Extreme empathy towards inanimate objects/foodstuffs? Scraping food scraps into the bin causes anxiety, throwing away broken, torn, unusable stuff causes anxiety. Is this simply more of the wonderfully autistic thinking?
Intense attachment to objects personification is common amongst autistic people and may contribute to poor mental health and quality of life conditions. Standardized behavioural interventions have a limited effect on improving the condition. Why?
I come from a cultural background where inanimate things are anthropomorphized, worshiped and respected. The door is a protective guardian that you worship, a sauce dish is a highly vicious and powerful spirit that you should not interact with spiritually, the mountain has a spirit, the land has a deity., and etc. Things are imbued with "magical energy" (for lack of a better word) as you interact with them. If you interact with something positively or negatively, would shape that spirit’s nature and its relationships with you. In modern times, objects are regularly given googly-eyes and loved.
There may be nothing wrong with attachment to objects, but the actual problem lies in the modern way of material consumption where we are often drowning in ’ stuff’. When resources were more scarce, attachment to objects, treating them well, and preserving them from the next generation, is very functional behaviour.
Organic objects such as hair, nail clippings should return to the earth (not plastic garbage bags) to begin their cycle again. When the beloved cat passed away, the ritual of burning drawn items (drawing of cat toys, treats, fish) to kitty heaven. (Yes, objects can even take on ethereal forms.) Stuffies have jobs and they may one day do this job at other people’s houses. Just because we are attached to an object or a person, it doesn’t mean that It is forever. This is also one of the most crucial lessons in counselling school because clients can become attached to their counsellors but a therapeutic relationship is not forever. You can have a relationship with someone or something but it doesn’t mean you own it. But rather, these are objects that are created from the earth with their own life cycle and we are just the current preserver.
This post may be sad if you don't read it, but not by you specifically. It's just a melancholy and childish post that gets pouty if it is not at the centre of attention from everybody all the time.
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