Dismantled mattress has made me anxious

[Misty Avich]

I know this may sound stupid but my husband has cut up an old mattress we got rid of and it's caused me extreme anxiety.
We got a lovely new mattress given to us by a friend, and we didn't know what to do with the old mattress. We wanted it to be disposed of properly but the council charge a lot of money to collect things like that, so we decided to do it ourselves. We hauled the mattress out into the lobby of the apartment building, and my husband said he'll dismantle the mattress then dispose of it bit by bit in the community bins. I said that I couldn't help him because dismantling a mattress would make me anxious, which he understood, and did a lot of it himself while I was at work today. He hadn't managed to dismantle the whole thing today, but when I saw the remains I felt freaked out. I couldn't enjoy my dinner tonight because I kept thinking of the mattress, even when I tried distracting my mind on to other things.

Does anyone else get anxiety about this sort of thing? Generally a lot of things scare me when I can see what's inside. Now I'm off my food. I feel all shaky and anxious. I've always been like this. It didn't seem to faze my husband when he was cutting it up. I wouldn't have even been able to do it.

I'm so weird but please don't judge me.

 

[tree]

So it's seeing the thing dismantled that's bothering you ?

Not anxiety over possibly being caught disposing of the
item bit by bit, thus *cheating* the council of their
'rightful revenue.'

 

[MildredHubble]

Is it a phobia concerning seeing things altered from their comforting familiar state? I think I might have an idea of what you are experiencing, or at least something similar.

Like if I see plush toys discarded in the mud and rain. I get this quite unpleasant feeling that's hard to articulate. I've experienced this since I was a young kid and I still experience it now. It happens with other things too, like things basically out of their context in stark unpleasant surroundings.

I guess maybe it could be a phobia I experience, not sure what it would be called. Anyway, just thought I would tell you about it in case it's similar to what you experience.

 

[Misty Avich]

So it's seeing the thing dismantled that's bothering you ?

Not anxiety over possibly being caught disposing of the
item bit by bit, thus *cheating* the council of their
'rightful revenue.'

Um, we're not doing anything illegal and there are no hard feelings. But if the council want to charge a diabolical amount of money to take large things away then poor people like us are going to find other ways to get rid of household rejects.

No, my anxiety is about seeing something dismantled. Once I saw a burnt out bus, with just the parts that couldn't be burnt showing, like the engine, and that freaked me out.

What Mildtedhubble pointed out is what I mean.

 

[tree]

It has always creeped me out to see a computer
being dismantled.

 

[Misty Avich]

It has always creeped me out to see a computer
being dismantled.

It used to creep me out seeing an old TV dismantled. I'm not sure how I'd feel about modern TVs though, maybe not so bad. I've seen an iPhone dismantled before and that didn't freak me out.

 

[MildredHubble]

Once I saw a burnt out bus, with just the parts that couldn't be burnt showing, like the engine, and that freaked me out.

I think you might be the only other person I know of that experiences this. I'm sorry you experience this also. I hope you will feel better soon and it will be gone and out of sight, out of mind.

 

[Misty Avich]

I guess for me seeing a dismantled mattress is like seeing a post mortem body in the morgue. Completely unsettling.

 

[Misty Avich]

I think you might be the only other person I know of that experiences this. I'm sorry you experience this also. I hope you will feel better soon and it will be gone and out of sight, out of mind.

Yes, once my husband has disposed all of it then I can move on. But knowing it's sitting in our lobby is just making me uncomfortable.

 

[MildredHubble]

It has always creeped me out to see a computer
being dismantled.

I think for me it's seeing things unceremoniously dismantled that usually there's some level of human comfort and pleasantness associated with. Things that people have quite close relationships with.

Like seeing smashed up HiFi speakers by the road.

 

[Aspychata]

I try to not respond to road kill. I pray they feel no pain.

 

[Misty Avich]

Seeing dead animals makes me cry and I can't look. But that's a different topic.

 

[Progster]

I sometimes feel empathy for inanimate objects, but it depends what it is and the context. If I see a child's teddy thrown in the rubbish or in the mud, then I think that a child once had, played with and loved that teddy and it deserves more respect. If it's a discarded, torn plastic bag, cigarette packet or other rubbish thrown into the forest, then I feel bad for the forest.

 

[Misty Avich]

I sometimes feel empathy for inanimate objects, but it depends what it is and the context. If I see a child's teddy thrown in the rubbish or in the mud, then I think that a child once had, played with and loved that teddy and it deserves more respect. If it's a discarded, torn plastic bag, cigarette packet or other rubbish thrown into the forest, then I feel bad for the forest.

Me too.
I guess I've seen too many Toy Story movies.

 

[Ella Spell]

I'm not judging your reaction to the mattress but I'm just curious how much they charge to pick one up?

 

[MildredHubble]

I'm not judging your reaction to the mattress but I'm just curious how much they charge to pick one up?

Something like that, in my experience, can be £50-60 (or roughly €55-65). It depends on the local authority really. It could be more. This is one of the reasons people dump mattresses in back lanes/alleys.

 

[Outdated]

Here the councils do a mass rubbish collection once a year, where you just stack everything you don't want on the side of the road and the council comes and collects it. Very important for people with little money, to get rid of old mattresses and fridges and things.

 

[MildredHubble]

Here the councils do a mass rubbish collection once a year, where you just stack everything you don't want on the side of the road and the council comes and collects it. Very important for people with little money, to get rid of old mattresses and fridges and things.

There are some more "upmarket" suburban areas that have this sort of service. Because of course, we wouldn't want privileged people to have to deal with rubbish, or heaven forbid, pay to have things collected! We wouldn't want their leafy little Lego towns looking scruffy.

Meanwhile, in between these annual skip collections, they come and dump the kitchen units and mattresses in our back lane, because that's what people in my neighborhood deserve you see. It's our job to deal with middle class detritus.

 

[Mary Terry]

There are some more "upmarket" suburban areas that have this sort of service. Because of course, we wouldn't want privileged people to have to deal with rubbish, or heaven forbid, pay to have things collected! We wouldn't want their leafy little Lego towns looking scruffy.

Meanwhile, in between these annual skip collections, they come and dump the kitchen units and mattresses in our back lane, because that's what people in my neighborhood deserve you see. It's our job to deal with middle class detritus.

I doubt wealthy or middle-class people are dumping rubbish in your neighborhood. More likely, it is low-income people doing it. My opinion is based on lifelong observation of the poor doing this in my country. They do not care about others or care that the roadsides are littered with their garbage. Poverty does not justify a callous attitude toward others and society at large.

 

[Mary Terry]

Here the councils do a mass rubbish collection once a year, where you just stack everything you don't want on the side of the road and the council comes and collects it. Very important for people with little money, to get rid of old mattresses and fridges and things.

I live in the poorest state in the USA. Here, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and its various subdivisions have regularly scheduled days for people to bring their household rubbish to a central location for free disposal. We, the taxpayers, pay for those collections and the state's ultimate disposal in legal landfills. The Department also has regularly scheduled "amnesty days" when anyone can bring hazardous waste such as computers, televisions, paint cans, used oil, tires, batteries and other hazardous materials to a central location for proper disposal by the state at approved hazardous waste disposal sites. The state recycles some of the useful materials such as old tires. These services are free.

Cities have regularly scheduled days to pick up yard debris such as tree limbs, leaves and pine needles left at the curb in front of people's homes. I've always considered it a waste of valuable mulch and compost that could be used to improve the yard and garden soil but apparently some people don't understand that, are too lazy to compost their own yard debris, or are physically unable to do so.

Most jurisdictions here have criminal penalties for low level, non-violent criminals that consist of public service in lieu of or in addition to jail time. It is not uncommon to see people in orange vests picking up litter along roadsides. Sometimes they are guarded by deputies in patrol cars; sometimes it appears they are unsupervised. The garbage they collect is taken to legal landfills for proper disposal.

I often walk along our rural road carrying a trash bag and pick up beer cans, soft drink containers, endless plastic water bottles, fast food packaging, empty cigarette packages, plastic food wrappers, those plastic forked-thingies that people use to floss their teeth, paper, occasional dirty diapers and other disgusting things. We put that trash out for collection at the end of our driveway by the county garbage crews who come once a week. Trash collection is usually twice a week in cities and larger towns.