Ah, a sensitive subject but one which sorely needs addressing. Whilst it is true that the vast majority of Aspies avoid the touch of others, I beg to strongly disagree. On this issue I stand alone and sometimes get slightly offended for the generalization...actually quite a bit.
Maybe its the fact that I have surrounded myself with very safe and beautiful people...I'm not sure...but I am a hug whore and enjoy being touched.
I laugh, the first thing that springs to mind when I write this, is back when Eldest first started school and one of the other kids mom and I would always chat and she'd do one of those arm punches whenever she saw me and it just tickles me and yeah, sometimes it was a bit strong but it was fun and I knew that she liked me.
OMG, yeah, I forever feel like a little kid. And arm punches are cool.
I am not a china doll. And I most certainly do not enjoy feeling like a pariah and that others are avoiding me and treating me different than any other.
I experience the world around me most thoroughly through touch. I tend to touch everything from newly fallen snow to the bark of trees (I love the feel of our red oaks)to almost every living plant and natural material, rocks, moss, flowers, etc. When I first experienced the smokey glass window at the jail, the first thing I wanted to do was to touch it..because if I touch something I can understand it.
I have learned to restrain my self on a number of occasions simply because I wasn't sure if it was appropriate. Damn, I have this thing where I love to touch peoples hair and I have to remember not to always act on that impulse. The same is true about certain clothing that either looks really soft and inviting or just plain new and different. Yeah, another thing about me that is a lot like a little kid.
One of my favorite endeavours is volunteering at little guys school because there are about half a dozen kids who will simply walk up to me and ask me for a hug. Ah, to be so unabashed.
Asking,hmm, asking, sometimes I wonder why that doesn't work very well. I have some theories but all I know for sure is that it, the mechanism whereby a person asks for and receives that which they desire, simply don't work. And the more emotional the request, the less likely that it will ever be spoken.
Another big secret, (I am all about dispelling the myths because living within this room, this mansion of secrets is akin to spending ones life within a small rubber room where the only ornaments on the wall are pointed spears, lining the entire wall, evenly spaced every six inches or so, all pointing in and very sharp...yeah, one gets afraid to even move lest the bleeding begin) is that sometimes my arms simply won't work and I am unable to hug back and the funny thing is that that is often times when I need it the most. (see, I wrote that as fast as I could because it is one of those more..painful, emotional truths that I believe if I write really fast, I can pretend that I did not reveal :) So, just because someone does not hug back does not mean to back off.
Boy, shouldn't life be a bit simpler than all this?
The loneliest times in my life, and remember that I have lived months and maybe even years with an almost extreme form of self-isolation, have been when there was no one to hold.
Dang, honestly, one of the reasons that I specifically had my kids was to have someone to hold. And a puppy just didn't meet the criteria..it doesn't fulfill this human-contact need that I have.
Something that I have noticed, especially as of late..is just how very much time I spend..lost in my own thoughts. Hours a day would not be an understatement. And...touch makes me feel real...helps me to realize that I am really here. Its very grounding and reassurring. I know, probably sounds a bit odd, but I have really spent years in the "in between"..in the fog, observing the mist, slightly removed and behind the curtain...and touch makes me feel real, complete and all together...its a validation that I am really here and wanted, needed, vital, alive, all kinds of things.
I guess I will always be the alien but every once in awhile its nice to feel human. Touch is all about being human, being real...really being here
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