Persistent preoccupation with parts of objects?

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Do the following count as "persistent preoccupation with parts of objects". I'm not quite sure what this even means. The suggestions when I search say "(for example, sniffing or smelling objects, repetitive feeling of texture of materials, spinning wheels of toy cars)" but to me none of those have anything to do with each other... Some sound more like stims.

1. As a little kid you could give me a bucket of buttons and I'd sit content for hours. I'm not quite sure what I did with them. I believe I liked feeling them and sorting them into groups. I remember I pretended once that I was serving a plate of them... but other than that I'm not quite sure. I didn't count them or anything though. I was never bored with them and people still comment on how good I behaved (aka sat still and did not make a mess/throw them).

2. And later as I group up I would collect flower petals on the playground for no reason. I would throw them away at the end of recess. Some days it would be flower stems. Sometimes certain grass leaves. I also enjoyed opening plants up and "seeing inside". I was fascinated by the roots of grass. Other times flower stems. I distinctly remember this being one of the things that NOBODY and I mean Nobody else did. I did it less over the years and "attempted" to play with other kids more because there were lots of bees sometimes.

I outgrew this, for the most part. I still do it occasionally if I'm sitting in grass, but yeah. I collect things but usually the only multiples I have are from toys I've taken apart (piano keys, rubber key pads, etc).

Edit: I never played with toy cars... or similar things where the boundary between playing and just spinning a wheel is obvious. I actually didn't even play much with toys. I always wanted to open them up.

I'd also like to add I was absolutely hypnotized by the patterns inside marbles.

Last edited by nonames on 27 Nov 2012, 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it means you are interested in only a part of something. Like just being interested only in the spinning wheels or opening doors of toy cars instead of playing with it as a car.

I've always been interested in mechanical parts. I'd watch cabinet hinges open and close when I was a kid. I really wanted an RC airplane engine even though I didn't really want a plane to put it in. Even now, I carry around a broken steel drive shaft from one of my rc cars. I'm not really sure why, but I just like messing with it since it still has the moving U joint intact.

Every once in a while I'll just sit there with one of my rc cars and spin the wheels and compress the suspension. Again, I'm not exactly sure why I do it.

Buttons are awesome. They are made to be felt and sorted and put in different piles and then sorted again. Are you actually supposed to do something with buttons besides collect, feel, and look at them?

I had the same fascination with strips of cloth, which I would sort by color and texture.

Would you hold them up to one eye and slowly turn the marble?

Just thinking about it made me relax.

I used to sit and play with a big tin of buttons for ages too. Think I would inspect and sort into piles maybe. I was also given a toy rabbit but was only ever interested in the feeling of rubbing the to sides of the washing label against each other. Suppose that qualifies. In the end my parents realised I had no interest in the rabbit and that I was just as happy with any old item of clothing as long as it had a label to fiddle with.

They were those big decorative marbles that were practically works of art so I wasn't really allowed to touch them. But when I was yeah I'd turn it slowly and observe the pattern.

Can relate to above - but extra note:

as someone fascinated with robots and vehicles as a young child, Transformers for me in the 80s were unbelievable. Hours of turning them from cars, into robots, then back agian, and again. All day. My parents used to laugh and say that by the time you had transformed them you had no time to play with them. For me, that WAS playing with them. Fascinated by how it all folder up neatly into that car shape.

(i still own a large collection )

I have just realised reading this, that I have a collection of assorted buttons. There was me thinking that I was keeping them "just in case", but I now realise that I collect things without even realising I collect them. I remember reading somewhere that it's an Aspie thing to keep things just in case, and accumulate a lot of junk because of this habit. Another epiphany moment, thanks to WP.

I used to be fascinated with the flip digital clocks and I would sit there watching the numbers change, the electronic ones aren't as good.
The other day I was browsing in the shops and they had some flip clocks for sale next time I go into town I might buy one.

I still do this whenever I'm at the park or sitting in grass somewhere. I live with my best friend (who recently discovered that he may be an Aspie too!) and he is obsessed with plants - he has an entire three-tiered shelf with lights and fans that are just full of them.

Sometimes, I feel guilty because I just want to split the stems open and look at them.. but I don't.

And buttons? Don't even get me started; I've been collecting them off and on since I was a small child. A friend made me a button jar for my collection (complete with extra buttons from her house) as a gift last year, and was absolutely boggled by my excitement in receiving such a wonderful gift! I just like to hold it sometimes, and often have days of organizing them by whatever preferred method of sorting I may have for that day.

Man, I love buttons.

One Autumn I collected about a hundred conkers. I used to line them up in ranks and rearrange them all the time till my Mum insisted on me getting rid of some. I must have been ten at the time. I still have a few of them, and I'm in my forties!