posted
I don't particularly like being touched. When I am touched unexpectedly, I flinch and pull away. If someone puts a hand on my shoulder while I'm walking to class, for example, I have somewhat of a fight-or-flight reaction. I'll tense up if someone pats me on the back, or wants to hug me. Some of my friends are pretty touchy-feely, so my discomfort with being touched does make it difficult to interact with people in a way that is comfortable for them.
It's not that I don't want contact with other people. But when it actually happens, particularly when touch is initiated when I don't expect it, I feel...threatened, almost. On other hand, if I'm in the right mood, I'm generally all right with being touched. So long as it's not a surprise.
The other weird thing, is that I participate in a martial art that involves tons of touching. I'm okay with having my arm grabbed, with close body contact, with being thrown to the ground, and with being pinned. This does not feel threatening to me. Maybe it's because I have control over when it happens--I can choose when to invite, and when to initiate an attack. Or maybe it's just that the touch is firm rather than light--for some reason, that seems to be more comfortable for me.
Does anyone else have this problem? Any ideas on how I can learn to be more comfortable with touching?
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I think everyone has different levels of comfort with their personal space. If a stranger touches me or comes to close, I back off right away and feel as you do. I can see you would like to change, I just don't know how to help you. Maybe you would feel better about touching if you reach out to touch people more? If you make the effort and start reaching out to your friends maybe that would begin a change, I don't know if that will work though.
Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I LOVE touch (is a cat)... but there are some people and some times when I need a large personal bubble.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I do not like people being in my personal space. It makes me feel icky and uncomfortable. I especially hate being touched unexpectedly by strangers. Perhaps I am not used to it. I feel sorry for whoever ends up with me.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Shigosei, years ago, I was attacked by a rapist. I wasn't raped, because I fought back, but for a very long time after I had the same type of reaction that you describe.
Could this be part of post traumatic stress syndrome? For me it was. I probably should have gotten professional counselling and help to get over it, but I never did. I think I've put it all behind me, but I had the exaggerated startle response and the aversion to touching for many many years.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I'm with you, telp. I LOVE being touched. I like people in my personal space, though I avoid invading other people's personal space without an invitation.
Lucky for me Chris is a real cat, too when it comes to touch. If we're within arm's reach (driving, playing on our computers, or whatever) he'll often reach out and touch my arm or shoulder, etc. and I'll do the same. He's a big snuggler, too.
I don't know how you could change this easily, Shigosei, but if it is a problem for you that you want to change I think Treason has a good idea. Think of small ways you can increase your touching and you might find yourself more at ease when touched.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Good for you, Tante! You kick butt (literally, I hope)! -- I think fear of touch is fear of intimacy -- and this fear is entirely justified! If a stranger wants to get that close to me, why should I trust, yet?
And in the US, "that close" is pretty far out. I was at OSC's summer writing class. He demonstrated this, using me as guinea pig: US distance; Brazil distance ("in your face" in US terms); France distance (like Brazil, but with an arm around me). I was a 90's, or millenium, guy, and I can be touched -- I thought. It completely unnerved me.
Martial arts is different. It's scripted, and it doesn't promise intimacy.
But I think it's good become more tolerant of touch, because touch is a good thing. I think you become more tolerant of it by doing it. Maybe also by letting people into your mental space, as well: letting them know what you're thinking and feeling, in that very moment, especially about them. Doesn't that give the same fear reaction, if you think telling a truth that increases intimacy?
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I used to be like that, Shigosei... I'm not sure how I got over it, but I did. I'm now a hug machine.
I'm sorry, that was incredibly unhelpful. I hope some other people's advice helped you, though. Good luck with that!
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I didn't used to like being touchded. But then that was back around High School days when I was more or less an outcast. These days, I don't mind so much.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I think it could be an asian thing, too. But my husband has the "cat" think going on that some of the guys have alluded to. I think for me, I don't mind intimate touch (hugging, snuggling, holding hands + all the other stuff) with my husband but people who feel the need to grab my shoulder when they say thank you and stuff like that, I've had to learn to tolerate. I'm obviously not going to tolerate someone rubbing my arm while they are talking to me, though.
I even felt weird about kissing my oldest daughter when she was born. I mean, I liked to hold her and stuff but I felt it was weird even to kiss her just on the forehead.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Lucky for me Chris is a real cat, too when it comes to touch. If we're within arm's reach (driving, playing on our computers, or whatever) he'll often reach out and touch my arm or shoulder, etc. and I'll do the same. He's a big snuggler, too.
That is exactly how Xavier is too. I wasn't a touchy person at all until he came along. Now, I'm much more comfortable when other people touch me.
And Tante, you're awesome.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I've always been like that. Sensory integration issues of various sorts run all through my family.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
It is very true that different people have differing personal space bubbles and reactions to touch. I tend towards a very small personal space. I have to try to remind myself that not everyone is comfortable with the kind of space that I am, so I don't infringe on other people's space. I would consider myself somewhat touchy and I rarely am bothered by other people touching me. I come from fairly touchy parents, so maybe that's why. Heck, I even kiss my kittens on their foreheads. Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I think I've reached that point in life when personal space is driven to the top of one's priority list. My body has become my temple again. I think it has come about because of my strengthening desire for a guy. Of course, there's no point in keeping anything "pure" for love -- but what matters is that I feel like it. I've worked up so much sensitivity for my body in thoughts, in fantasies, that I feel uncomfortable when people touch me without my gesturing permission. Touching hands is slowly becoming the limit of my borderline. It is as if I've finally reached that point in life where playing is over, a point that most people my age had reached years ago.
posted
I think it largely has to do with how you are raised. I grew up in a very touch feely family. My roommate now and good friend since middle school did not. For a long time it drove me nuts. Like when I got really excited and tried to hug her, she'd feel uncomfortable. Since then, I've learned how to respect other people's space. But it does take a concious effort on my part. Perhaps if you similarly exerted a concious effort to not be bothered, it would help you.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Meh. I'm touchy, dkw's not. We were raised in the same family, although no two kids are raised exactly the same, obviously. So while it might work for some people, I don't think it's a major factor.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Tante, I'm pretty sure it's not post-traumatic stress of any kind. I've never been physically threatened, and as I mentioned, having my arm pinned to the ground so that I can't move it at all doesn't bother me.
I enjoy hugs and such with my immediate family, but move outside that circle, and I really have to be in the right mood for it. I suppose it could be an intimacy issue, though I really have no problem telling my friends things.
I will try the touching other people more often. Honestly, it's just not something that occurs to me to do when I'm having a conversation, most of the time.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Hugs, most often, are torture if I didn't initiate it.
I have a problem with people sneaking up on me and touching me, like, a hand on the shoulder. That action gets that person elbowed and punched fairly quickly and the reaction is pure reflex for me. If anyone touches the bottom of my feet, I kick. Reflex. It actually physically hurts when someone touches the bottom of my feet.
However, I tend to be rough and tumble. I love sports. Playing with my little cousins, I tend to be the jungle gym. All that touch never bothers me, I think because it's a different touch, expected touch, and yeah, I have control over it.
posted
I'm a really huggy affectionate person, but all of my family is not. I feel like a Spaniard who grew up in a family of Scots or something. So I try to respect everyone's space and tell by body language what they prefer. But most of my friends are more or less like me.
Is this trait inborn or learned? It must be some of each, since different cultures have such vastly different standards, and since different people even in the same family can be so different.
I notice, though, that kids nearly universally want more touch than adults, so maybe it's just another trait I have as part of my extreme neoteny. I still get zits on my face sometimes! I still like to stay up really late. Physiologically in many ways I'm still an adolescent. I remember watching some Desmond Morris show one night about the human animal, and it was about adolescence. At the end of the show it talked about what happens at the end of adolescence, how you can tell when adolescence is over and I was astonished and fascinated. None of that ever happened to me! <laughs>
That's why I figure I'm a different species, a dragon, perhaps, in early adolescence despite the fact that I'm 14,047 years old. I guess dragon children just like a lot more touch than do humans.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I don't dislike being touched. On one level, I crave it desperately. But I have an instinctive aversion response to it, particularly when it catches me by surprise. Intellectually I want to be that touchy-feely person, but on some deeper level I don't seem to be able to.
I don't think I have fear of intimacy or anything quite so trite as that.
posted
I do not like being brushed against on the subway, or brushed against on the street when people pass me by. Perhaps I am an animal that has to be tamed and slowly taught to get used to touching and being touched.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I hate being touched by strangers; there's something so condescending about it. But I love being touched by people I care about. Especially friends.
Yet I do not touch them back. I give polite, quick hugs. If a friend of mine comes and puts their head on my shoulder, I sit there and stare straight ahead.
I think it's got something to do with being uncomfortable with how I look. (I'm a fat dude.)
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I don't have much input on the topic, but I do have a somewhat related story.
(Story)
While I was volunteering at a first aid station on campus, a lady once came in for heat exhaustion. I helped cool her down and then we conversed.
She was really great, and I found out that she was a lawyer and that her son goes to the same college I do. She told me that her son was kind of a deliquent his early teenage years (middle school-ish), hanging with the misbehaving crowds, and taking up drug-use.
She told me once this started happening that she realized she wasn't very close to her son and that she barely ever touched or even hugged him. He wasn't much of a hugger either.
So she tried something out. She would ask her son to hug her. "I need a hug," she would tell him, and he would give her a hug. She did this frequently and there was a corellation, but I'm not sure if it was mere coincidence, pretty soon her son stopped hanging out with those crowds and started focusing on school again.
In the end, by the time he was highschool, he was voted "most huggable."
posted
I went through a period where I couldn't stand to be touched. It was very much a visceral reaction.
Something changed, though. I started to crave some kind of touch from someone I loved. I think this came about when I realized that I hadn't had a hug from a friend in over three years.
Now, I can't get enough -- at least from people I care about. Strangers still kinda freak me out, but it's managable.
I must say, I find that physical affection makes my life so much better. Posts: 1069 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I've encountered many people with touch aversion, including some family members. I know that this can be a response to a traumatic event but often I've seen cases where it's a hyper/hypo sensitivity issue.
I worked as a behaviour therapist for a number of years with kids. Some of them had a huge aversion to touch. Others were too touchy feely even with strangers. In many of the touch aversion kids they expressed that they felt pressure or even pain out of proportion to what was actually happening to them. Some of them really panicked. I found over with different kids that sometimes controlled exposure over time (where they could ask to be touched or hugged when they were expecting it) helped them get used to normal touch. Other kids found that sensory integration aids like weighted vests helped. Temple Grandin addresses these issuses well in her books.
That said, I don't think anyone needs to be made uncomfortable by others touching them. People should respect your personal space. There are LOTS of people who are uncomfortable with too casual touching from aquaintances. I included the above suggestions in case you felt you wanted to make a change for your own benefit and were looking for aids that could help.
Posts: 251 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I used to have a real issue with it, but that's because I was pretty anti-social. My bubble's popped by now.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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