Are you a pack rat?

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I'm actually now realizing a new dimension of my AS: I grow personally attached to inanimate objects, my clothes especially. Even with stuff like food, if I'm eating chips and one slips out of my hand I imagine that it's trying to run away and escape its fate so I make a point of capturing it and devouring it. But with clothes I treat them like my friends, and the more I wear them the more I grow close to them, so most of my favorite clothes are the oldest ones; the ones I've had a lot of history with. Even when it's completely unwearable I'll just keep them around for company.

Hmm.. this might be more serious than I thought..

That's so strange. I've always had an attachment to inanimate objects as well. I remember a few particular things from when I was a kid.

1. My grandmother made these little chocolate ducks for us to eat and I wouldn't eat because I was afraid to hurt the duck. Also my mother bought my brother and me chocolates in the shapes of bears and buses and I was afraid to eat them for the same reason.

2. I accidentally let go of my balloon when I was a kid and cried for the whole day.

Hmm. I think I need help.

lol I remember being devastated when I let go of a balloon once as well... I thought it was going to go flying off into space and suffocate or something...
I always feel guilty about not buying things sometimes as well. Like if I walk past something in a shop and don't buy it, I feel as if whatever it is is sat there wondering why nobody wants it
It's quite exhausting having problems like these

I used to be, but I did a major weeding out of old papers, magazines, and other things when my room was renovated. Now I just save special things.

Mildly. I keep alot of stuff I should dump, but within reason.

I am diamterically opposite of being a pack rat. I am the anti-pack rat.

I abhor having a cluttered house. I loathe having mountains of knick-knacks. I dislike having mounds of paper, newspapers or other clutter junking up my space.

It all ties in with my mode of thinking. A cluttered house reflects a cluttered mind. Clean up your cluttered house. Clean your house up of all it's junk and it will help you keep a clean, uncluttered mind. Throw away all the discarded remanants of your past. Keep only that which is neccessary.

My mother was a huge packrat though.

Would have had to seen it, I can't describe it.

I watched as my Mom (who I never suspected as being an Aspie as long as she lived) spent her whole life storing and packing away volumes of junk through the years. Her closets were packed full of clothing she wore when she was in her teens. Shoes she could no longer wear. Old records that she couldn't listen to because we never had a record player. I spent so much effort trying to make her get rid of all her junk because it was her way of holding onto her past. And her past was filled with a lot of painful memories. Eventually I made her understand that getting rid of all her old junk was a way to get rid of all her painful memories. She bought it and eventually got rid of it all. But I sure as hell spent a lot of frustrating years carting and moving around all of her junk from one house to the next as well moved through the years.

My Dad and brother, both Apsies, keep a lot of clutter. And the reason I hate clutter is because my Dad has such a problem getting rid of his own clutter. So he calls me up and asks me to help him go through his junk and weed out the stuff he doesn't need. Which is MOST of it! So if I kept a lot of clutter as well, that means I'd have to go through and get rid of all my junk as well as my Dad's. So I try to maintain an uncluttered life.

When I was younger, I loved stuffed animals and I could never stop buying more of them(I still get the urge to buy stuffed animals when I see them at stores). They made my room really dusty and I have really bad allergies, so I had to put them all in huge trash bags in my closet. I have about 7 bags of them and if I were to open one side of my closet they would all fall out on top of me. I also refuse to drink any water other than bottled water and I keep all the water bottles on the floor of my bedroom. My mom calls it the waterbottle graveyard. When I get up in the middle of the night in the dark, I try to be quiet to not wake anyone. However, I usually end up tripping on a bottle and then falling over all the other bottles which makes a huge racket and probably wakes up the entire neighborhood.

Not only am I, but my wife was a pack mule.
Made for a good match.

I keep everything too, and my mom does the same.

When I bought my Rurouni Kenshin mangas some years ago, they were enveloped in a plastic bag. Today I keep these bags in my closet