Magpie Syndrome – Back in 2016, someone I knew invited me to a conference for Autism that was taking place over a weekend miles and miles from my home. It would involve me riding in a car filled with mostly strangers, attending events and lectures that I did not understand, as well as spending the night away from home. I had no idea what I was getting myself into as I had little idea of what a conference entailed. I learned many interesting and surprising things about myself and my peculiar brand of Autism by stretching my comfort zone and being present at such an event.
One such anomaly was that I found myself admiring pretty, shiny things mostly other peoples’ bling (bling- expensive, ostentatious, jewelry) and baubles (baubles- small, showy trinkets or decorations) mainly jewelry such as rings, necklaces, fancy key chains and pins or brooches worn upon the chest.
When seated with others from my party, I often found my gaze seriously gravitated to necklaces and rings, to the point where I had to either consciously self-restrain myself from touching or I would ask the wearer if I could examine said pretty, shiny thing. Most people proved to be okay with allowing me to touch their goods with one woman even going so far as to remove her ring and let me play with it for a moment.
Upon my return home, I scoured the internet to see if there was a correlation for Aspergers/Autism and pretty shinys and if the obsession with all that glitters was a psychiatric or named syndrome. It took my search awhile to stumble upon “Magpie Syndrome” and even then, only on one obscure website named “Urban Dictionary” mentioned it. I wasn’t even sure Urban Dictionary was a legitimate site but I double-checked and indeed, it be real.
Here is what that website said:
Magpie Syndrome- an irrational affinity for shiny objects. When a highly shiny object is seen by the sufferer it often may induce a compulsive need to claim it and several minutes of staring at said object. This will later end in the sufferer pocketing the object to add to his/her collection by a sunny windowsill at home. If a shiny object is out of a sufferers grasp it will usually result in a strong, though usually short-lived obsession over it.
Okay, so it is somewhat tongue-in-cheek (an ironic, flippant, exaggerated, insincere or not exactly true thought or saying) and it is a website where individuals submit their own words and definitions, but it really, really fits. I find that it is irrational, an unquenchable thirst, a lust with no name, rhyme or reason, and definitely obsessive to the point of distraction and nothing else mattes, albeit momentarily or temporarily.
A couple of days after my return home, I was picking up my new repaired cellphone and the technician assisting me had on a bright, oversized, shiny pretty necklace with a semi-familiar symbol on it. After a few minutes determining when it would be appropriate to ask, I did inquire as to the necklace’s meaning and origin. Of course, I do not touch things that are directly upon a person like that, but I was able to do the second-best thing which was to overtly stare and admire it as the wearer described it.
My Eldest Aspie son has Magpie Syndrome to a degree maybe a bit higher than my own, and I consider mine to be of a medium high degree. Back when my son was 4 or 5, my other parent and I noticed that bright, shiny, expensive small things were missing from the house…jewelry, crystals, souvenirs, things like that. My child had been pilfering many sparkly items. As his biological mom, the job fell upon me to give him a good, reprimanding talking to about removing items that were not his. I thought my talks were effective yet the behavior persisted and I continued to find purloined items in his room on cleaning day.
It became quite clear that this was an activity that was obsessive and beyond his rational control. My ways of coping were to simply start checking through his room once in a while or if I detected anything missing from its normal place. I stopped displaying certain pretty shinys and instead, kept them out of sight or hidden.
Magpie Syndrome is indeed a symptom of the Aspergers that runs in my family.
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