Emotional attachments to objects

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Does anyone on here get too emotionally attached to objects?

It's hard to explain but I find that there is emotion attached to things, things that are sometimes not even mine, and it bothers me a lot when objects are not treated in the what I feel they would want to be if they had feelings. It lingers on my mind a lot and bothers me.

an example is some toys or gifts that my daughter has, if she ignores something and it gets forgotten about as she is too busy with others things I find that really upsetting. Last week she broke a small necklace with a picture of a horse on it, it was a very low cost thing that someone gave her and I don't think it was a particularly important thing for either my daughter of the person that gave it, but the fact it was broken, and in mind not cared for, leaves me really bothered by it and i think about it a lot.

I don't personify things but I'm often very reluctant to throw anything away, and I hate it when stuff gets damaged. I keep all kinds of things for decades after their usefulness is over. When I contemplate trashing things, I start thinking that I might need them again one day. It's hard to talk myself out of that because occasionally an item comes in useful against all the odds, especially these days when a lot of the stuff I've hoarded isn't made any more. There's a big sentimental issue here too. I keep lots of things purely as relics, as if I were going to open a museum of my life. I did personify things as a child. I couldn't stand to see a picture of an animal torn up. All this irrational symbolism and ritualism is very different to the logical style of thinking and behaving that usually defines me, but there's no doubt that it's there.

I have a few personal belongings that I'm too attached to. Like an old radio that broke down last year and is beyond salvation, but I still refuse to get rid of it. I have a very strong relationship with my harmonica and would never let anyone touch it. Not only because there would be saliva involved, but mostly just because it would feel very wrong to let anyone else handle it. Even if it was a talented harmonica player, I just know they'd do it wrong.

I don't get too upset when things break, but it really bothers me if something goes to waste, like with your daughters necklace. I got extremely frustrated when I gifted my boyfriend a vibrating pillow for his neck-pain, and he didn't use it at all. Just broke it to get the vibrating-thingy out, I assumed he wanted to use it for something, but he didn't. He just wanted to examine it, and then threw it away.

I do it with food too. I get upset if my dog doesn't want her chewing stick and lets it go to waste. And I will eat everything on the table, even if it hurts my stomach, just so that I won't have to throw it.

I do.

I know i get angsty if i see people pressing on when using felt tips, or leaving lids off them. My bf has this thing at christmas where he will leave the gifts he got in the spare room on the floor. And they will stay there for the biggest part of the year before he even thinks about using them for what they're intended and it drives me insane!! ! I hate to see when people break things and i'm always anxious when i'm having to watch other people do something fiddly with an object... i'm like 'omg, you're guna break it!! >_<'

I'm also absolutely terrible at throwing things away. I think i still have my broken old PS3 console under my bed. I have two broken computers, a broken printer plus many many other things. I hate that my house is so cluttered, but i really don't wana just throw things away!!

I had this mildly as a child. I solved it as an early teen by smashing up anything that was too precious too me.

My daughter has it much stronger, she attributes feelings to loads of inanimate objects, her bedroom, her stuffed toys, things in a shop, food. It is really hard on her as she constantly worries things might break or be hurt ( emotionally) even to the extent where she might worry some clothes are sad cause she is not wearing them a particular day.

Yeah I definitely get attached to my things. Some more than other, and some way way way way way more

I form emotional attachments to (and obsess over) many objects. Most notably, items common to a bar/pub/tavern.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, my grandparents operated a couple different taverns, and I recall seeing both of them during my visits to the last one they owned. As a little boy from ages 3 to 6, my grandfather was the bartender, my grandmother was the cook, and this place they operated was the most fun and fascinating place in the world to me. It closed in 1975 when I was 6 years old, but the objects from that place -- beverage glasses, ashtrays, the lighted beer signs, liquor bottles, beer bottles, bottlecaps, the wooden bar, the barstools with vinyl coverings, the Seeburg jukebox, the huge "Shuffle Bowl" bowling machine, the coin-operated pool table -- are all objects that I've obsessed over to varying degrees, starting at that time and continuing to varying degrees to the present day. I've never got around to owning a jukebox, bowling machine, or pool table, but I have saved, collected, and formed attachments to hundreds of the other sorts of items I listed. The ones I have the closest attachments to are the actual objects I remember seeing in their tavern or their home. I'd cry like a baby if any of them broke or went missing. About 20 years ago, one of those ashtrays got dropped and broke into a hundred pieces, but I collected all the broken pieces and carefully re-glued them as best I could. I needed to maintain its memory!

To this day, no other place I've ever been is as special to me as that old tavern. Some might find obsessions over ordinary bar accessories to be weird, but I view my attachment to those objects as a healthy way for me to stay connected with my happiest memories of being a kid. I have a room in my house that's a kind of shrine to that tavern, with many beer glasses, shot glasses, ashtrays, and lighted beer signs, surrounding a small wooden bar in the middle of the room. My very most favorite object is a plain 8 ounce bulge-top beer glass from their tavern, and it sits in a special place where I can easily glance at it when I stand or sit behind the bar.

So, while I have formed the occasional emotional attachments to various other objects I've owned or seen in my life, none are as strong as the specific objects from that tavern, and I love spending time in my own little tavern "shrine." That re-glued ashtray is proudly displayed there, too

As a kid I would be a bit similar to you, in that I hated throwing things away. Although that was as much about change as anything, I think.

But the big thing I do is get very attached to one or a few objects at a time, have done pretty much as soon as I was able to hold things. Carry it round with me, and panic if I can't find it. Feels like my soul breaks if I think it's gone.

Twice it was actually gone. One time I dropped it down an escalator and had a crying fit in the shopping centre, and another time a friend broke it so I saw red and strangled him. Whoops.

I knew someone like that and she said that she always thought of the "Island of Misfit Toys". Actually she said that watching that was when she first noticed it because she would cry and get so upset over the toys.

She wasn't autistic though, although she did wind up as a hoarder later in life and she's working on that now.

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Not me. My phone and laptop are the only objects I hold dear, until they break down or get broken, then it's replacement time

I'm very emotionally attached to my books. They are my friends.

Sometimes. Mostly books. I feel very sorry for dirty, roughly handled books.

I am very attached to my stuffed animals/plushies. My latest addition to my collection is a stuffed owl (very soft) that I call Eve and I have been bringing her everywhere with me. I can't go anywhere without her now and would be devastated if anything were to happen to her.