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Do you ever get touch starved?

Thea

Thea

Well-Known Member
I've never really had the thing I've seen described where I can't stand anyone touching me. I have difficulty with strangers and people I really don't like but people I'm close to I'm fine with touching me. The kind of touch I'm referring to in the subject though is intimate touch. It doesn't have to be with a lover, but the kind of touch where you can hug people for extended periods of time without someone thinking it's weird, the kind of touch where you can curl your bodies around each other or even just casually touch each other without it being uncomfortable and weird. I got really badly touch starved before dating my boyfriend. We went out for 7 months and have been broken up for 1. I'm really dreading feeling as touch starved as I was before I dated him. I wonder if it won't be worse because now I've experienced that length of relationship (longest one so far) I know what I'm missing, so to speak.
I value your thoughts and insights in this matter.
 
I think I substitute loving and petting my cats and dog for the desire for human touch. I have always loved cuddling babies and little children and I can't get enough of dogs and cats. However, I still feel invaded by casual human touch.
 
Only with my wife - anybody else and it makes me awkward. But with my wife, I do sometimes just make physical contact for the sake of it (putting my leg on top of hers, leaning an arm or my head, etc). She says I'm part cat.
 
When I was young, my mother and father split and my mother developed her...own coping mechanisms, which involved alcohol and the liberal use of recreational weed. As I've said in other places on the board, my grandmother was there for me, and she gave me a lot of those kinds of hugs and touches, but I don't think I got as much of it as 'healthily raised' children.

Until I met Rudy I didn't realize how much I craved these things--and now that I have him, I'm CONSTANTLY holding his hand, putting my head on his shoulder, or curling up with my head on his lap while he plays games. Sometimes a hug will actually make me feel recharged. I think this is a way of 'letting my mask down'--when I get that kind of hug, I know I can relax and not have to worry about being in charge of anything in particular.

~Rachel
 
Rudy Schmidt said:
Only with my wife - anybody else and it makes me awkward. But with my wife, I do sometimes just make physical contact for the sake of it (putting my leg on top of hers, leaning an arm or my head, etc). She says I'm part cat.
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Rachel Roth said:
Until I met Rudy I didn't realize how much I craved these things--and now that I have him, I'm CONSTANTLY holding his hand, putting my head on his shoulder, or curling up with my head on his lap while he plays games. Sometimes a hug will actually make me feel recharged. I think this is a way of 'letting my mask down'--when I get that kind of hug, I know I can relax and not have to worry about being in charge of anything in particular.

~Rachel
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Ahhhhhhhhh! You two are so cute! What you said just makes me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :)
 
Yep. I tend to enjoy hugs although I am awkward with them and I don't usually feel "sure" that someone is trying to give me a hug.
I only have minor sensory issues though...perhaps because of the occupational therapy I had as a child. I really just hate being touched *obsessively*, but that is probably normal.
 
It happened to me once in 2007.

I have since taken steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. :oops:
 
Thea said:
I've never really had the thing I've seen described where I can't stand anyone touching me. I have difficulty with strangers and people I really don't like but people I'm close to I'm fine with touching me. The kind of touch I'm referring to in the subject though is intimate touch. It doesn't have to be with a lover, but the kind of touch where you can hug people for extended periods of time without someone thinking it's weird, the kind of touch where you can curl your bodies around each other or even just casually touch each other without it being uncomfortable and weird. I got really badly touch starved before dating my boyfriend. We went out for 7 months and have been broken up for 1. I'm really dreading feeling as touch starved as I was before I dated him. I wonder if it won't be worse because now I've experienced that length of relationship (longest one so far) I know what I'm missing, so to speak.
I value your thoughts and insights in this matter.
Click to expand...
Thank you for sharing this kind of vulnerability and need. I have suffered from touch deprivation, too. Like you, I am not affectionate toward just anyone. But if I feel really connected with someone, I can be extremely affectionate and "touchy". I did find that getting a professional massage every six weeks or so helped during a period of my life when I felt especially deprived of touch. You might explore that option if you find yourself needing some kind of physical contact with someone. Just make sure it is on a strictly professional basis!
 
gouldgrl said:
Thank you for sharing this kind of vulnerability and need. I have suffered from touch deprivation, too. Like you, I am not affectionate toward just anyone. But if I feel really connected with someone, I can be extremely affectionate and "touchy". I did find that getting a professional massage every six weeks or so helped during a period of my life when I felt especially deprived of touch. You might explore that option if you find yourself needing some kind of physical contact with someone. Just make sure it is on a strictly professional basis!
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Thanks for the advice. :-)
 
Ericho said:
So you want to be touched? Do you live with relatives or family that you can regularly touch?
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Yes, but if you read the post I miss the kind of intimacy that allows extended touch. I hug my family but after a while it's not enough.
 
It doesn't happen to me much. I just have a very open family. Is there perhaps a place you work at with close friends you can talk to or maybe a church?
 
"Touch starved" is a great way to express it; I never thought about giving it a name. I definitely experience it, and, same as you, it isn't satisfied by friends or family (and I don't want anyone else touching me).
 
I have a good number of problems, including depression and anxiety, and I do believe I am pretty badly touch starved. I'm also very lonesome and have lost lots of net friends due to my lack of empathy for how people want to be treated in friendships. I have a serious question about this.
I think my loneliness and anxiety, social awkwardness, and learning disabilities all team up to make me err a lot. I would really love to find friends who, even online, will virtually hold hands or hug or snuggle or something, but I have misread or missed signals from others, and have come across as trespassing against people's personal boundaries and too affectionate for what the friendship merits. I don't want to come across as a dangerous person; I'm just lonely and affectionate, and gosh I meet the loveliest people.
How can I be more aware of what people are accepting of, so that I won't put people off? I know of course I could ask them directly, but social anxiety makes that very daunting. Are there any other suggestions you can think of? Thank you in advance.
 
Throughout my early life I never regarded myself as 'touchy feely', however, I had no shortage of girlfriends so was always in the realm of touching or being touched.

The last decade I have been on my own and the lack of physical contact is seriously notable. I find I crave even the slightest touch from another person, almost as if it confirms reality. I do have thoughts that I could be hallucinating the whole decade, or that everyone around me could be ghosts, as I never connect with them.

Two weeks ago an acquaintance stroked my hand whilst in conversation, she meant nothing much by it but after she left I sat in my car and cried. I dread to think what would happen if someone hugged me, I think lack of contact is the hardest part of being alone.
 
Harrison54 It sounds to me that you may be experiencing dissociation, especially with the last bit of your 2nd paragraph just above. I'm learning about how I experience that too, it's worth looking up.
For me I often feel like I'm only a specator, watching myself go through life, unable to control what's happening, almost as if I were watching a movie about myself. It's frightening! So I do like to ask net friends for contact, hugs and hand holding. It helps me feel as if I'm at least grounded, tethered to the real world somehow. It doesn't help that my career deals with fiction and the imagination!
 
Fascinating topic, I spent the first decade of life being physically and mentally beaten daily, the second more mentally than physically, but still flinching at even the tiniest hint of someone coming within a literal arms length, worried that they were going to beat on me as well, the third decade saw me well away from most of the abusers, but still very much flinching at the thought of anyone being in reach of smacking me for no reason. Now in the 4th decade I have a couple kitty cats around for hugging on, and I no longer flinch when someone extends a hand to shake, but I do not know how comfortable I would be with other people touching me beyond that.
 
Ike Aramba said:
Harrison54 It sounds to me that you may be experiencing dissociation, especially with the last bit of your 2nd paragraph just above. I'm learning about how I experience that too, it's worth looking up.
For me I often feel like I'm only a specator, watching myself go through life, unable to control what's happening, almost as if I were watching a movie about myself. It's frightening! So I do like to ask net friends for contact, hugs and hand holding. It helps me feel as if I'm at least grounded, tethered to the real world somehow. It doesn't help that my career deals with fiction and the imagination!
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I shall look into it, thank you
 
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