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When someone goes to touch me in a friendly way:

Tue, 2007-08-21 18:58 - neophyte
I brace and stiffen and look real obvious and uncomfortable
36% (5 votes)
I back away and avoid physical contact, but try not to make it look too obvious
21% (3 votes)
I try to grin and bear it, and just wait for it to be over
29% (4 votes)
I love being touched, hugged, and kissed
7% (1 vote)
I'm usually the one touching, hugging, and kissing people, first
7% (1 vote)
Total votes: 14

Comments

Tue, 2007-08-21 19:13 — Kerry

Safe, Invited Touch

I answered that I normally brace and stiffen when someone touches me.  However, when I feel safe, and when I feel like I want to invite someone close to me, that's when I like to hug and kiss people.   The key for me is the sense of invasion.  I hate feeling as if my body-space is being invaded.  <shudder>

I make it a point to let my children know when I'm feeling grumpy, or "closed-in" so they know, my not wanting to touch them has nothing to do with them, as much as it is my need to have my own space for a little while.  Just that little bit of control over my own body-space makes enough of a difference for me to feel better so I can snuggle with them a little later.

Tue, 2007-08-21 22:07 — Niels

Touch

I have the same. When I read the poll, I realized I do brace and stiffen, but not always and when I don't I love touch.

Tue, 2007-08-21 23:59 — blanche

hurt feelings

i don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so i try to keep my feelings to myself, but the truth is, i hate when people touch me unless it's me making the advance.

Tue, 2007-08-28 05:36 — Kerry

Touch, Trust, and the Tragedy that Bonds the Two Together

Holding Therapy is the modern-day rebirthing answer many are using to "cure" displaced adopted/autistic children these days.  Perhaps the premise began well-intentioned, as I'm sure it did.  Either as a comfort tactic, or birthing-process, the concept - like adoption itself - reads well.  It's the practice used on real people, in real-life situations, where real abuse of power and real heart-wrenching stories takes place where once again, the tragedies of death take place.  Death by suffocation or strangulation is taking place in the name of "attachment therapy", all because inappropriate touch of an untrusted adult hurts yet another child and parents.
 
There is no argument that care and concern must be given to children.  The question is how is it going to be implemented, if private agencies are allowed to profit from child placement and irreverent practices that focuses more on sales and quotas and less on quality and care?
 
Who is the first to touch and hold a child?  Is that first touch felt at birth?  If so, shouldn't that first touch be felt by that the child's parents?  And if not, shouldn't all efforts be made to ensure each child will know he/she is loved and protected by a family that will never hurt, harm or betray his sense of wellbeing, simply by teaching good parenting skills to all young adults capable of reproduction, in the first place?
 
The way I see it, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
 
Sun, 2008-05-11 15:40 — Kerry

Talking about "touch"

This past week I've been having lots of private discussions about "touch", and how easily it can be seen and felt as a mind-numbing experience.

For some, their skin surface can be super hyper-sensitive, making a single touch an arousing (almost sexual) experience.

For others, the skin seems to be immune to feeling, making a person's surface dead, detatched, and devoid of any pleasurable feeling .

Most interesting to me, however, is how so many melt to the hand that strokes his/her own mane.  

I know for myself, I don't like my skin to be touched (for various reasons), but I weaken like a baby when someone plays with my hair. 

Why does the hair-stroke have to be so warm and comforting, yet skin-touch can become so freezing?

  

Mon, 2008-05-12 19:58 — kimette

I hate being touched.

I brace and stiffen when someone touches me  and since recently, sometime, I avoid contact and I don't even try to hide it. 
When touching comes from my best friends, it's fine but sometime, I hate being touched even from my hubby. 
My hubby likes to be tickled.  On the contrary, my reaction can be very bad if a skin touch is too much like a tickling to me.

Mon, 2008-05-12 20:08 — Kerry

[I had to laugh!!!]

My skin has become SO desensitized, I don't respond to someone tickling me. 

Actually, when my kids try to tickle me, I don't laugh, and that amazes them.  Once they see I don't laugh, they stop and make fun of me -- which is fine because they are my kids and I don't mind them seeing the many strange sides of me.

If an adult tries to tickle me, I feel rage, and I try to block all sense of sensation out of me.  I do this so I don't lash-out and hurt the person trying to make me laugh.

Crazy, isn't it?

Thu, 2008-09-25 04:29 — Teddy

To feel the touch...

This week I allowed someone to touch me in the hopes that I could feel something.  Because I was in control and I wasn't being groped, I could allow it to happen.  The most enjoyable was the hand holding.  The rest was almost no feeling at all.
It was almost as if there was no touching going on other than the hands.   An arm around my shoulders was awkward.  The
kisses were ok but ... well...  it was generic and did nothing to me emotionally but to say I allowed someone to kiss me on the lips and I didn't panic. 
I wish I could feel a touch as a sensation like I've always heard it could be.  Tickling would make me angry!  I don't need to
block sensations; I try so hard to feel sensations.  I tried concentrating very hard but found myself very detached and unfeeling, which was a big disappointment.

"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy

Thu, 2008-09-25 12:56 — Kerry

Unblocking

I really recognized this for myself:

 I don't need to block sensations; I try so hard to feel sensations.  I tried concentrating very hard but found myself very detached and unfeeling, which was a big disappointment.

I have a very difficult time feeling things that normal people find pleasing.  This is very frustrating because I don't like NOT feeling things that could be pleasurable.  It's as if I'm the walking definition of physical impotency, and I will admit it's really embarrassing in a very humiliating way. 

It is rare that I'm able to feel a hug... I don't feel it in my arms, but there are times I can feel the pressure of another body on my breasts, so there are all sorts of weird rules that have to pass in my mind before I can allow myself to feel the pleasure a hug can give me.  [I'm writing this and realizing just how crazy it all seems!]

....

It's very difficult going from "automatic reaction" to concentrating effort.  Knowing I have to work so hard for something so basic and simple is very disturbing to me -- it almost defeats the purpose of spontaneous feeling, making me think it's just not worth the effort to get so little "positive feedback" in return.  However, there ARE those rare times I can feel soft warm touch, and that touch feels good... so that at least tells me the ability to feel physical sensation without blocking it out is within me somewhere... I just have trouble reaching it.

Thu, 2008-09-25 14:22 — Teddy

Pleasurable feelings...

From all the years of forced celibacy came the need to repress any sexual feelings because I wanted to be a faithful
wife.  Evilx was the master liar and I so want to believe people's words to me.  He faked his sexual inability and
pretended to do without while I was in misery believing I was not desirable.  Pleasurable was not a part of my life
because I thought I had to be true to a man who was doing without...  NOT!  This is when he was mastering his
addiction to masturbation which, later on, had to be upped to molesting my daughter in order to get the same high.
Masturbation can be addictive, like a drug, needing more as time goes by for the high that was first achieved.
All of this true-blue wife stuff mixed into the past abuse of my dad, and now I find myself, as Kerry said:  "It's as if I'm the walking definition of physical impotency...." 
I believe there are more of us here who suffer from this very same thing and I just want to say you are not alone.  Having no
bond with the first mother; sexual abuse by a family member; and then having to deal with an evil spouse who blows
trust right out of the water, leaves a damaged person, alone and bouncing from rage, to desperately trying to feel anything physical.  Oh yes, this is my life that I am trying to overcome...

About touching, I wanted to add:  People ASK me if they can hug me because they know how much I hate being touched.

"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy

Thu, 2008-09-25 11:23 — Bizzi

I avoid all physical

I avoid all physical contact...

Thu, 2008-09-25 15:16 — Kerry

the sick, messed-up pup in me....

When I read all these types of responses, I can't help but think we all give new meaning to "a sexual dry-spell".

...