attachment to places more than/instead of people

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diablo77
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26 Jul 2013, 11:59 pm

I've read about this as an autism thing and I definitely experience it. The first time I moved as a child, I was borderline traumatized and spent a ton of time fantasizing about the old place and being upset about not being there. Into young adulthood I would still go back there to visit the place. Several years ago, I moved cross country from Atlanta to Oakland, then a few years later in the wake of major life changes and overwhelming homesickness, moved back. Now a few years past THAT, I often find myself missing Oakland, but not so much the people I knew there or the activities I was involved in as specific buildings and streets. I get this way about places all the time, have all my life. Can anyone here relate?



IdahoRose
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27 Jul 2013, 12:19 am

I hate the fact that I had to move out of my childhood home. I had so many happy memories there.... I often find myself waxing nostalgic over it, and I even have dreams where I still live there.

It's still there, even after all these years. I always tell my parents that it would be my first choice as the house I want us to buy and spend the rest of my life in (they are trying to save enough money to buy a house so that I will always have a roof over my head after they die someday). The first thing I would do as soon as I moved back in would be to paint the trimming pastel pink, just like it was when I used to live there as a child (the people who moved in after we left painted the trimming white. It looks so wrong to me!)



cberg
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27 Jul 2013, 3:26 am

I have an overtly visual memory, so general settings often evoke whatever my past experiences may have been there, almost no matter how often I visit a given place. I had a rather bad time in one particular childhood home, but that doesn't change how nice its' garden is or the fact that it's just an appealing house. On the other hand, I find that enjoying myself in or around places I have negative associations with probably does more for me than the average person. I think I'll always have some visual traces of every memory or conception I acquire, and that it's up to me to make the patterns line up.


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BirdInFlight
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27 Jul 2013, 9:27 am

I strongly relate to that. I felt traumatized when we moved from the only family home I'd known, even though I was already 21 by then. I've always attached to places and also objects/things/belongings very strongly.



Skilpadde
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27 Jul 2013, 11:03 am

I haven't been that attached to any place we've lived really. We moved when I was about a year old, and then again just before my sixth birthday, and one final time when I was 7 and a half. The last time we didn't move long.
Neither move was any problem for me at all. I remembered the different homes fondly (except the first one, which I can't remember) but leaving them wasn't hard for me at all.
If I/we were to move now, from the place where we've lived for more than 28 years, it would take a little time getting used to the new place (as with the former new places, which took a little time to feel like home), but it wouldn't be problematic for me. In fact at this point I'd welcome it, as there are currently at least 11 children in the stairwell and we have a daycare just outside. And very noisy neighbors in the block some meters from mine.

We've lived here for a long time and it would be strange not to see the places I connect with my highly missed pets. Other than that, I'm not that tied to this particular place.
I'd like to stay in the general area though, as it's the capital (and hence the largest city). I don't wanna live any place small, I want the anonymity of the city. I'd like to live somewhere practical (convenient distance to different types of stores and doctors.
When I was younger I dreaded moving because it would mean changing school. Now I don't care, as I'm unemployed.
I don't wanna move to another part of the country though. They have mostly longer and colder winters or very wet weather, and mostly consist of small places.


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Jasper1
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27 Jul 2013, 1:11 pm

I've wondered about this myself. Especially with the advent of smartphones and always having a camera on you. I find most, 98%, of my pictures have to do with places and things. I often try my best to make sure people are not in the shot because I don't like to have random people in my pictures.

When I look at pictures that other people take it's mostly focused on people like friends and family when they are enjoying some kind of activity or family events or just goofing off.

One of the biggest reasons I moved across country was cause I hated the city I lived in most of my life. Almost every where I turned it reminded me of bad memories or how I felt certain times. I rarely have any positive memories there. I felt like I was continuously reliving everything constantly and was always drained cause my emotional buttons were always being pushed every time I had to go anywhere. It wasn't just places too. It was also just the site of certain people that I would see regularly and that I associated with certain places and events as well.

I'm more relaxed and content for the most part in a new place. It comes with it's own stresses and anxieties though being so far away from home and the supports I've grown accustomed to. I'm finding I've built a new set of places that bother me here, which is mostly the homes and areas of my girlfriends family. I have experienced and continue to experience a lot of negativity over there.

I've also found areas around here that make me happy cause mostly positive things happened there. It's the next city over, and going there makes me feel like I'm on vacation sometimes. Even when I'm just running errands.



gdgt
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27 Jul 2013, 7:14 pm

I've made about four really major across-borders moves, and countless smaller ones, and I usually get nostalgic for places I didn't even find particularly fantastic while living there.

I am very good at remembering the exact appearance and feel of different places where I've lived, and also places or streets that I frequented while there... I almost never remember any of the interactions with people that I had while in those places. I miss places for silly things, like how the light looked in the morning, et cetera. I think about them a lot, sometimes even write poems about them; so yes, I am very prone to nostalgia in this regard.


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