I'm that way too. When I was a kid, it was a bug collection, rocks, pressed tree leaves, you name it.

Now I'm more of a hoarder, I can't seem to throw anything away without a lot of emotional pain. My dad was the same, so now that he's gone I have all his junk and mine too. It's really a problem for me.

I'm sure this is related to being abused...a basic insecurity I suppose. I read a while back that most people have way more junk than they need and they can't get rid of it either.

At least your stuff is nice, most of my junk is totally worthless.

Thank you RichieD. I am just grateful my hubby has never made me or even asked me to throw any of my stuff away.

I do have a thing about food. As long as my pantry is full I have a sense of security. We could have a zombie apocalypse and all would be ok in my house. For Y2K we had 14 plus boxes of food and first aid supplies. Lol we were eating peanut butter and crackers until June.

I love to collect sea shells and rocks from ocean and arrange them. When we moved into our duplex (before we bought our home) I noticed we had a whole box of rocks. lol

I love rocks. I have big bolders in my yard. I find them soothing. Looking at the colors and patterns in them. Some may find it silly but....works for me.

We had an endless supply of smooth white or colored stones everywhere in the neighborhood where I grew up. I found out that if I hit them really hard with a hammer, they would break in two and reveal a beautiful crystalline structure.

In striking them like that, I also found out that they generated a display of fireworks if you did it in a dark area. In later years I learned that the stones were quartz river-rock left behind after the melting glaciers sent huge cascades of water over the land. I loved discovering things like that when I was younger...ordinary things everyone thought had no significance...but were actually really interesting.

Holy cow, Richie! You had geodes lying around where you lived?! Sounds amazing and must have been so magical for you as a kid.

I didn't respond to this at first because I am not much of a collector. But I do have rocks, pebbles and little bits of nature. Every time I travel I collect bits of nature and bring them home with me. I have a dish of black pebbles from a Hawaiian beach that I love. I love stones.

Seems stone's and rocks have an effect on us. In a good manner. Im a jewelry maker and love my collection of stone/gem beads. My big issue is I have a hard time selling them. Ha I want them all.

I also used to make jewelry and love natural minerals. At one point I was reading up on the healing energies the different stones carry. Not sure if I really believe it, but it's a magical idea that appeals to me.

The stones I collected were everywhere, they were just smooth egg-shaped rocks that nobody paid attention to. But I found out they were all quartz. If you strike two pieces of quartz together in the dark, they generate electricity and you see sparks.

Do you still have them? When we moved I Was able to pack some But over time have let them go. I have tons of rocks and large holders on our land. But, have rebought a lot of the dolls I had from my youth.

No, the stuff I collected in childhood was all thrown out by my dad when he retired and sold the house. He threw away things I had that were valuable monetarily. I had no way to come and get them at the time so off they went into the trash. Interesting how he kept his worthless junk like cheap broken clocks and tossed out all the first edition books my aunts and my cousin had given me.

My mother spent my coin collection for face value when she needed cigarette money one day. That was when I started realizing things about my parents that a child finds hard to accept. I have a lot of bad memories from childhood, but my things that I collected are still in my head as good memories. Nobody can take those.

Very true RichieD. Our good memories can be more precious than the stuff that made them.

RichieD- Why are you hanging on to your father's junk? You wrote:

"...so now that he's gone I have all his junk...it's really a problem for me."

I'm hearing you say that your father's junk, which is a problem for you, is something you need to keep. But your own personal collections are without value.

My heart hurts for you because I'm not sure you know how much value you truly have.

My dad was a very complex individual, Whistleblower. He was a tangle of contradictions, a person who had many different faces.

He was very intelligent and loved intricate things, so he bult models of the trains he saw growing up in Brooklyn. There were big train yards near his neighborhood where he and his buddies hung out.

These things are probably very valuable, you could take photos of them and they look just like real trains. I've tried to find out what the market is for them, but everything I find online is about toy trains. These aren't toys, they're very delicate works of craftsmanship. I'm hopeful I'll find a museum who wants them.

In the meantime I've got boxes and boxes of rails, tools, tiny little parts I don't know what to do with. He was such a domineering force in my life that just going through this stuff sets my nerves on edge. So I do nothing with it...can't throw it all out, can't sell it, can't give it away. I just leave the door to his bedroom shut and rarely go in there.

I could really use the money if I could sell his stuff, but I have a huge mental block stopping me. I can't even sell my own stuff to raise cash. It's like I have this fear that if I sell anything in the house, I lose my security somehow. It's hoarding, I know it is, but I don't know how to deal with it.

Most days I just get up early and try to get something positive done around here...and try not to worry about things.

Part of it is the fact that I've been robbed so many times. People always seem to find a way to grab things and make off with them. I don't have enough income to just go replace what's stolen, so I usually just make do without it.

My neighbors have lots of money and they say nobody ever steals off them. I don't know why the thieves are targeting the person in the neighborhood who's just trying to get by on very little. Recently they stole my irrigation gear that I was using to water my vegetable garden. I mean, who steals garden hoses?

I have over 200 teddy bears.