The urge has always been there, embedded in my soul like an ammonite in rock: the urge to keep.
Collecting is an intrinsic part of my ADHD – part symptom, part therapy, and fueled by the fear of forgetting.
I grew up in the 90s during a time when TV and films used ADHD and other neurotypical conditions as a punchline. There’s an episode of The Simpsons where Bart wraps his room in aluminum foil and steals a tank after taking a psychostimulant drug called Focusyn. In King of the Hill, Bobby is diagnosed with ADD and becomes a mechanical savant with the uncanny ability to know exactly when the milk in his fridge is about to expire.
ADHD was portrayed as pure hyperactivity; the perpetual kid who can’t sit still. People were used to the caricature of a squirmy kid with a buzz cut and spaghetti stains darting away from a conversation mid-sentence to chase a squirrel. But my hyperactivity didn't look like that – and since it didn't fit the stereotype, I wasn't diagnosed until my 30s.
For me, the hyperactivity sat rooted in my brain. Racing thoughts, nail-biting, time blindness, rejection dysphoria, and daydreams so intricate I’d catch myself mouthing the answers to the made-up conversation asked by fictionalized versions of real people in my head.
A prolific ADHD trait that the media glossed over was my total inability to remember. There’s a well-documented link between memory loss and ADHD: ADHD and the anxiety that suckles at its bohemoth singular tit drains the brain of its magical ability to visualize the past. I dedicated so much of my brain power to calming my anxious fixations (tornadoes, AIDS, rabies) that my memories would become distorted and grainy – like a copy of a copy of a copy of a VHS tape. Memories would flicker and skip, playing out of sequence with the oppressive feeling of anxiety clouding the scene.
So I figured out an antidote: collecting.
My tchotchkes transcended the boundaries of hobby, acting as totems to spark the precious details that lay in hiding under my ambient anxiety.
I could pick up any keychain or ticket stub and transport back to the memory without wading through the ambient anxiety.
Collecting provided me with the dopamine I desperately needed to feel like a real person and served as a breadcrumb trail and insurance policy to help jog the memories clouded by routine.
Rearranging Pez dispensers by size, color, and genre silenced the incessant buzz of boredom and unease caused by ADHD. Leafing through my Mexican sugar packets, Japanese eraser sets, and matches from the restaurant where a scene in You've Got Mail was filmed helped me escape the confines of my brain.
Over time, my collecting evolved from boxes and folders to heftier materials: those massive storage bins from Walmart.
The tactile sensation of sifting through items that carry emotional weight is on par with picking through a plastic pumpkin full of Halloween candy – a surge of dopamine with every rediscovered memory.
Every twisted, stamped souvenir penny is a portal to a key point in my life… even if I can’t remember when or where it happened.
Every time I revisited my stuff, memories long glazed over would come to life and scratch – at least, briefly – the insatiable itch in my brain.
My office today is a museum and public archive in one 6’ x 5’ room. Stored unceremoniously in a pile, my things are curated to play memories from mismatched corners of my life, all queued up like I’m used to: without order or context.
The walls are lined with cassette tapes, cameras, flyers, and posters from almost 4 decades. Some of these items have made their way into letters and care boxes: the stack of vintage postcards from a Cape Cod flea market, the 600 or so cards advertising various sex workers from a stopover in Las Vegas, a tiny plastic horse that inexplicably turned up in my Brooklyn apartment. Others remain in the box they’ve been in for years, but elicit the same flush of nostalgia that spreads through my body when uncovered.
As my expansive collection outgrows its plastic confines, I can’t help but wonder what will happen to it after I die. Do I leave my stuff to my kids? Put it in a time capsule? Bury it in my yard to be discovered in 1000 years? Do I even want my kids to see such lewd and lascivious material? Dare I consult a mortician to iron out the logistics of finding a coffin large enough to accommodate both my rotting flesh and hundreds of pounds of paper?
Sometimes I wonder if a burst of energy disguised as momentum will inspire me to throw away the whole lot of it. This fantasy is often accompanied by a wave of relief; the thought of being free from my stuff and being able to live in the moment.
To live comfortably with ADHD is to make concessions. Medication makes life bearable, but sometimes you gotta just face the disarray and embrace it.
The persistence of memory is only as strong as the brain will allow, so why shouldn’t I hold onto my yearbooks, tax returns, and assorted lighters?
Throughout my life, collecting has always been a step toward assembling a trail map of a life full of foggy details. Stuff can be admired, dissected, discussed, and celebrated. Call it a Rorschach test for whoever finds it, a smatter of my life in a few 100 (1000?) items – whatever it is, it’s mine all mine.
BIO: Jeremy Glass is a freelance writer and Head of Copy at Mudge, residing in drizzly midcoast Maine with his wife, kids, and elderly Chiweenie. Check out some of his work here.
