Published on 12, July, 2020
I was wondering today if this is an autistic thing.
I've spent several decades collecting objects and the last decade+ trying to rid myself of the majority.
However, I have given up on the idea of ever being minimalist.
I notice that I remember where everything came from, even, when purchased, which shop in which town.
I try not to be sentimental about things, but sometimes I can't help it.
My mother, who I believe was autistic, was a hoarder in quite an extreme sense.
My autistic friend finds it very hard to part with belongings.
Everything has an association.
Are others like this and are there contributors here who are genuinely minimalistic and don't have an attachment to things?
Twitch said: Do you make lists? I do it all the time. I suspect that might be another ASD trait
Yep. I have a list that is divided into sections for each day of the week, so similar to an itinerary, and lists all the tasks needed to be done each day for me and my husband (he ignores his).
I update it regularly.
I have other 'to do' lists for longer term tasks and food and other requirements lists.
My saying is 'if it's not on the list it doesn't exist'.
Twitch said:I do have a slightly obsessive passion for collecting...wait for it...moon gazing hare ornaments.
I have one of those in the garden.
In case you are interested in showing us a photo, here's a thread I made about collections:
https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/30518/show-your-collection/302526#302526
Hi Debbie,
I'm definitely not a hoarder because I can't stand clutter, but I do have a slightly obsessive passion for collecting...wait for it...moon gazing hare ornaments. Yeah, I know, random. I saw one in a shop window years ago and had to have it. I named him Hartley after the hare in the 70s/80s TV program 'Pipkins'. Now Hartley has 27 brothers and sisters, all of them with names. I hadn't made the connection between ASD and collections until I did the test, but it sort of makes sense now. Do you make lists? I do it all the time. I suspect that might be another ASD trait.
I have a lot of things with sentimental value. I have clothes and accessories with memories of who gave them to me.
I have a box of photos going back to my grandparents parents generation. Although I never knew my great grandparents I have heard many stories of that generation. I enjoy looking at old photos from my past too.
My parents were children during the war so things tended to be mended. I am grateful I was taught to sew and repair as I often use these skills. I recycle some clothes reusing them for repairs or cloths. I also recycle things I have finished with if I can find another use including furniture sometimes.
I am currently saving cardboard tubes as I have found planting sweet peas in them makes them easy to transplant.
There are so many things that can be reused but due to space sometimes I have the difficult decision to make as to what to keep.
....oh I do know...or in my case, ensuring I have an identical duplicate item (or 3) to replace the "thing" I already have. In terms of tech....I like to become an expert in one "model" rather than be an enthusiastic (and poorer) novice on newer models. It works for me.
Thank you.
Makes sense ...
sight* sorry
I hadn't realised that (I think you are saying) autistic people are more likely to be hoarders than others.
The root cause of the hoarding (well more like collecting without sensible limits) for autists seems routed in the attachment centre of our minds. We struggle to create social attachments but can make attachments to inanimate objects, especially if they have significance to us.
If you found a record made you feel happy during a sad time in life then you would probably develop an attachment to the physical record, maybe the record player and maybe other records of that era.
If you found a stuffed toy made you feel good when you had no friends as a child then you get a bit of that same buzz when you get another.
Etc
We, as autitst, seem to be wired a bit differently for the attachment mechanisms so this is what leads so many of us to struggle with limits on this - it is like taking away out attachments and connection with happiness.
Well, that is my understanding of it.
I do the same with the bottles on holiday :) same thing with people, out of site out of mind. I get really upset about people moving / taking my stuff though. The place where I do my work and have everything else is under lock and key with only myself accessing it.
then accidentally corrupted or lost when a hard drive crashes or the "google / apple cloud" account ran out of space and the phone dies :)
same.
what's annoying is a lot of this change appears to be forced on us to some degree by making life more difficult without, say a smartphone, etc. "oh you need to use our app for this or that". Oh ok. "oh and our app needs a compatible phone". Oh ok. "which means getting a new device every few years as we don't support these old ones". We're only just getting started with this. What do they do with all these "old" phones when they go for recycling? Do they actually reuse any of the parts? It's not even like when you could unsolder and reuse chips, these are systems on a chip with ball grid array solder pads making replacement of or removal of parts virtually impossible.
Both my parents were WW2 children so it was installed into me to never waste anything. If a kettle element broke my parents would buy a new element not a kettle. I do tend to collect things. My workshop looks a total mess but I know where ever item is and where it was purchased from. I do get emotionally attached to things but once they have been got rid of then I don’t think off them again, I’m he same with people, if I don’t see them, I rarely think of them or miss them. I do get angry when things are moved or taken without asking. I can be strange when abroad, if I’ve used 3/4 of say a bottle of bubble bath, my wife will want to bin it on the last day, I have to bring it home, it upsets me to leave it behind. It’s not the value, it’s just strange to explain.
Snowman said:They never see the software on the user side so no way of running it on yor own server etc. It's a weird, throw away time indeed
Then there is photography.
How many photos are never printed, never put into albums, never passed down in families ...never looked at again ...
valued and repairable. i was a child in the 80s and 90s but I can remember patches on clothes.
i was never into clothes as fashion, and we used to wear things until they were properly worn through.
A lot of the rubbish is packaging now too. We used to go to the local butchers and meat would be in paper or thin plastic wrap, green grocers used to sell fruit by weight again in brown paper bags but we used to have meals that were cooked from scratch. the idea of bunging something in a plastic tray in a microwave for 5 minutes was completely unheard of.
Even for things like televisions, radios etc there used to be a repair man who'd come round to the house and fix things or a shop in town you could take them to. We had a colour TV from the 1970s I was still using right into the late 2000s, the recycle centre (tip) is full of gadgets that don't "work" any more because they've been obsoleted or the internal battery has stopped holding charge etc.
What's happening to all these smartphones that were cutting edge back in 2015 and can't even run apps from the app store any more?
The modern computer consoles too, they're not even going to be of value for "retro" owners as so many of the games now rely on servers on the Internet to function. I still play the games I had in the 80s, no problems. My kids won't be able to play Fortnite in another 30 years, looking back on it like I might with games from my computer as they're downloads and most of the logic / matchmaking / maps etc live on cloud servers which will be switched off eventually. They never see the software on the user side so no way of running it on yor own server etc. It's a weird, throw away time indeed.
Agreed. It can't go on this way? I try not to "join in" with the "if-you-fancy-it-just-buy-it" attitude. I think I do better than most!
Number said:How the hell did we let it become like this Chuck-away-Charlie free-for-all.
There is a massive change between how life was as we were growing up - me in the 1960s/70s, my husband in the 1950s/60s.
It is quite extraordinary this business with clothes.
My mum made ours as we were poor and we wouldn't dream of just getting rid of them because they weren't fashionable.
Actually, they never were fashionable.
Goods were expensive and valued and nowadays they are cheap and not valued.
Number said:Thank you, Madame Cholet.
A cheesey 1970s song just came into my head ....
(I realise you won't take random links ..) ...so this is for others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8XCHgqR7Kk
It includes original vinyl crackles!
Thank you, Madame Cholet.
I absolutely agree. Growing up, our family kept the same stuff, only rarely buying "new" things.
When I remember the "bin collection" in the 1970's (quantity wise = 1 bin bag per week) compared to now (I suppose x2 or x3 bags)....it is horrific! How the hell did we let it become like this Chuck-away-Charlie free-for-all.
yeah, sorry the eBay bit ties into the nostalgia and recovery of things I wished I'd actually kept hold of. they're generally things I've had at some point and let go of. it's very heavily tied into nostalgia.
Number said:Womble
For the uninitiated
https://youtu.be/XWQMMPFtoG4