Compulsive collecting

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I have a compulsion to collect and list girls' names ending in a, boys' names ending in "ek", and 5-letter names of boys ands 5-letter names of girls. It's getting in the way of my life. I collect any name that falls under those categories that's called a first name or nickname either in real life or in a published work of any sort, and/or that is someone's name or nickname in real life or in some published work.


At first I thought, "In my fictional sotry that I write there needs to be something hard to do, something that makes the story interesting to read or more interesting to read, like having all the characters have 5-letter names." And I liked names ending in a and thought it would be nice to have a collection of them.


I took note of all names ending in "a" or "ek", and thought it would be a waste not to write them down so that my taking note of them and knowing so many will have served some putrpose... to show off to people how many I know!


I started compulsively collecting when I had nothing else to do, no other, better stimulation. But now my compulsive collections may be preventing me from going and finding better stimulation. I also compulsively collect questions to ask people about themselves. This started almost 2 years ago, when I was looking for things to do, ways to get stimulation. And the only way I could get it then was to post on WP so I thought up lots of threads to start on WP asking people things about themselves.


I also write down every story I've ever written, because I lost most of those stories before I could get them published or publish them online, and I want people to at least know that I wrote a lot and that it was lost, instead of thinking I hardly wrote anything. That way my having written all those stories, aside from being practise, won't have been a waste.

I was name obsessed for about 40 years. I've known other name addicts, but this is the first time I've met another Aspie who's into names.

I didn't really regard it as a collecting habit though. I just liked talking about names, making up names, telling people the etymology of names, writing lists of imaginary names, suggesting names for people's babies, etc.

Oh, and I also collect Germanic names and Englsih virtue names that I knew before a certain time... and I'm incorporating every name in both of those collections into a novel I'm writing.

Do you know how the ancient Germanic names were constructed, taking a piece from the father's side and a piece from the mother's side?

I love looking at name meanings lol

but mine is collectng fiction books that I don't even read, I hate fiction lol

Compulsive collecting runs in my family big time...but I don't feel like elaborating at the moment

I hoard plenty of stupid things, like old newspapers, and the sponges that come in bottles of vitamin pills.

I save every last one of my receipts. I also save all my notebooks. I think I also classify old assignments as receipts to some extent.

I was hugely into names as a kid.

I still love learning unusual girls' names, and keeping lists of them.

I've always loved names. My folks had a huge 2-volume American Heritage Dictionary with several pages of names and their meanings and etymologies in the back. I spent many happy hours with it. I'll still buy baby name books or peruse the name sites on-line when the mood strikes me.

Regards,

Patricia

I'm a collecter. but the change over the years. one year its songs, then one year its languages, and so on. I 'm now trying to finish learning spanish and trying to collect those words

No; I didn't know that... I heard of parents giving their kids names that were combinations of both their names though. And some parents used to give their boys their mother's last name for a first name (and their father's last name for a last name).

I collect SpongeBob stuff. I do it for fun but I'd say it's compulsive since my collection is huge and I like to buy SpongeBob toys even though I know I won't use them, which is rather pointless.

I collect flags.I have an old Canadian Red Ensign, a Canadian Maple Leaf flag, an Alberta flag, a Manitoba flag, and when i buy my own house in a year or so when I finish college, I plan to get more flags...Might get an English flag, a Scottish flag, a Welsh flag, a Dutch flag, a US flag, and a few others.

I also have a years collection of Western Standard magazines..including the issue with the Danish cartoons.

I've got pretty good control over this sort of thing.

I go over the feeling to keep something in particular or to make a list of something, but it's flawed reasoning overall to do such. I feel compelled, but logically I know better. It creates a lot of stress, until I finally drop the whole thing and trash everything related to it.

On a game for example. I'm compelled to keep specific items, but I don't want to deal with running out of room. I keep a lot of useless junk on games, since it's easier, so I run out of room quickly, and end up being stressed over having no more room to keep more useless junk.

On a game called "Diablo II", back in the years of 2000-2001 (when I played it most), I had made 12 accounts or so (they're free), each account could have up to about 8 characters, and each character could hold quite a few items (lets just say 20 on average, depending on the size of each item), and each character was full. I also about 2 characters loaded up with "rare jewelry". I kept any piece of "rare jewelry" whether it was good or not, just to keep it.

Collecting items isn't uncommon on games, especially not uncommon on Diablo II, however I kept a lot of what most people would call junk. I felt they had usefulness, a compulsion lead me to keep them even though I knew their being used would be very unlikely.

I really dislike the feeling of needing to "collect" specific things, and because of my inner struggles and the stress related to trying to NOT keep so many things, it makes it easier to trash the stuff and move on. However, I have to go through that process with each item I come across. It sucks.

I once collected stamps (from Walt Disney, and airplanes), airplane models. Now I collect books (technical and fiction), and CDs.