#attachment to objects

[geronimomo-spd]

autism attachment to object/not liking changes is so weird. a skittle fell on the floor yesturday on the floor and i was too lazy to throw it away. and now this morning my brain is like "no. you must keep it there, its part of the furniture, this is my emotinal support skittle on floor. see how you have no other shit on the floor? it belongs there!

like bitch if you won't shut the fuck up and move on ITS A FLOOR SKITTLE. anyway chewing down on it fell like a win against the brain

[wanderingmind867]

Tomorrow me and my dad are going furniture shopping to try and find a new recliner. Our current recliner is probably like 15 years old, and it is getting really worn out. It works fine, but it is creaky. So I kept reminding my dad that we needed to replace the recliner, because I knew it had to be done. But now that it's time to do it, I feel overwhelmed and stressed. It's too much change lately, because college is coming up (and it's so different from high school that it really stresses me out), and now I also feel like I have to deal with replacing the furniture in our home alongside my dad.

I'm really nervous to deal with all of this tomorrow, so I just had to make a vent on here talking about all of this. I don't know if anything in the store tomorrow will be able to match my high standards when I compare everything to the old recliner i'm currently sitting in, but I have to try and be open minded. It's gonna be stressful and hard to deal with (especially with everything else going on right now), but still. Wish me luck, since I might need it. If i'm really stressed out tomorrow, I may just reblog this post and tag everyone to it.

[askanautistic]

is it common for autistic people to be attached to objects? even things people would consider "silly", i was going through a bad time at school ( im not there now ) and when i would get given a tissue for example I'd hold onto it all day. thats just one example. i also carry a keyring plush everywhere with me

Yes, it is. Some autistic people even consider objects their friends or can have a tendency to hoard things because of difficulty parting with their possessions. There are many reasons why someone might be attached to an object, even a seemingly unimportant one:

- Sensory items that are calming or make the person happy (having a tissue in your hand might fulfill that need)

- Nostalgic items that are familiar and reassuring.

- It’s part of a set/collection and that sense of completeness (or wanting to continue collecting to complete the set) is satisfying and somehow a relief, or is simply part of a fun hobby (or a more important special interest).

- The worry that it might be useful or you might just want it later, and wanting it later but not having it would be stressful (what if you can’t easily get another tissue later when you want one?)

- Not wanting to be wasteful (perhaps you felt it had more use in it and to discard it would be a waste).

- Visual and tactile representations of things (perhaps you felt that the tissue was a representation of someone caring about you, and that was reassuring).

- The object is a friend/helper (the tissue was useful and it would be unkind/ungrateful of you to just throw it away).

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but gives an idea of some of the reasons why objects can be so important, even if other people don’t understand why someone is so attached to an object, and it can be hard to often see that kind of attachment described negatively in terms of being materialistic.

[sanvitheartificer]

more humans are weird...

Okay, so we've talked about inanimate objects like Stabby the space roomba. Fair enough, the aliens think, after adjusting their mental frameworks a little. It moves around, it's got some intelligence, humans just aren't very good at distinguishing 'animate' and 'inanimate' and will pack-bond with anything that moves. Weird, but okay.

But then:

Human Sashi: What are you doing??!

Alien fusid: ...Eating the first meal of the day? I believe you call it 'breakfast'?

Human Sashi: No, I mean... you're using my cup!

Alien fusid: Dishes were provided by the space station.

Human Sashi: Well, some of us brought our own – my friend doesn't like them; too standardized. But that's not what I was talking about. That's my cup!

Alien fusid: I apologize, but it looks exactly like the other cups.

Human Sashi: No it doesn't.

Alien fusid: …What?

Human Sashi: It's got a chip in the corner, see?? I mean, it's fine, but just... don't do it again, okay.

Alien fusid: I had the strangest interaction with a human today.

Alien Wimu: The humans are quite odd. What occurred?

Alien fusid: It had pack bonded to a cup.

Alien Wimu: ...a cup?

Alien fusid: Yes. It is a regulation cup, but it has a chip. Apparently, we are not to touch it.

Alien Wimu: ...

Alien fusid: ...

Alien Wimu, meditatively: The humans are certainly very, very odd.

[withasmoothroundstone]

This song will make you cry for a sewing machine.  If you have never cried for a sewing machine (or similar) you should give the experience a try.

Also this song is exactly why I get so angry sometimes.  It works like this:  

People notice that I, or people like me, have relationships with objects that can be every bit as deep as our relationships with people.

Instead of seeing that I live in a world where everything is alive.  Where you can have a relationship with any part of the world, not just the human parts, not just the animal parts, not even just the living parts.  Where nothing is empty or dead. Where everywhere you look, if you look close enough and get out of the way of your own perceptions, there’s a light that shines through everything.

Instead of seeing that.

They think of how they see objects.  As if they’re never anything more than the dead backdrop against which real life takes place.  As lifeless and without that light shining through them.

Then they assume that my relationship to the entire world, including my relationships with human beings, matches how they perceive objects.  Because it can’t be that I form rich and meaningful relationships with rocks and sewing machines and the like.  It can only be that I am so lacking in awareness of the richness of human interactions that my entire world is empty and devoid of depth.  Blank, empty, and meaningless -- the way they happen to view objects.

The first time I ever tried to write about this, I got a long, condescending response.  In which all of this was just a cognitive glitch known as anthropomorphism, the assigning of human qualities to nonhumans.  And like... yeah, the song as written may engage in some of that, although I take that as poetic license, it’s far from the first art to use that kind of thing.  But the relationship i have with objects is as them -- different from humans, also different from each other.  “Not flat, not empty, not devoid of meaning” is hardly qualities unique to human beings.

Jim Sinclair, in an article dealing with asexuality, wrote about times “...when someone who has not even bothered to look at my world dismisses it as a barren rock.”  Exactly.

This song shows why emotional relationships with objects -- in whatever form they take for different people -- are not evidence that our world is a barren rock. Often quite the opposite.

Also:  Don’t be confused by things that are entirely different from this, yet could be described with similar words.  Having an emotional relationship with a rock or a sewing machine is not the same as having destructive materialistic attachments to “things”.  I can’t explain the difference, only that it’s so vast that it’s a shame the same words can be used to describe both a beautiful and deep thing, and a shallow and destructive thing.  Forming meaningful relationships with parts of the world (even inanimate parts) is in fact in many ways the opposite of that kind of destructive materialist attachment.

Also I grew up with an Oregonian (or Oreganoid as we often say in my family) Singer sewing machine around the house, passed down from my great-grandmother.  (And my grandmother was born in the rather small place this musician lives now or came from or something like that.) It’s beautiful and greatly adds to my enjoyment of the song.

[wanderingmind867]

Dwarves in Norse mythology (or at least in the Magnus Chase books) have a fascinating culture. And their historical background is fascinating. While humans evolved from primates on Midgard, Dwarves evolved from the maggots that ate the rotting flesh of the giant Ymir. Midgard is apparently made of Ymir's repurposed corpse. The maggots burrowed under Midgard to eat at Ymir's corpse. They tunneled into it, and they built themselves a society. And with the aid of the gods, years of evolution took them from flesh eating worms into the short but sturdy craftsmen we all think of today.

Also, I love how Dwarves name all their creations. Humans mass produce things, replacing furniture, cutlery, tools and more like it's no big deal. But Dwarves take pride in their work. They expect their objects to last lifetimes. So they name the objects. And the act of naming imbues it with a soul (I believe the kane chronicles taught me that). So giving your objects names is a very special thing. It means you're giving it a place in your heart. And I love that.

I've never named objects before, but I do have a problem with getting rid of furniture. We have a 10+ year old recliner and loveseat in our home, all because i'm a stubborn bastard who refuses to let my dad buy new furniture. They're both old and beginning to suffer wear and tear, however. So I probably should look into new furniture. But still… I get attached. It's familiar, and I love the familiar. I'm terrified of the unknown. So I really can understand the dwarven desire to make their objects last for lifetimes.

[wanderingmind867]

I form emotional attachments to objects, and I know that's not gonna be good for me in the long term. But I can't help it. You see how I still make posts mourning a tablet I lose two or three years ago? Well, I'm doing that with everything. We have a recliner. It's nearly 15 years old (it's gotta be, we've had it since i was five or six or so). It's somehow still working, but i'm constantly scared i'm gonna break it. I don't want to break it. So we need a new recliner, but I can't find anything that feels nearly as comfortable as the one we have now. I really hate it. I just want things to be simpler. I wish I didn't form attachments to objects. But I do. And it makes everything so complicated. sigh...

[wanderingmind867]

I'm having the worst day ever. My phone was at 10% today, and that terrified me. I just took it off, and it was at 100%. But it's being incredibly laggy and yesterday it almost overheated. Just a few minutes ago it went rapidly from 100 to 76 within five minutes! And I'm now yelling at my dad, because i don't feel like anyone understands the urgency of this situation!! My phone is a fucking precious object! It's like one of the last things i feel i own and used before my mom died! If that thing dies, a part of my soul feels like it'll go with it! Maybe that's hyperbolic, but it feels very very true. I've had that thing since 2019, and I form attachments with my objects. Because nothing will feel quite the same if i have to replace it. I feel like nobody understands this, though. My dad says he does, but i'm paranoid, and just incredibly afraid nobody will understand this issue. I feel bad i yelled at my dad, but i just...i was stressed, and i tend to lash out at others when i'm stressed. sigh...

You know what proves that this is a very real problem? The problem can be clearly shown by looking at how i still mourn the loss of my old tablet. It's been pretty much dead for 2-3 years, but I still feel haunted by it. I can't stop myself from feeling lazier online without my old tablet. That nagging thought hounds me. It makes me way too stressed. So if i lose my phone...that'll just add an even bigger weight to me. It'll make me even more stressed than I am now, probably.