Alarming number of files in my trash

My computer has been acting strangely so I decided to empty the trash since I hadn't done so in a couple of months.  The finder shows 110 "items" in the trash- some of them are folders (some of them iMovie temporary items), so I realize I have more than just 110 to delete.  I don't  trash many things, and certainly don't use the trash for storage!  I was quite surprised and alarmed when the status bar showed over 16,000 items being deleted, so I immediately stopped the process.  I then saw the trash included user files (copies?), dated the exact time I started to empty.  This, together with the fact that my computer has been flaky at startup, and quite un-mac-like in frequent freezing and other troublesome behavior, had me quite concerned.
I asked a similar question over the weekend, but obviously wrote it too quickly and didn't make myself clear, as I only received snarky, unhelpful responses. I would really like some advice here, so I am trying again.
I do use Time Machine for backup, I'm hopeful that is the reason for the large number of files (including user files) in my trash, and that it is safe to go ahead and empty the trash.  I'd guess that many unnecessary files would be contributing to my initial problems.  However, I would feel much better if I had some confirmation from this community.  If this is the case, I am also curious if I can change something so that I don't continue to have this many files going into the trash.
Is there also a cache that I should clear from time-to-time?  Are there any other suggestions regarding the frequent freezing, and trouble when starting up/logging in? 
Is there any way to delete ridiculous "discussions" from this community?

Some thoughts -
About the 16,000 files in the trash, is your Time Machine disk full meaning that the oldest files are thrown away regularly? That could explain it. I would think it is fine to go ahead and delete (easy for me to say - it isn't my computer!)
Flaky at startup and frequent freezing is troubling - what model iMac, how much system RAM, how much free space left on your main drive? If you need help finding out this info, just ask. Don't want to assume anything. If the drive is too full it can take a long time to do simple tasks.
If your Mac is left on it does its own system checking stuff such that there really aren't any caches to clean, even though there are 3rd party utilities to do this. But you can boot into Safe Mode (hold down Shift at startup) which will clear and reset some things, then restart again and it will start as usual.
As to deleting posts, we users/posters can't do that, but you can request a Moderator to do it but they will decide if it should be deleted or not. I have seen people write "Moderators please delete this post" as a response in a thread, but I don't think it is automatic, meaning you would have to say why you want it done, and then it might or might not be deleted. It has to be deemed inappropriate by moderators.

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