Inappropriate Attachment to Objects

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I have a chapter in my first book about this and blogged about this yesterday, but I'm wondering if anyone else has had an experience like this. Before I say the experience though I must say the reason I ask is after I was diagnosed in 2003 I went into a deep depression and refused to read, listen, to talk about being on the spectrum. In my darkest night I started to write and night after night I continued until I realized I had all but accidentally wrote a book. I may have written a book, but my rule still applied to not hearing or reading other person's experiences to keep my writings 100% pure. Now though I am curious as if my story and concepts apply to more than just me.

Anyways, when I was 13, I had a friend stay the night. On this night he drank a soda and placed it on my dresser. This dresser would be the new home for this Minute Maid Orange Soda can for sometime. I have OCD tendecies, but not when it comes to cleaning up. That being so the dresser home was a very safe place for this can.

Time went on and that can stayed there. The can quickly became more than a can as it became my connection to my friend. I have a videographic memory, but when it comes to remembering people I fail miserable. Truly, I can't remember on thing about the girlfriend I had for four years except that she was short! In my memories people are blurred out, much like an undercover police program.

So the can became more than just aluminum that needed to be recycled as it was my connection to my friend. Years passed and I didn't see him as much as his family moved, but through that can he still existed. Yes, I know that's an extreme line, but by existed I mean I could still, well, feel that connection to someone else that for me is very rare. I don't know if I felt that way when he was actually there back all those years ago, but through that orange can I did.

The year 2000 came and I went to a race car driving school in Las Vegas and my mom thought she'd do me the favor of cleaning my room. Imagine the dismay I had when I walked back into my room and saw everything clean. The first place my eyes scanned was the dresser and that can that had been a staple in my room was gone; tossed out like a piece of trash!

Other items were tossed out too, but none of them had the size of the impact like the can. I cried more over that can on that day then the days that I had to have my dog, or either of my 2 cats put to sleep. There's a major statement as I feel as if I only truly connect with animals.

I wish I could change this attachment to irrelevant items. Family's keep relics and heirlooms because those items actually have a history or value. For me, my personal relics involves a soda can, a now stale air freshener, and a multitude of other items others would just view as a piece of trash.

Last edited by KansasFound on 10 Mar 2010, 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The reason that it's deemed inappropriate, is because many people and psychologists say that it is. It doesn't mean that it actually is. Everybody's different, and everybody should accept that.

When I present this story in person I usually get people to feel about this can. If someone is looking on the outside without any knowledge of what it is like I would say they do have every right to think it is inappropriate because how would they know? After hearing this, or reading this, I would hope these people and psuchologists will understand that it isn't inappropriate, but rather a very deep emotional bond with something that isn't what they're used to.

sometimes i feel bad if i feel like i'm being mean to an inanimate object especially if i feel like i'm being nice to another inanimate object. i feel bad if i slam a door. i feel horrible if i break a glass.
i used to keep broken "water pipes" in my fishtank as decorations. people thought i was just cool about how i decorated my fishtank. truthfully, i just couldn't bear to throw them away. i mean, they put in a lot of work for me.

i find it strange that "normal" people don't get as attached to objects as often. i think a lot of "normal" people get attached to objects as well but for some reason it's not the same? i don't get that part.

I can totally relate to that kind of experience. I have placed feelings connected to objects because they represent something to me or just because they have become "mine"

I remember getting an Underdog drinking glass on a family outing as a kid and that became my glass. When friends or company would come over I would freak if I saw my parents reach for that glass and would get up and grab it and fill it whether I wanted something to drink or not.

Then one time I had a friend over and he wanted something to drink and I told him where the glasses were, not realizing, and he grabbed the Underdog glass and dropped it in the sink and it broke.

I felt like I had lost a personal totem.

This is totally me. My friends and relatives are represented by objects or other aspects of them than their face... I cannot call up my partner's face and we've been together 10 years. I couldn't reliably tell you her eye color, but I could pick her shoes out of a police line-up. LOL

Reading this is very helpful, I realized this about myself, but didn't know if other Aspies shared it. Even if I try to memorize a photo, what comes to mind is not the face, but the frame, or the fingernails or the clothes.



That can was not an irrelevant object, it had every bit as much history as my mother's childhood prayer book. To another person, that old beat up little book has little value, but to me it evokes many memories of my mother. Most people's family heirlooms work in the same way, many of them have little or no objective value. Old cups, old ties, little silly ceramic figurines... it's just a way for people to connect. Your mother just didn't know why you kept that can. So to her it had no value beyond just 'can'.

What do you have that reminds you of your mother? Show it to her and describe for her how it connects you to her, what memories it brings up for you (if they're good ones). I think she might not only understand, but maybe even tell you some memories of people she misses, the objects that remind her of them.

Perhaps the objects that tend to hold memories for you are not what is commonly chosen, but they are certainly not irrelevant.

That's a lovely story, KansasFound. I don't see anything inappropriate with it. You would be surprised how many people like to keep such things: used movie tickets, a restaurant menu from their first date - thrash for somebody else, but significant to them.

I have a ruthless memory and never felt the need for such mementoes, but little things like that often act as a trigger for a happy memory.

Last edited by Sallamandrina on 10 Mar 2010, 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A few weeks ago, I was involved in an impromptu family gathering at which my mother was passing around several sets of photographs she'd recently had made from old slides my dad took back in the 60s. As people passed these pictures from one to the other, commenting on them, I realized after several minutes that everyone else in the room, when handed a photograph to view, commented on the people in the picture. But the first things I homed in on and mentioned aloud were without exception objects in the picture - My old Hot Wheels track, an aluminum Christmas tree, a coffee table that disappeared three decades ago - because somehow these things helped connect me to the people in the picture. Even though some of the people in the photos were sitting right there in the room, that wasn't the same - because they were distinctly different from the version of them in the pictures, not just physically, but as personalities, because they have changed, morphed, evolved over the intervening years. Somehow the objects helped me connect to them (and myself) as we had been back then.

But it was one of those little epiphany moments when I realized everyone else was oohing and aahing about so-and-so in this or that photo, and the first things my eyes went to were ALWAYS objects. I suppose that has something to do with the frequent Aspergian obsession with collecting things (he says as he sits in a roomful of Vampirella posters, Batman toys, antique radios and Betty Boop figures) .

But I would be curious to know if there's some established neurological evidence to explain this tendency.

I know it isn't inappropriate, but for certain people it will be viewed as such. In my writings I try and explain and give in depth details as to what it means.

Ahh, how I love to keep old train tickets to remind me of the adventures I've had going to those places. OK, they may not have been that eventful but still the tickets still hold those memories.
And oh look, it's a coaster my friend and I drew on when we saw Tim Rogers live. That was a great night. What do you mean it's just a soaked, stale bar coaster?
I actually have an old dog toy that my dog loved when I had her. Now that she is gone I have that toy to remember her.
I'm not sure if I have an attachment to something that a friend left me...oh yes, a letter. I'm not sure what she sent along with the letter. Pajamas I think. Quantas pajamas. Her dad was a pilot. Any way the letter was just something to accompany the gift. It just says sup, here are a bunch of quotes that I wrote while I was bored in class. But when I stare at that letter I am reminded that this type of small talk through letters is what normal friends do all the time, and because I've never experienced that before that letter is special to me.

I'm attatched to my Alvin and the Chipmunks toys.

what might be considered a culturally "inappropriate" attachment [i DON'T agree] is the japanese rite of the "hare kuyo" or needle shrine. these are temples which are the repository of broken/worn sewing machine needles. they are venerated and prayed-over by shinto priests, on the sentiment that these needles worked hard and thanklessly for their "masters" so the least gratitude that can be shown for them is to let them "rest" in perpetuity in warm vats of soft tofu. this made me cry when i first read it. i keep lots of broken stuff. i sometimes caress these objects as though i am comforting them. i guess that is anthropomorphizing, of which i am guilty as charged.
when i was a little kid, i grew attached to a little toilet plunger, a brand new one my parents bought and i got ahold of it and it became my "teddy bear" of sorts that would keep me company as i slept. my folks soon took it away from me and stuck it into a pile of goo.
i had my baby blanket that i kept, "linus"-style, until my parents took it away from me at age 9. i didn't get it back until recently. i missed my blanket.

Yeah. I do that with books. I'm very gentle with them and I constantly flip through them just to feel the pages, but that's mostly because of the feeling of the pages. Only with certain objects or books. In particular, dollar coins, leather journals, dice, rings, etc. I become easily attached to objects that are shiny and I will sometimes deem one to be like my lucky item or whatnot. I also do with items given to me by relatives or friends that have sentimental value. Like this one coin, a 1929 dollar coin that I found in my late grandmother's old house I used to keep with me as though it had like "magical abilities" or whatever. I never really believed that of course but I always thought I would like to.

The title of this thread reminded me of the time when I cried when my mum had to get a new refridgerator. I didn't want the other one to leave. It had been in the house for so long and it was like a part of my routine, more so a part of my life. I don't think it's innappropriate. What people get attached to shouldn't be classed as normal or abnormal depending on if it's living or not.

i have an extreme attachment to my cookie roller thjat is rubber named oly, my rubber spoon with hands and feet named pumpum, my rubber keyboard named keybo, my beads i loove, they all go everywhere i go, doesnt matter where, in restaurants, malls, drs, classrooms, u name it. i seem to get a better connection with objects and feel like their real to me, if u ever see me around or meet me u know what i mean when im attached to them im littrally jus obsessed with them, that ill sit there for 24 hours rokcing, spinning, flapping with oly, pumpum and beads and keybo stays in car more often now since he is bigger and not as easy to carry around, but they all jus are my everything. i stim off all of them 247, and if i leave the room for a second they come with me at all times. kinda sad in a way but oh well haha. i think its normal to have a stroaing attachment to objects wit ppl on the spectrum.

After reading the responses on here I think I may change the powerpoint slide and put "unusual attachment to objects" because I never stopped and thought about the word usage of inappropriate. The word inappropriate makes it sound as if it's a crime to become attached to any given object.