Attributing feelings to inanimate objects

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I find myself attributing emotions to the posters in my room. One time I took down a poster of Alice Kingsleigh from Alice in Wonderland in order to make room for a different poster. I was overwhelmed with guilt thinking about poor little Alice being stashed away in a dark closet while someone else took her place. Two or three days later she was back up on the wall, and I even apologized to her. When my mom asked why I put the poster back up, I told her the truth: "I felt bad for Alice".

Another time, I was thinking about taking down my posters of Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in order to make room for more Alice in Wonderland posters, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. They were headed for a worse place than the closet - the garage. I felt like I would have "betrayed" them if I had put them in there. So I didn't.

I have a set of old drum sticks and an orange "Mick ball" that I like to sleep with. Orange is Mick's favourite colour and that's how that orange stress ball got its name. I find myself hugging that little ball from time to time.

Oh yes, I definitely do this and always have. For example, I can't walk past the toys section in a supermarket because I feel so sorry for the plushies, I want them to have a home and be loved, not alone on the shelves, then I feel guilty for not buying them I also almost never take the first item on the shelf when buying something, I always take one from the back so it gets bought sooner than it expected Whenever someone does something to an inanimate object - like kick a chair, I always feel bad for it and give it a little pat in an "it's ok, I love you" kind of way. I never name things though, THAT seems silly to me

I do not typically treat objects as inanimate, it's comforting to see I'm not alone. If I drop something (happens quite often unless I am very careful) I tend to pet it to soothe the impact, as if it were a cat, apologize, do the breathe in between teeth grimace face, etc.

I am fascinated by the spirit of antique and vintage items. To me, newer items have a wretched pseudocapatilist spirit. Antiques and vintage items seem to have more appreciation of their own existence, testamented by their longevity. I buy clothes at the bargain stores because I'm iffy to the idea of used clothes (I prefer to be the only one farting on them) and clothes that end up at discount stores are discarded by the masses, as I often feel. I draw a bond in that light. I like shopping where my mother says "poor people shop" like Winco for food and Ross for clothes, thrift stores for everything else.

i feel attached to my 27 ct fire agate, the square cut and my joe dimaggio autograph

my mom used to make my gummi bears talk, and then i couldn't eat them. my husband has continued with this tradition.

i have trouble seeing a puppet or stuffed animal as unliving. i see it as completely alive and autonomous, even if i am talking to the person manipulating it!

if i use a certain pen for too long, for example, i will think that the other pens are sad because they have been neglected. so i switch pens to keep tham all happy.

I still feel badly every time I open the closet and see my poor stuffed animals locked away in there. I always have to apologize to them for leaving them in the closet. I might have to go apologize to them right now, just from thinking about it.

i saw a very forlorn-looking musical backscratcher [a happy yellow piston-whistle tone cylinder with a hand attached at the end], grimy and neglected, buried in a pile of other forlorn-looking odd objects in a miscellaneous bin at the seattle goodwill several years ago, and i felt emotionally drawn to this object, and i pulled it out by the hand, as though i was rescuing a fair maiden from her scullery. i took "her" home and cleaned "her" up, and i make her "meow" now and then, and i kiss her red-painted-nails hand now and then, and i hold her hand and talk to her, and she listens to me. i treasure her and keep her comfortable on a pillow, in constant sight. i used to have a housecat which hated this meowing backscratcher. the cat went to another owner, and i kept the backscratcher. i'm allergic to cat dander, btw.

when i flush my toilet, i always thank it for its "intestinal fortitude" in flushing the voluminous products of my intestines. and when it floods, i blanch a bit, then get over it and say to it, "now now honey, i'm sorry i clogged you with too much of my junk. here, let me unclog you."
i talk to my car, though i didn't give it a name. i do not name objects of other sentient beings. my cats have always been addressed as "cat." i baby my car, such as when i climb hills i turn off the a/c to make it easier on the engine. i kiss my car now and then, and give it love pats often. i try to hug it. my old house [my parents's house], when i had to leave it upon their passing, i missed it terribly. i talked to the walls and kissed them goodbye on my last day there. i told the house i'd miss it. i carressed the walls and tried to hug them. i still miss it. the new owner carved it up and that perturbed me.

i am not the only weirdo who thinks this way. there is an entire culture which venerates inanimate objects, that of japan. there is a "hare kuyo" or needle shrine [shinto buddhism] where "retired" sewing machine needles rest in vats of soft tofu and are prayed over by shinto priests, in gratitude for their years of hard and selfless service for their masters, and whose remaining years are spent in assured comfort. that made me cry when i first read about it.

Yes, I am very attached to my things. I feel more emotions for inanimate objects than for human beings.

I was very emotionally attached to the hairbrush I had from the time I was ten to about 14 or so, among other things.

i was emotionally attached to a toilet plunger when i was a young boy. i took it to bed with me as though it were a teddy bear, and it "slept" on the pillow next to my head. this didn't last long, because when my parents found out about it, they took it away from me and stuck it into a pile of goo in the loo.

Great thread! I think my parents can testify to the frustration caused by them trying to make me 'de-clutter' and my response would be "you can't throw that away, it's become a part of me!"

I can't look any of my books in the eye if I sell them on Amazon, it'd break my heart...

Yes.

When in first stages of manic-depressive breakdown I experienced an ordinary three-bar electrical heater as a malevolent thing full of hate/hostility, and a lush green lawn in a park as a living-creature like a tiger, and at other more mentally healthy periods a south-american pottery figure I bought for a friend was sad and lonely, and my ornaments "need" space or very gently packing-away so that don't feel like rubbish, and some christmas decorations ( little wooden figures ), seemed practically alive, little visitors/guests living around our sitting-room such that didn't put them away for two and a half years I was so fond of their presence there. And a little stone with special markings on was the spirit of a tree, and so on.

etc.

I get like this especially with cars. I even talk to my car when I'm driving and imagine what it might reply back to me. I always thought it was just me.