So, who freaks out at any physical contact?

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I've not seen any threads on this and it's the most noticeable aspect of my brain troubles. Especially when your friends are very touchy feely hippies and furries. Anyway, I freak out when people touch me, like, seriously lose it. I was hugged once by someone who took it upon themselves to rid me of this silly game I play and I hyperventilated, flailed around through the hug and ultimately passed out, waking up to a very apologetic friend.

Does anyone else have this problem? I'm not looking for help, I really don't like being touched period, just looking for someone to share experiences with I guess...

I had an incident when I was younger and at a friends house and I don't like to be grabbed from behind and a mutual friend who was cognitively disabled grabbed me from behind and I got startled and I didn't know it was him and I swung around and hit him and hurt him so because of that I have never hit another person and on day last year a person came up from behind and put their hands on my shoulders and said "guess who" and I freaked out.

I have the same problem, although I can handle it pretty well now. I don't like getting touched by anyone, unless I am very very close to them, and even then, only if I want to be touched/want to touch them. I used to be much worse than I am now. As a kid, I had to rub the place someone touched, almost as if I was rubbing off something they left behind, and I still do rub it often, just with more subtlety - a caress instead of a vigorous scrubbing.

Now I'm ok with hugs from friend and all that, although if it's someone I'm not particularly close to, it feels weird and I often do it awkwardly. For friends, it's usually awkward the first few times, then I get used to them doing that and it becomes no problem.

So nobody, out of you two people, has ever completely lost it and passed out from panic and hyperventilating? Man, that's the most mortifying thing people can just do to me if they feel like it(once bullies caught on to this in high school they made a sport out of it, they got expelled for it eventually though=D) I mean, you say you've improved, that's weird as I've been like this for as long as I can remember and never really improved at all.

my reaction isn't so extreme, but i do jerk away when people touch me. really offends them. i can usually fight that reaction if i'm feeling calm and i see the touch coming. not really an issue with my gf or my immediate family, they can touch me whenever as long as i can see it's them.

Being tall, I have a similar problem with hurting myself (e.g. bumping my head against doorways). It makes me angry, scared, and frustrated, as if the whole world is against me. On the other hand, that is objectively true: the built environment was designed for smaller people, and I am literally a troublemaker by being tall.

I wonder if disliking touch is rational as well. I would LOVE to be touched, but experience tells me that it never ends well. So it is much safer to avoid the discomfort by avoiding touch altogether.

Hehe, yeah. I get that a lot too. Not angry but in this part of England houses are usually really old, people were a lot shorter 200 years ago apparently and my 4 foot 5 mother hits her head time to time. I stand at 6 foot 4. I'll leave the rest to your imagination...

There are places I can' t be touched. That bothers many people when they try to hug me. That bothers a lot of people.

yeah, I forgot to say, I adopted a rhyme from Questionable Contents Hannelore "hugging henry heralds heavy hyperventilation" which is my default, make light of the fact that I'm insane social interaction thing that I tell people.

I don't freak out when I'm touched I just flinch. But I make it clear to people that I don't want to be touched.

Many of us on the spectrum have touch issues. They seem to fall into two categories. With type one, some of us are sensitive to irritants from clothing, like tags, seems, type of fabric, etc. With type 2, some of us are extremely sensitive to social touching, and surprise touching, and yes, many of us suffer from both types of sensitivity, myself included. My reaction to social touching is not as severe as yours, but I really don't like it. I also don't like people coming up behind me and giving me a hug or touching my shoulders. However, I have gotten better at handling social touching from the front over the years, and can manage to force myself to shake hands, hug, or give a quick kiss when the situation demands it, but I still don't like it.

As a child I absolutely hated sitting in some ones lap, and then having them lean back, but it was more of a balance issue. I really couldn't stand the leaning back part, because I felt way off balance, besides being touched. I have also always hated being tilted back while standing, as well.

Unfortunately, too many NTs have a hard time dealing with our dislike of touching. I think they regard our behavior not only as weird, but as a kind of rejection of them, even though it's not. It's a rejection of touching. They can't seem to understand that to some people social physical contact is psychologically very uncomfortable.

Even worse, there are bully types who take great pleasure in looking for and then preying upon the least weakness they find in others, including people on the spectrum. Bullies are no respecters of disability or other disadvantage.

There is no way to cure the NT world of their liking for social touching. We just have to learn how to deal with at least some of it. And remember, we on the spectrum are all:

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

Hm, that's a very apt poem you have as a sig, barfo. Anyway, handshakes were another big thing for me too when I was looking for a job a few years back. Turns out employers look for respectful teenagers for their menial labour and took to telling me to leave straight after I said I don't shake hands. Go figure.

Light Touch

To many autistic children, light touch is truly disturbing. Human skin has various sensors at the base of the hairs that are designed to scan for threats, such as a snake slithering across your arm while you sleep. These sensors are activated by light touch, triggering an alarm signal to the brain at the lightest of touches. In autistic children, with their overly excitatory nervous systems, light touch can send an amplified signal of great alarm to the brain resulting from a light caress from their mother, irrespective of what the child’s eyes are telling them about who or what they are interacting

from:http://www.aconversationonautism.com/CopingwithAutism/SensoryIntegration.aspx

This describes how I respond to unexpected light touch. I also feel the need to rub the area deeply afterwords.

^ Yeah that, including the rubbing afterwards.

Fortunately, I virtually never have people trying to put their paws on me (though actual paws of animals are welcome).

I like touch from my wife, but even when she touches me lightly it sends me shivering. I don't like touch generally from others, but grit my teeth and bear it when I must.

I have a saying. "Don't touch me unless you really mean it." If you must touch me, make it a bear hug. Superfluous and 'reassuring' touches bug me and confuse me because I often cannot read the intent behind them.