Stuff Collections Objects Possessions

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I lived, briefly, with someone like that, ( and have known others ). When I first moved in I did a HUGE springclean, sorting, weeding, organising, and putting away, so that there was space for me really, and also because the mess just did my head in, but after I moved out it returned to its old state within a few weeks.

I have not counted my son's nor his father's possessions in the description of my belongings above, and realised only after Odin posted his list that I do also own a computer and a DVD player, etc but they seem so communal that I forgot them. My son's father/co-parent lives in constant chaos, mainly millions of tons of papers for his job, but has relatively few personal belongings, ( he is NT, and he doesn't hoard/collect ).

I used to be like you, throwing stuff out on a regular basis, but no longer:
I was wondering whether, if these objects do "re-present" me in significant ways, the reason why so many of them are not in use is because so much of me isn't either? Which is why it is their uselessness which is so painful. But I also seem to be collecting like a squirrel lays up nuts, for "potentially" lean times ahead.

Obviously everything which is not actually in use is only "potentially useful", but some stuff is used more often. Is it a time thing? Having difficulty judging what constitutes a reasonable length of time to keep something for potential "future" use? Space vs. time.
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Last edited by ouinon on 07 Dec 2009, 10:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've got tons of junk. Like others here, when I try to tackle it I just get overwhelmed by the size of the task, and give up. There's a potential use for everything I keep, but in most cases the potential is pretty small, and it gets even smaller when you consider the fact that I'd have trouble finding most of it because it's not very well organised. So if I'm making a shelf, I've probably got the right screws already but it's probably easier to go and buy new ones.

Part of the problem is that I find judgement calls on the importance of keeping things very hard to make. How do I know what I'll be wanting in a year's time? Often when I've been glad I've held onto a thing, I've been quite surprised. I'm sure I must be erring much too heavily on the side of keeping stuff, but applying a correction isn't so simple. Even my collection of old shopping lists and "to do" lists has been known to be useful - once or twice they've reminded me of something I'd forgotten to do or to buy.

I have exactly the same problem with computer files. I end up buying larger and larger hard drives, which is easier than going through millions of files and making those complicated judgements on each one. At least the storage capacity per unit volume increases over time, unlike houses.

If you haven't seen it yet, go to YouTube and search for George Carlin's comedy routine: "A Place for Your Stuff." Funny "stuff." BTW, it doesn't contain any of the 7 words (iirc.)

[YouTube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac&feature=related[/YouTube]
Brilliant! No, I hadn't seen it. Loved it. Thank you very much!

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Where to begin!! !

I have stuff everywhere. Lets begin, this could be fun (excluding things like family cars and household appliances and necessities---this is just my collection):

Airstream 26' camper (on my property)
Coachmen pop-up camper (on my property)
1977 Mustang convertible (parents' garage)
1947 Hammond model CV organ (parents' third bedroom)
1961 Hammond model A organ with Leslie (my house)
1966 Hammond model E organ with Leslie (in storage at a heated storage facility)
20 synthesizers (parents' basement)
1885 Behr Bros. & Company upright grand piano (my house)
1996 or 1997 Baldwin Hamilton piano (my house)
Brunswick billiards table (parents' basement)
3 Celestron telescopes (parents' basement)
3 hammered dulcimers (2 at my house, 1 in my parents' basement)
multiple mountain dulcimers (some at my house, some at my parents' house)
3 fish aquariums (my house---more of my wife's interest)
countless magic illusions and tricks (my house---fills most of a spare room)
approx. 300 HO scale models (my house---fills most of the basement)
approx. 20 Christmas trees (my house---11 are up in the house, the rest in the basement)
large collection of roller coaster blueprints---some original (my house)
collection of house plan blueprints (my house)
countless house plan books (my house)
DVDs and VHS tapes, too many to count (my house, my parents' house, and in my classroom)
Books...books...and more books (my house, my parents' house, and in my classroom)
approx. 2 dozen vintage pinewood derby cars (my house)
pinewood derby race track (my parents' basement)
large collection of View Master reels (my house)
small collection of fishing reels, never used (my house)
Christmas display houses (my parents' basement)
several Estes model rockets (my house, with a few in my parents' basement)
unusual items like: (at my house)
*piece of fabric off of the Graf Zeppelin dirigible
*Hopewell Indian tool
*master dub reel for a gold record
*original Hollywood TV show script
*Amityville Horror novel autographed by George and Kathy Lutz
*original artwork by Dom Deluise
*original paintings (one done in the Middle Ages)

And it goes on and on...but you get the idea.

Stuff? I have a whole extra room in my apartment which houses all the "stuff" that I have no place for! Part of the problem is that I live in Germany, and the Germans seem to be obsessed with paperwork, so I have papers coming out my ears- which I´m afraid to throw away- because I know I might need to show them someday. Actually, I probably shouldn´t blame the paper problem on the Germans, because I´ve had this problem of accumulating papers for years, and not knowing what to do with them. It´s like they have a life of their own, and they´re about to overtake my apartment. Of course, if there is an important paper that I really do need for some reason, I can never find it! I like to keep the rest of my apartment quite sparse- I like space and tranquility, I´m sort of upset by clutter- so this convenient extra room houses all my batteries, light bulbs, cleaning supplies, books that I have no room for, pictures I want to hang someday, art supplies, etc. etc. (Oh, and did I mention it´s full of papers? )

Otherwise, I seem to be collecting loads of dvds, books; (you can see my special interests by just looking at my bookshelves), cds, etc. My latest collection is wigs. I´m going through chemotherapy right now, and I guess I´ve gotten a bit obsessive about finding wigs. I get glazed and staring-eyed when in or near a wig shop, and I just want to find more and more. It is quite fun changing my look each day though, I never did that before.

When I was younger, I never really collected stuff because I moved around too much. In fact, people told me I had too few possessions. I find that the best way to clear out my stuff is by moving. Then, I throw away or give away a lot of my things because it´s just too difficult to tote around.

Awesome! Airstreams are so cool - what a classic retro look - perfectly sums up a period of Americana like nothing else. If I ever built a time machine, I wouldn't encase it in a DeLorean - I'd build it inside an Airstream trailer. Forward - into the past!

Sometimes it takes me a while to post in the threads that are the most relevant to me.
I don't even know where to begin...
I hoard...my parents hoard....my grandparents hoarded.....nuff sed.....

Actually there is plenty more that I could say....but won't right now..

I have tons of stuff - a lot on my apartment, a lot in two rooms plus a storage room in my parent's house, and more in a storage unit.

I think I could classifly as a horder. I have my stuffed animals from childhood and can't part with any of them. I think it's because as a child, I had no friends because I was so strange and weird around other kids and was often bullied so the stuffed animals in a way became my friends.

On the other hand, I want to expand my meerkat collection to fill up a LARGE room and take over my house and also someday hope to have a live one wandering around the house.

Oh wow! Thank you everyone for all your wonderful replies, and to everybody who is voting in the poll!

Morgana, I'm afraid my first totally "inappropriate" thought about your wearing wigs because of chemotherapy was, "Lucky you, to have an excuse to wear wigs without people thinking you're weird or vain or pathetic"! I really hope the therapy works out, is successful, and that you get better soon. But I totally get the interest in wigs, and the fun you can have with them!

I used to move around a lot, and it is true that may have been one big reason why I didn't own so much until recently, because like you I threw stuff out each time I moved.

But I was just thinking that the problem may not be only the weeding/throwing out process, ( though our AS will probably make this extra difficult, as Tough Diamond says about the "judgement calls" involved ), but the collecting/buying in the first place. Why do we have/collect so much stuff? InvaderMeer thinks that it might have had something to do with having no friends, and I had already wondered a bit back on this thread if my increased isolation since moving to France was connected to recent hoarding/collecting.

I am rarely aware of "need"; I don't often feel "need". When I do it is actually quite frightening, overwhelming, terrifying, like being exploded and exposed as if I was a snail whose shell had been removed. Perhaps my gathering/collecting of objects, ( and earlier, opposite, almost anorexic "streamlining" of possessions ), is how I express unfelt need. I simply don't feel/am totally unaware of, the "usual" needs most of the time, ( for sex, a group of friends, etc ), and tend most of the time to think/believe that I don't need those things, or not much.

I also don't tend to feel much gratitude ... but this would not be surprising if I don't allow myself to, or can not, feel "need" clearly. Like being unaware of hunger, something which many on the spectrum seem to experience. Might people on the spectrum find the "rules" about the socially acceptable expression of need so complicated/obscure ( from as early as babyhood ) that it is easier to switch off awareness of need than work out how and when and with whom one can express need ( and/or only do it with objects )?

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Thank you Willard for the wonderful Airstream pictures. Ever since I was a child I was fascinated by Airstreams. The one I have is a 1961 model called an Overlander. The tile floor definitely shows its age, so I had carpet laid overtop of it (without glue so as to not damage the original tiles, and the carpet is very snug fitting so it doesn't move any). The sofa/bed in the front needed new fabric, so my wife and I located a retro '50's looking print and had it done. The rest of the inside isn't bad---just needs some neat new curtains. I have tried to decorate it in vintage looking things such as a new, but retro looking, stereo and radio with phonograph and CD player and other old items like a lamp, chair, clock, etc.

This Airstream had belonged in the Wally Byam Caravan club back in the '60's---as shown on a plaque inside. And on the door, there are a number of stickers with all the places it has travelled---all parts of the U.S. So my dream is to take it on an around the country journey when I retire to all the places it has been. That would be kind of like a time warp in a way in that it would go back to some of the places it was at.

When I was the most surrounded by friends, it's true I didn't collect as much stuff, but that could simply have been the result of my downsizing from a house to a single room. Before that, I was happily filling a house that I shared with my partner, and I had a few fairly close friends then. Looking at my whole life, it seems to have depended mostly on the available space more than the number of friends, though I'm sure collecting stuff can be a great source of comfort.

Good question, why do we collect, apart from just not throwing stuff out. Why do we acquire? Acquiring cool stuff used to be a purely good feeling for me, I suspect it's one of those "basic drives" the psychologists talk about. These days the euphoria is usually tainted with anxiety about where it's going to go and whether it's really going to help me as much as I'm hoping it will.

I used to have an overwhelming need to "collect the whole set," but most of the things I've collected have turned out not to have a very clear end point. I was collecting unofficial Beatles recordings at one time, and finally realised I was never going to get them all, so I stopped collecting even though I knew there must be more out there. Then I wanted every record I'd heard during my teens and twenties - every time I thought I'd got there, I remembered another one

I don't really have collections, my mess is mostly stuff I'm afraid I'll need if I throw it away or a second hand aversion to waste from being raised by two parents who were children during the Great Depression. I do have things I like, mostly arts and craft work from other countries but I'm not swamped by it. I'm swamped by paper and small bits.

Oh, don´t worry about being "inappropriate", what you say is totally right. I think the wigs have done me good, almost like a therapy of sorts. There´s always been a weird and slightly flamboyant side to me, but unfortunately, due to all the teasing and bullying I experienced as a child, I think a lot of that has been "beaten out of me"...(well, I´m still weird, but I tend to hide that aspect of myself and "appear" more conventional than I really am, just because I got tired of the wrong kind of attention). Having to wear wigs has brought back some of my unconventionality. I have both "normal" looking wigs, as well as a few "far out" ones. I most recently bought one with blue hair. It has been fun to try out different looks, and I´ve been pushing myself to express myself more in a less conventional way. Which is good, I think it´s brought myself back to myself, if you know what I mean!



This idea about unexpressed need is very interesting....in fact, you could start a whole thread about it! But that sums up a lot. I wonder if this is the crux of the problem with depression, which so many AS people seem to have...(I noticed Poopy Lungstuffing started a thread about depression, which I actually wanted to Post on, but just haven´t had the time lately). I think often we don´t "feel" our needs because we may go so long without certain things, that lack just becomes a part of our existence and we don´t even notice it as being a lack anymore. We accept it as inevitable- (at least, I´ve noticed this happening with myself). In depression, there´s a general feeling that something is missing, but often we may not know exactly what it is...(or we may know, but don´t know how to solve the problem). Like you, I have often told myself I can do without the "usual needs". But, I think I may need them more than I realize.

On a different tangent, I notice how often I am comforted by "things". I live alone, and I´m doing chemotherapy alone. Though I´m lucky enough to have people that care about me and "cheer me on", I´m the one that does the infusion alone. I still have to do my own shopping, cook my own food, clean my apartment, go to work- (being a freelance person, I don´t get paid if I don´t work). What gets me through the day, so to speak, are my cds, my dvds, my computer, some creative art projects, etc. etc.

I think you're right--mine is too, and I apparently got it from him. He even said something like, "You kids will just have to deal with it after I'm gone."

Thanks, Dad!