistan, the world just looked overly dark and bleak to me. The middle east was a war torn shit hole, the american people were blind to their own government abusing them. But FiM helped me lighten up a bit. It showed me that while the majority of humanity is useless dolts, not everyone was like that. Humanity still had a little good left in it, despite all the pointlessness of its identity politics and social justice pandering. 

[CosmicHooves 2,705]

After the suicide of one of my dear classmates, I was genuinely upset and longed for an alternate reality where I could make a character that didn't die of deliberate drug overdose, and was still around to interact with the environment. MLP just worked out that way. Plus the relateable characters made me not miss my friends and family back home as much. Sure I still missed them but I could bear it easier when I had some relateable characters that reminded me of myself, my interactions with my siblings, and daily living in a new place with a new cast of characters as I went to college. For example, Rainbow Dash reminds me of a friend I used to have in elementary to middle school. He too was obsessed with athletics and being the very best. He also viewed me as lesser and weaker, much like Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Where I excelled in academics he excelled in both academics and athletics, to say I was jealous was an understatement. So when I see Twilight teaching Rainbow Dash about history and the Wonderbolts it makes me think what would have happened if I taught that late friend of mine some humility and such. Yeah, my opinion on Rainbow Dash is heavily biased but not unfounded. So that's why I like the show, the escape to an alternate reality that helps deal with the grief of a lost friend, and relate to characters as I go into a new type of life.

 

I can relate a ton to Rainbow Dash too.

I too am an athlete, but not AS cocky.

I took the pony personality test on this one site I found.

These were the results:

 

http://www.bronyland.com/pony-personality-test/?img=plz&q=Mzk5NHw5NzQ2MjE

After returning from Afghanistan, the world just looked overly dark and bleak to me. The middle east was a war torn shit hole, the american people were blind to their own government abusing them. But FiM helped me lighten up a bit. It showed me that while the majority of humanity is useless dolts, not everyone was like that. Humanity still had a little good left in it, despite all the pointlessness of its identity politics and social justice pandering.

 

America is pretty screwed up compared to how it was in the recent past.

I must agree with you on that.

[Magic Twinkle 204]

MLP has become a way of life for me, sort of.

 

Before I wasn't on any fandom forum (and I mean it), and a pony forum was my first (EqF) and after that I came here.

[Rhythmic Tempo 49]

It's given me something to do in my spare time. As much as I like playing games and stuff, i'm not too athletic, so i'm normally inside. If my friend hadn't shown me MLP I would be one of those nooby CoD idiots screaming at people to "Get good m8"

 

But, it got me off and back into reading some good stories, that, in the community, are quite varied on many aspects.

[facemelt91 62]

Incoming personal story:

 

I was going through a very dark period in my life. I graduated top of my class from university and I was all set for a career, training to be a teacher. Pretty much guaranteed a job in a good school at the end of my training. All I had to do was keep it together.

 

Then I went through a phase of severe depression. I'd struggled with anxiety and depression all my life due to various things, including a traumatic childhood and losing a few people who I was very close to. Due to extreme low mood, I couldn't focus at all during my training, and then when I found out the school I was going to be working in couldn't accomodate me because it was a failing school, I was sent over the edge and I tried to take my own life. It seems petty in hindsight, but at the time I was despairing and I had been severely depressed for a long time.

 

So because I tried to end my own life, I also ended up failing my training. The university took the view that I was mentally unstable and shouldn't be working in school. I survived a suicide attempt, but it's set me back in terms of a career. Though i wasn't enjoying it much anyway...

 

Anyway, while i was recovering from my suicide attempt, I started watching the show. Watching the characters go through personal struggles gave me strength enough to go through mine, even when it felt unbearable at times. My life isn't back on track yet - I'm still healing physically and psychologically from my last suicide attempt. I'm still trying to find a job to keep me ticking over financially until I can afford to start a Masters course and eventually a PhD. I want to become a professor of English one day, but it has taken for me to attempt suicide to realise this. I actually want to do some research on the show and write a few articles about it from a critical perspective.

 

Regarding the show, I can't really explain what it is about it that I love. Sure, the animation and storytelling are amazing and the voice acting is superb. It's funny, it's got pop culture references and teaches important life-lessons that adults can benefit from as well as children. It's also very interesting to me from a humanities scholar point of view, because there are lots of metaphors and allusions to literature. There are also a lot of symbols and images that link to complex critical theories, from Jungian Psychoanalytical theory, to gender studies and even Poststructuralism. For a scholar of literature, it's a playground for analysis.

 

But plenty of other shows also have these things, and there is almost certainly a show out there that does one or more of those things better than My Little Pony does, so I can't quite put my finger on what it is about Friendship is Magic that is so damn good, to the point where it's tied with Death Note as my favourite animated show ever.

 

I love the show so much, so much that I went and bought a little Rainbow Dash stuffed toy which sits on my desk

[Venomous 18,859]

The lessons this show teaches are lessons I've learned when watching older kid shows.

Like "Arthur" for example.

 

These lessons are things older bronies should have known for a long time.

The show shouldn't have to reiterate that.

[Oblivion 20,266]

Yes, when I was in highschool it just kinda took my mind everything and I sorta had my own little world all to my self, then when I graduated high school I ended up working long hours in a factory over the summer which I could barley stand, then that's what REALLY got me into the show. Come home after a exhausting day of work, kick off my boots and just watch the colorful ponies jump around on the screen for a half hour, it really was my true happy place, and really did help relax me to some extent.

[Blaze Bronson 343]

MLP has helped me to respect others for liking things I personally don't like.

Once I got the short end of the stick so to speak, when I started liking MLP, I realized that this is how misunderstood persons feels.

 

Now diversity is only awesome! And when I meet people with absurd interests they burn for, I can't help to get interested myself 

[Nina 38]

MLP Helped me make a LOT of internet friends.

[Anilewe 2,178]

For me it's more like 'How Applejack helped you?'

I wrote about it here: http://mlpforums.com/blog/1656/entry-10731-why-i-love-applejack-so-much/

 

Long story short: I had a depression, when I started to watch MLP. AJ was kind of character I always wanted to be - strong, dependable and yet feminine and cute. She gave me strenght and was my biggest motivation. 

Edited April 6, 2014 by Anilewe

[man dude man 555]

I was an egoist to certain points, self concerned, definatley in no hurry to make friends, and really didn't see the point in it. MLP has completley changed my life, my life style, the way I think about things, the way I think about others, the way I actually consider others. See, I was in the darkest moments of my life when MLP and I first met, I have been an off and on addict for years of my life, and I have struggled with the concept of friendship just from who I had been associated with prior to my entering the community. I have only ever been used by people for what I have, or people have treated me like scum and rightfully so. It wasn't until i met someone from this fandom, dead set to champion the cause of all bronies and to represent a chance at reformation. I fell in love with the show, Twilights character spoke to me and I knew in my head that I was going to eat my words and that I was slowly falling in love with the cartoon masterpiece before my eyes. My life has changed in so many aspects I couldn't begin to explain. I do credit MLP for "saving my life" to certain extents, is the best way to put it.

[StarSwirlTheBearded 356]

As a new brony, not much has happened yet.  However, I now feel incredibly optimistic about my future, and I suddenly feel the urge to be more friendly to people.

[bailey2 114]

It's helped me a lot, I was withdrawing off a medicine called Lorazepam, A very dangerous medicine and the withdrawal is one of the most dangerous out there, there's a slight chance it could result in death or coma.

 

During my withdrawal I spent all of the time in bed because if I would try and be active, I would get horrible feelings all over my body, So I decided to watch movies and shows, I'd pretty much seen everything I liked so I decided to give MLP a chance, I was hooked, All the characters had there own bright personalities and it gave me something to do during one of the most darkest times in my life.  

[CMQuickfireTK 751]

It's helping by telling me the relevancy of friendship.

 

that's about it otherwise, other than it's amusing to watch.

[Sig Hoovestrong 838]

MLP help me find happy little place within ponyland. That i can go when feel everything else starting smell rotten and foul. But seriously, i found it help me out begin more creative and feel happier then before, and i find more joy in life. And it have made me explore thing i didnt know abut myself, our where able to do. I don't know all details of it. But do know MLP have effected me in wonderful and positive way.

[ReverseFaller 2,483]

MLP help me find happy little place within ponyland. That i can go when feel everything else starting smell rotten and foul. But seriously, i found it help me out begin more creative and feel happier then before, and i find more joy in life. And it have made me explore thing i didnt know abut myself, our where able to do. I don't know all details of it. But do know MLP have effected me in wonderful and positive way.

 

I feel the same way. MLP has just made me more positive, and happy than usual. 

[DryGuy84 (Inactive) 927]

I had sunk into a pretty deep depression. When you wake up every morning being told how worthless you are, you eventually start to believe it. I just sat in my room, on my computer, and thought to myself: "Why me? Why can't I catch a break?" When one day I went to Memebase and saw ponies plastered all across the front page (it was from the newly aired Season 2 finale). Feeling intrigued, I decided to watch Saberspark's "Ballad of the Brony" and Paleo's "Why MLP is so good, and why you should watch it." I took Paleo's advice and started with Dragonshy. I was instantly hooked, and eventually marathoned the whole show. After watching through it I realized what was happening in my life, why everything was going wrong, it was me.

 

I realized that my family was continuing to fall apart, because, while I had been trying for years to fix our broken relationships, I never did anything that wasn't for me. When things went wrong, I wasn't at fault in my mind, but it was me all along. I WAS being a worthless, lowlife piece of shit, and thanks to the show the final stage of our relationship mending process came to pass. I became enthralled with how the fanbase had acted too, it was nothing like the Sonic fanbase! Everyone was so nice, so selfless. The show and its fanbase showed me my problem and inspired me to fix it.

Edited April 13, 2014 by DryColt84

[SaburoDaimando 1,196]

It gave me a better inspiration to draw(That and it brought out the Garry's Mod freak in me. XP)

[Gernia 691]

Nothing drastic has happened since becoming a brony, although things have improved.

Before joining the fandom, my life was ok, but I would have some days where I felt really down on myself. Since I first started watching the show I have become more positive in my overall attitude, and I've met some very nice people on these forums. I watch the show as a means of relieving stress, and I think it does that well.