Emotional Attachments for Objects

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oh my poor moneydog..i had him for years and recently lost him....a toy dog with a zipper compartment for a body...
I kept my money in him (duh)...but he was also a sort of companion....
I made missing posters for him and whatnot...I still think about him all the time....

Also I developed a relatively recent attachment to a particular hat...which i lost some time ago...but I still think about that hat several times a day. I think i lost it somewhere in my house and might still find it...there is always a small corner of my mind fixated on my missing hat...It is not the first hat I have gotten attached to...

My biggest emotional attachment to an object from ages 2-11 was my stuffed Mickey Mouse doll, which is kept in a drawer along with my favorite baby blanket. Both are in rough shape and have had to be repaired numerous times, so it is actually probably a good thing that my mom "retired" them both at appropriate times. Ever so often, however, when I in really bad emotional shape I just curl up with Mickey and Da (my blanket) and cry my eyes out.

My biggest emotional attachment to an object right now is, oddly enough, my poster/canopy bed. I think this is because I bought it to make me feel safe from the world when I pull the curtains around it.

I have various emotional attachments to characters from video games, mostly Role-Playing games (including the one in my avatar...)

As for real objects, I've had an attachment to these poker chips I carry everywhere, I also have an emotional attachment to some pieces of clothing. (Certain shirts I have as well as a leotard I refuse to part with. And, like IdahoRose, a pair of Short Overalls I love. )

I never realized this (the emotional attachment to objects) until I had to move back in with my parents. I had accumulated a LOT of stuff (in addition to things I already had)- mostly a lot of things like vases, decanters, knick-knacks, two dining sets, etc. Anyways, I kept being told that "It's just stuff! you can just collect more stuff!" because no one wanted to deal with moving all of it. To be honest statements like that made me pretty ticked off.

It is NOT just "stuff", and implying that I can just get "more of it" is absurd and insensitive. A lot of the things I collected I found rummaging at thrift stores, meaning It's one of a kind. I don't care if there are similar things at other thrift stores. It isn't the same. Some of the things I collected were actually gifts I received from people I care about. They don't have any real monetary value, but they do have a lot of emotional value to me.

Furthermore, I find that I CAN'T throw anything away.

Recently we were preparing to evacuate because of the San Diego fires (Ramona, which was hit pretty hard, is the next town over from me) and I was literally panicking. Not about the fire- I could care less. But about my STUFF being burned. My mother kept saying all she cares about is getting the cats out, and the rest of the "stuff" isn't important. I told her, fine, we'll get the cats out first, but I'm not leaving without my knick-knacks, books, DVDs, computer, PS2, etc. That stuff took forever to collect. I have about 200 DVDs- I can't replace that stuff. People who say crap like "It's nothing you can't replace" are deluding themselves, and obviously can afford to replace things they lose.

Thank goodness the fire didn't come over here.

i have this teddy bear i've had since i was 4... his name's Berry Bear Fair. but i have attachments to other things, too... a lot of things.. lol. and fictional characters, too...

anyways, i remember my mom suggesting we wash Berry Bear Fair a few times, and i freaked out and yelled at her that he wouldn't be the same if she did that!! so... he has never been washed. lol. but once, somehow, his head got almost cut off and i freaked out!! but my mom sewed it back on for me. and there have been lots of times when i've had to patch him up where his cloth has worn too thin..

i've always played with him.. so i developed a character for him... actually.. several alternate characters.... he's been a super hero, a street fighter, a escapee from a research facility (like in that show, "the pretender"), and a few other things as well. he also has 2 younger brothers, though one was adopted.. sort of. and his mom was a hooker that was murdered when he was little and he saw the whole thing and after that, he raised his little brothers... his dad is unknown, and when he's a super hero, his dad was from another planet... and sometimes, that's why his mom was murdered by the research people who then took him and his brothers because they were half-alien.. he also has a girlfriend (sometimes) who's a rabbit.. sometimes, i would dress him up as a geek.. but with all this stuff in his past and the geekiness is his way of staying low so he won't be captured... and stuff...

My 'real life' really started when I was given an Macintosh Performa 631 purchased from Sears as the finest Christmas gift ever. The sound of a Mac starting up gives me a warm fuzzy feeling nothing and I mean nothing can compare to.

one of my triggers is jewelry. I told this to over a dozen "therapists" over the years and they just shrugged. The smell or feel of jewelry especially old musty smelling jewelry will make me dizzy and nauseous to put it mildly. The strange this is I love glass beads. They must be clean and new but they are different to me. Glass is organic, awesome colors and has a great tacitle feel. I would never wear them but I love to collect them. i probably have 50 pounds of the them sorted and classified.

Yes. I could probably kill someone if I caught them destroying my special stuffed animal or my meerkat collection.

I actually still have my favorite stuffed animal. I was never into teddy bears. When I was a baby (maybe newborn?) my dad brought a stuffed alligator back for me when he returned from Active Duty. That was really the only stuffed animal I cared about. Years ago I went on a trip to NJ and brought Leerleer with me. He was in my bag the whole time lol.

When I was a kid I would get into a panic if I couldn't find him, if my mother tried to wash him, or if I even SPECULATED that I couldn't take him everywhere with me. He's still on my bed.

http://hem.passagen.se/axl/pandiii.jpg

may they never go away <3 (they are not stuffed, they are living baby pandas, if you state something else, they will get hurt )

I do not like clutter and I do not like knickknacks. I am not a packrat. I like a relatively spartan house and everything has a place and everything goes in its place.

However, I do still sleep with a baby blanket. My baby blanket. That I've had since the day I was born. It goes on every overnight trip with me. It is my blanket. It used to have a border which has long since worn off. My mom says I rubbed the border back and forth across my face (I still rub soft stuff back and forth across my face). My baby blanket was around my shoulders as I gave birth to each one of my babies. It has long since ceased to cover me. I now either sleep with it over my shoulders or balled up right against my tummy.

I have also usually always had something else I slept with. As a child this was a baby shirt I wore as a baby which I called "friend." As an older teen and into my 20's I changed friend to a stuffed dog my boyfriend (then first husband) gave me. I carried him around school every single day. Yep, to school with me. I still have him on top of my dresser because even though my marriage didn't work I have fond memories of the good times with my first husband. And that puppy (named Valet de Chambre "Chambers" from Twain's Puddin' Head Wilson) and I went through a lot together and he held a lot of my tears. After Chambers was put on the dresser it was only me and my baby blanket for awhile. Then my significant other gave me one of his long sleeved white dress shirts and I slept with that, then he gave me a stuffed bunny (JC Bunny) that he got years ago and was special to him.

And so now I sleep with my baby blanket, JC Bunny, and a long sleeved white dress shirt :p

You could probably also say I'm unusually and spastically attached to my two computers and my planner, too.

Emotional attachment to objects? Now this is just ridiculous!

my relationship to my fuzzy keyrings and rearview mirror buddies are strictly platonic. I tell people that they are so i can findmy keys easier, but really its because i seem to be enchanted with things with cute little faces. I have my collection of stuffed peeps from easters past. I dont really eat them, but i love the way they look.... such an artful little marshmallow confection. I have a seasonal mirror hanger that is a gingerbread man with a chef's hat. I was tempted to carry him around with me today, because he is so soft and lightweight and fuzzy. Its strange how an inanimate object can warrant affection so easily.