Stop Touching Her!

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I hate affection. In any way. I hate being a part of it. I hate seeing it. Anywhere, under any circumstances.

I hate seeing people hug in public; I literally feel as though I'm going to vomit. I hate seeing my friends hug; it makes me extremely uncomfortable. I hate it when people hug me; if I had wanted to be touched, I would have touched you.

Some days, it's worse than others. Sometimes, I will want to sleep with a particular person. Not in a sexual way; just sleep in the same bed as him. He produces heat, and his heart beat helps to keep mine normalcardic. It's not that I like him. Any heat-producing, normalcardic person will do, really. But some days, if I get within two feet of that same person, I'll flinch and I can feel my skin crawl, and my lunch start to churn in my stomach.

I don't understand why. Does anyone else experience this? If so, do you have any insight as to why? I would really like to understand this about myself, because if I don't understand it, I can never change it.

Was there something that caused you to hate it? For me, it was certain events that made me wretch when I saw it.

No; there wasn't anything in particular which makes me dislike affection. It's more of a reflex; some thought process goes on which I don't currently understand, or have access to.

For me, I only get that way if i'm really upset with a person. But that doesn't extend to it just being physical, its emotional as well.

Its like a switch flips on inside me that tells me to get ready to defend or protect myself. Maybe your reason for doing that is that you possibly feel you could be rejected afterwards. Other than that I honestly couldn't see how it'd benefit you to be okay with physical contact one day and not benefit you the next day.

Heck if its casual, the reverse could be held true. Maybe you're afraid of the person you're climbing into bed with wanting more from you.

I think it probably has something to do with the emotional dysregulation in our brains. Overactive amygdala and all that. You also seem to be hyper-empathazing in that you have strong physical and emotional sensations from a visual stimuli. I have become more comfortable with affection from people as I've gotten older. If they are well-meaning I can usually suppress the urge to run away. Just as we need patience from NTs, we also need to be patient with them. Now who says Aspies have no empathy?

Any warm body with a steady heartbeat will do? This doesn't sound like you have directed genuine affection at any particular person, so it seems inappropriate for you to be sleeping with any person for any purpose at this point. Maybe you're experiencing an unreadiness for this as a set of physical symptoms rather than on an emotional level. Isn't that one of the features of alexithymia? The body does things that are appropriate for some emotional stimulus, for example something that would make a person angry might cause a set of behaviors or symptoms, but when asked the person says "I'm not angry!" In your case, something that is supposed to produce a positive emotional response is producing negative physical symptoms. Don't do it if it doesn't feel right. In this case you might use the presence/absence of nausea as a guide, or at least a starting point.

do you think that perhaps some childhood trauma that you can't remember is what caused you to hate being touched?

sgrannel, I believe you have touched on an unrelated matter. I don't understand how certain things can be a sign of affection.

Sleeping in the same bed as someone means nothing to me. There is no connotative value, and I don't understand why some people attach a connotative value. I also do not understand the connection between gift-giving and affection, or the concept of reciprocity and when altruistic reciprocity (giving a gift, expecting no return) is inappropriate. I also don't understand mutual reciprocity at all. If someone gives me a gift, they give me a gift. I either appreciate this or I do not, and I verbalize appreciating and hold back on not appreciating (that took me a while), but I may never return the gesture. I don't know why they gave me a gift. When I give gifts, it is normally because the person seems to have expressed a need for something which it is in my power to give them, and which it will not directly harm me to give. Occasionally, it is because I wish to keep a person in my general vicinity. (Ie, I'll offer someone a smoothie if he/she comes with me to the store.) I wish to keep them in my vicinity because they understand me, and make social things slightly easier.

Nevertheless, these things to me have only a denotative value.

But most people, especially the NTs, will read all kinds of things you might not intend into the act of sleeping with them. When I was a young kid, I thought nothing of asking to sleep with my friends. I didn't understand there were sexual things that people would read into this and make fun of me for it . It just never occurred to me.

The symptoms you're experiencing may be your body's instinct acting to keep you out of trouble and keep you out of something you're not ready for, even if your mind hasn't registered it yet. Especially as a female, you bear the physical risks of these relationships, including pregnancy. But without a high enough sex drive to overcome the protective inhibitions, your genes will be less likely passed on, so maybe there's a sort of evolutionary arms race between the competing drives to reproduce and to protect oneself, resulting in ever higher drive and higher inhibition, that leads to a conflict, physical symptoms, etc. for the female humans at least if not necessarily also for the males. Just a theory, but does it explain anything?

Is the aversion to touch more prevalent in females than in males or is it about the same, and is it specific to ASDs? It's possible that males also have some trouble as a side effect of this, in the same sense that they have nonfunctional nipples.

Last edited by sgrannel on 07 Sep 2009, 4:50 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I don't really get why people are so opposed to any manner of touching here. As long as someone's not softly touching me with the intention to piss me off it's fine. Hugging the girl I liked was probably the most comfortable I've ever been.

I'm not averted to touch, but I have Lyme disease which makes physical contact painful.

I used to dislike PDA, Public Display of Affection, but over the years I've come to be neutral on it. Friends and acquaintances of mine tend to be a lot more "touchy feely" than me. so I tolerated more affectionate-non-sexual physical contact now I'm pretty desensitized and don't avoid it anymore, I'm just not likely to initiate contact. Most NT's seem to find that a rigid personal space and non-contact is an aloof behavior and is insulting especially in informal settings. I guess I'm saying that it's easier for me to be slightly uncomfortable with physical contact than deal with the brouhaha that ensues from avoiding it to obviously.


That will horribly confuse any NT male, he will automatically assume "sleep with" equals "have sex with", they don't take things as literally as we do.

normalcardic, that's interesting, my pulse drops to around 42 while I'm sleeping, I can actually cause my pulse to drop on purpose by breathing slowly and deeply, it drops on inhalation and increases on exhalation, great fun during EKG classes, I wonder if others have the same problem. Perhaps an electric blanket and a ticking clock would serve the same purpose.

my skin crawls when some people walk behind me, some days are more pronounced than others, with some people it's more pronounced than with people I'm comfortable with. We are all like that, it's just to different degrees and in different areas.

That's not true. Or at least not just for NT. I have at least some NT traits and can say:

First: I'm perfectly able to understand that first biological need of warmth. And it can indeed lower the heart beats.

Secondly: If the thing can be understand the other way round (as a sexual request) by most of men, it will be so equally understood by AS men as by NT men.

It isn't indeed a proposal to do to strangers. So, simply don't do that kind of proposal to anyone, no matter whether AS or NT.

sgrannel: it's a good theory, true. However, I am unsure as to why my fight-or-flight response to the same stimuli would change on a daily basis. Why do I want to tug on my friends hair one day, and flinch when I see someone put an arm around his girlfriend, a good three feet away from me, the next?

I suppose part of it may be that I'm unsure about what to do. How do normal people respond to PDA? They all seem to act differently. Some of them will whisper a comment to me, and others will become offended when I make a similar comment. Some will roll their eyes, others will smile. I just look at the ground, or somewhere neutral, and try not to look like I'm not looking because I've heard that not looking is somehow offensive, but simultaneously not look directly, because I've heard it's not right to stare.

However, some days, with my friends, I don't want them near me, or I flinch away from contact, and the 'not knowing what to do' explanation certainly does not suffice in those situations; I have apparently acted appropriately before, otherwise I don't think they would repeat the action. And my friends and their lovers; apparently I have acted appropriately in the presence of PDA on previous occasions, because they neither remarked on it to me, nor elected to not do so in the future. However, some days, I will not notice it at all, and others I will immediately run (sometimes literally - run) the way I came.

And as for the warmth / heart rate issue... I get very cold. Everywhere. All the time. This morning, the thermostat was set to 78* F. I was still so cold, when you pressed on my fingernails, the blood didn't return for a good four seconds or so. I wear leather jackets, in the summer, in Texas. When I sleep, sometimes, I'll wake up because a muscle group has contracted. I've been told this is because my heart and respiratory rates dip too low. So it's very nice to have the body heat, and the heart rate regulator.

Electric blankets can be testy. I'll be fine with "Medium" for a few hours, then wake up because it's too hot. Turn it down to "Low", wake up because it's too cold, turn it up to "Medium", wake up because I accidently kicked it off, etc. Humans are much less so. If I get too hot, he's probably already rolled away from me, and him being a few inches away from me, coupled with the insulating effect of the blanket, may still produce enough radiant heat to warm me sufficiently. I can only remember waking up once when I was sleeping in the same bed as someone, and in that case, this particular individual had kicked me in the stomach in her sleep. I have been wary of repeating the endeavor, for the understandable reason of liking my internal organs.

Also, I am unsure if a ticking clock or some other mechanical contraption would produce the same regulating effect as a human. It is, however, worth some investigation. I shall conduct research, and form an educated opinion about alternatives.

Something that produces a rhythm might be soothing, but it won't affect your heart rate, which is controlled involuntarily by a nerve. Are you certain that your heart rate is going too low? Have you measured it? Being too cold, and having an inappropriate heart rate, could be symptoms of thyroid trouble. Cramping might mean you're not drinking enough water/liquids.

Have you tried exercise? When I was your age, my hands would be relatively cold all the time, to the alarm of a few people. Since I started exercising heavily my hands are now warm all the time, and I generally wear less clothing than "normal" people do in the same setting to avoid overheating and remain comfortable. This is because resistance/cardio/weight training raises basal metabolic rate and increase muscle mass, which makes heat. It might also strengthen the heart itself and make it work better.

What's PDA?

Well, I haven't read thru the threads but do you think this could be related to autism or aspergers.

As an aspie, I'm so much physically sensative to touch as it's more about the way someone touches me....friendly or not.

There are some meds out there that help with that, then again maybe it's anxiety?

Anxiety is a huge crusher for me.