Is it normal to sniff an unwashed-for-10-years doll and whip urself?

I have a colleague, which was my college friend. She has this habits:

1. She has this peculiar doll, and it has to be with her when she's about to sleep. She wouldn't sleep well and feel uneasy and anxious when the doll isn't by her side.
2. She often sniff the doll by its head or ears, while saying "uuuuhhmmmm... *sniff* *sniff* uhm... nopiiii nopiii...." and get so happy by doing it. She sometimes does it without the doll.
3. She likes to (more like addicted to) whip the doll's ears to her arm and she can still doing it even when she's fallen to sleep. The whipping *splat* sound can be heard from quite a distance, almost looks like she's hurting herself with the doll.
4. She also like to scrub the left ear.
5. She's willing to pay any amount needed to take back her doll, and she even will endanger her life in order to take it back. She, once, cries and almost ran out from her house because she was threatened that the doll will be thrown away.
6. She won't take any other things in exchange for the doll. She can't even make a quick decision between choosing one of the doll OR her boyfriend.

Before you judge it normal or not, please take note of these facts below:
a. The doll existed even before she was born, and now she's 22 y.o.
b. It has been washed several times, and the last one was when she's at her 6th grade... more than 10 years, i think, and "dirty" word cannot describe it enough.
c. The doll was said that it can sit - which it no longer can - and was called "nopi" (read: nopee) because it was said to look like snoopy. But now it looks more like a hideous-looking-goat-doll with empty head part (i don't know how the cotton gone)
d. The left ear part - which she used to scrub it - was already thin enough that there are several holes in it and the furry part is gone, unlike the right ear which is still fully intact.
e. The left hand now looks like a dirty cloth hanging with a lump on its other edge. The heart part is out of the doll's body. Almost too hideous to be called a toy.

If you curious how the doll might look like, please just open these links:
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/9725/dsc01233ge.jpg
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/4784/dsc01225z.jpg
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/3815/dsc01227j.jpg
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7743/dsc01228t.jpg
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/1687/dsc01229lh.jpg
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/6596/dsc01230bc.jpg
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5691/dsc01231r.jpg
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/3408/dsc01232k.jpg

After you read how my friend's habit, what do you say? Is it normal?