I'm not a needy person, but I'm also extremely needy. Like, I really don't need much, it's just that my needs have gone unmet for so long that I really need to have them met.
"Touch starvation" really doesn't even begin to explore the depths what 20+ years of little to no physical affection can do to you. I have gone my entire adult life without an important aspect of the human experience and it has been deeply painful in ways I don't even fully understand because all I can observe is the absence. I don't know what life is like when you have that need met, I only know what it is to go without it.
Therapy gave me coping mechanisms to deal with the pain, but there's nothing I can do to make it go away. It's a part of my biology and there is no escape from that need. What the tools gave me is the ability to keep myself from focusing on that pain and letting it overwhelm me to the point of deep, prolonged depressive episodes. They did not give me the ability to heal from it and move on because you cannot move on from something that is still actively hurting you. I am no longer controlled by the pain, but it's still very much there. And unless I find what I need, it always will be.
#personal#thoughts#touch starvation#actually autistic#actually adhd#I do not understand how to interact with the world well enough#to be able to make the kind of interpersonal connections#that could lead to situations where I receive physical affection#I'm finally learning how to live in the world#but there's still a chasm I have to cross to get where I need to be#and I'm not sure I've got enough time left to do that
I've spent so long trying to say what it is that I want that I'm not even sure how to express it anymore. It just feels contrived and repetitious. There are so many different ways to say it, but it all boils down to "I need physical contact with somebody I care about." Everything else is just flourish and bad poetry.
Being touch starved and touch averse at the same time is wild. You desperately need physical contact and intimacy, but it has to be from someone you're emotionally connected to. Because being touched in general is overwhelming and sensory overload, but when you care about someone their touch is soothing. It's still very intense and you feel it a lot, but in a good way.
The only way I can think to describe it is that touch in general is like being shocked by high voltage electricity. It's painful and intense and you feel it course through every part of you. Sharp and hot, but in that way that it feels almost cold because the body doesn't know how to process a feeling that intense. But when it's someone you care about, it's like touching those glass plasma balls. You can still feel it course through you, but it's dampened and excites the cells in your body, making your hair stand on end. There's a soft, warm, fuzziness to it like a warm blanket on a cold night.