BPDFamily.com

Hi Everyone!

Question: Do all you children of BP parents (moms, specifically) struggle with touch?

I don't even know exactly how and if this ties into my experiences growing up with my BP mom, but I really don't handle touch well.

Especially if I don't initiate it, I kind of panic internally, willing the person to get off of me ASAP. This can be any touch- a baby toddling up to me and putting his hands on my lap, a comforting stroke, a hug, a kiss- anything!

My mom's abuse was emotional and verbal, never physical or sexual.

So why do I struggle with this?

Anyone have a similar experience?

It's been getting me into so many awkward spots, and I'm really getting embarrassed.

Hi tentoes

This is an interesting question. I'd say that I struggle with people getting close to me in general, whether it is through touch or something else. In my case it has to do with feeling safe. As a child I always felt on guard because the environment I was in wasn't a safe place.

What goes through your mind when someone touches you? What kind of feelings do you experience? Fear perhaps? Or shame?

Was your mother someone who was able to express her affection to you at all? Did she hug or kiss you? If she didn't, this could perhaps also be a partial explanation for your current struggles. Maybe expressing your affection through touch is something you're not comfortable with because you are simply not used to it.

  tentoes,


I can't speak for everyone here, but I did have this same feeling, however because of physical and sexual abuse. Could it be that the verbal and emotional abuse felt like a physical assault? Did your mom make statements threatening your personal safety without acting on it?


No need to feel embarrassed here. We understand and can relate. I want to commend you on your bravery for coming here and telling us how you are feeling. Have you read any of the articles on children of a BPD mom or FOG? I would suggest reading these, and I am including the links: https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog and https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=108307#msg1064893.

Are you considering seeing a professional to help with these feelings? I know that seeing a T was invaluable to my recovery and healing from my uBPDmom.

Glad you are! Look forward to hearing more about your story.  :)

Hi, Tentoes!

I actually do like physical touch, but I am only comfortable receiving it from people I trust. I can *give* physical touch to other people, but can't take it from them; I feel panicky, as you describe. My mom was not, most of the time anyway, physically abusive to me. And while I think she was borderline sexually abusive, it was with the telling-me-too-many-things-about-her-sex-life kind of thing, not with inappropriate touching. But I think that the problem remains the same; it's an invasion of self that sets my alarms off. My mom was constantly molesting my MIND. Forcing herself in on my mental processing, not allowing me privacy of thought and judgment. She was also constantly wanting emotional closeness and cuddly-ness - wanting endearments, bestowing pet names like unwanted caresses. I can totally see a similarity between this and unasked-for touch from other people. They assume - usually with no malicious intent - that they can touch you and that you'd welcome it. They have no way of knowing that you spent your entire childhood being touched - non-physically - without your permission and against your wishes.

Are there any people - close friends, a SO, healthy family members, a massage therapist - who you usually feel safe with if they touch you?

I have a big body-bubble, and need people to be clear about intentions prior to touching me, or I sometimes have a reflex to elbow them if they surprise me from behind. 

I was physically abused, but also neglected, and remember in high school feeling starved for affection, and really, really wanting hugs.  I felt so scared and nervous all the time during that period:

• We moved because my dad retired.

Before a year in the new place, we were homeless mid December after Mom didn't pay rent[/li][/list]

so we moved to yet another state sand her dad took us in for Christmas but kicked us out the day before I was to start a new school[/li]

[li]Some really awesome strangers from church took us in till we could afford an apartment[/li]

[li]Mom and Dad got increasingly violent at home till it all fell horribly apart[/li]

[li]Dad and I moved to another state so HIS parents cold take us in - they are the people who made him what he is[/li]

[li]A few months after we left the dovirce was final, and Dad found a new wife a few months after that, so we moved in with her[/li]

[/list]

After all of that from 1990-1993, the fragile idea of home and safety was totally gone, so I'd beg for hugs at 15 before going to bed at my stepmom's house.  I felt I wasn't welcome and did not have a place to belong.  I guess I was right, as a few years later I was kicked out by Dad, and she never stepped in to tell him he was overreacting or to comfort me,  She had her own kids and didn't need a 19 year old honors college student around I guess.

When I got to high school and college, I learned my isolation stunted my ability to gauge appropriate "play fighting" when during a slumber party a girl wanted to have a 'tickle-fight' and I wanted her to stop and I accidentally buster her lip

In college, a male friend tried to surprise me from behind, and I knocked him to the ground before I knew what happened.  I also seem to have elbowed and lashed out at people who have surprised me from behind, as a fight-or-flight reaction.  I think its basically abuse-survivor PTSD, that I have been learning to handle, and warning people to not sneak up one me

Yes yes yes. I'm very creeped out by touch to the point that it's often the butt of jokes amongst my husband's family (in a lighthearted way). They know when we leave after visiting them that I'm going to try to avoid the goodbye hugs. It's taken nearly 13 years of knowing them for me to be okay with hugging and being hugged by them. It took half as long for me to open up to them verbally, through no fault of their own, but because of my own trust issues.

I can echo the sentiments of others here in that I do not mind giving hugs, but accepting them is a bit harder. Unless it's someone I know and trust. I would love to get a massage but I can't handle the thought of having someone touch me. Even shaking hands with strangers is weird, I always feel the need to wash my hands afterwards. Sometimes a co-worker will rest their hand on my shoulder and I will flinch, it just feels strange.

As a child, my uBPD mother was never physically abusive, and only mildly emotionally abusive but as I've grown up she's become very very emotionally and verbally abusive and in our most recent exchange she pulled my hair. Which she later said was my fault for walking away while she was holding it, of course.

I struggle with touch from anyone except my husband, I even have trouble with small children that toddle into me... .I freeze and panic all at the same time. Unwanted touch is the story of my life with BPDMom. Mom is what I call a "petter." Whenever I am within reach she pets me; hair, arms, legs, back, whatever she can reach. She never asks to touch me she just assumes it is her right. At my bridal shower she *had* to sit next to me so should could show everyone there that she "owns" me. She had to be in actual physical contact with me the whole time I was opening presents and being stared at. Many of my friends remarked that her behavior was not appropriate.

Like claudiaduffy I did not have
as I was required to tell her everything. Nothing was mine... .not even my own thoughts. To this day she insists on wearing the same clothes I do, watching the same shows, reading the same books, having the same hobbies and interests. She has no identity of her own... .I'm not sure if that is relevant to the touch question but it feels like a violation to me.

Hi Tentoes,

I'm new here but yes, I have the same issue. I wasn't sexually abused but VERY emotionally and verbally abused and sometimes physically abused. I have to be VERY comfortable and know someone to not feel like my skin is crawling when someone touches, hugs, etc. I have actually RECOILED away (without realizing it) at people touching me (like a pat on the shoulder at work). Makes me feel like I'm crazy but I know I'm not. I don't mind hugging and kissing my little nieces and nephews, but lord have mercy when strangers want to hug me. Some of my coworkers also find it funny to try and "scare me" by sneaking up behind me at my desk and grabbing my shoulders. Makes me want to jump out of my skin.

I remember as a child being so scared and nervous that my mom was going to get mad at me (in hindsight, over NOTHING many times) that the muscles in my back and shoulders would literally hurt to the touch. Like hot needles. So I think that has something to do with that. I'm assuming anyways.

You're not alone. 

Wow. Thanks everyone.

very helpful

In general, I don't get uneasy and creeped out by being touched when I intuitively know or feel that someone is being sincere.  When I begin to question someone's motives or notice that I'm feeling uneasy around them, then I know someone is not being sincere.  Children and animals are sincere in their displays of affection so, it's easy for me to relate to them.  People who are pretentious make me feel very uneasy and I can quickly become anxious around them.  My mother and husband are very manipulative and pretentious people and so, I never felt comfortable when either of them touched me. I felt violated by them.   I'm very sensitive and affectionate but will quickly withdraw, and retreat if I can, if I sense that I can't trust someone and that they have ulterior motives or being manipulative.

I had to warn a man at work several times to not do this to me.  My knee jerk reaction, which is a joke among friends, is to strike the person surprising me, often with a sharp elbow behind me.  He didn't get my issue with what he thought was a harmless joke, and I was terrified I'd react badly and knock him over.

Omg! Yes! I am not a touchy person and I married someone very affectionate. It actually took me a few years to realize if I touched him a lot, he wouldn't feel the need to touch me! Lol! I thought I was "cured"  when I had kids because I loved snuggling with them.  But as they approach teen years, I find myself pulling away. It is hard. I want to live on them but it physically hurts some days.

A few years ago I was forced in a seminar to shake hands with ten people, I had a panic attack and vowed never to subject myself to forced touch again.

Tentoes and claudiaduffy,

Oh my God, that's how I am too! My mother was a big over-sharer of her sex life and also very cuddly.  

I was thinking about this the other night, actually. I brought a guy home with me (cute, nice, the whole situation was all good), and after hooking up, he went to cuddle me.  I completely panicked.  I always do this. My mind and heartrate races, I feel shaky and claustrophobic.  I certainly can't sleep.

Oddly, when it's a casual touch or from someone who I know doesn't care about me (ie: my jerky ex-boyfriend), I'm totally fine.  It's genuinely emotional touch that makes me uncomfortable.  It's like I'm allergic to physical affection.

Wow, it's nice to be able to say that where I know people will get it.  Normal people think I'm a loon for hating to be touched in a loving fashion.

Lord me and the touch issues lol.  I'd never noticed how unaffectionate I was until I started dating my now husband.  He is very affectionate.  Always likes to place his hand on my knee when driving and if we are sitting together he'll either have his hand on my knee or around my shoulders.  Loves to hold my hand when walking etc.  He bought up the fact that I wasn't a touchy feely kinda of girl and it made me realise he was right.

My Mum was very unaffectionate and when I reached puberty at the age of ten I physically removed myself from my Dad as I couldn't handle having boobs and that they'd touch him when he hugged me yada yada.  So I've had to learn to consciously become more affectionate.  I will touch my husband as I walk by him, I will place my hand on his neck when he is driving.  I still find things like sitting on his lap hard and rarely do this.  Even in bed I don't like to be touched (except for romantic times) and in public I have a personal space area of about one and a half feet.  I can give hugs to close friends but if I don't trust you I will tighten up if touched or hugged.

I remember if my Mum ever gave me a hug she felt like a stiff board.  And don't surprise me with a hug from behind I startle so much I'll either scream or elbow you.  poor hubby learnt that lesson in the early days.  Now he knows to call as he enters a room I'm in as I'm a big daydreamer and get totally lost in my thoughts lol.

Sometimes I will laugh and say to him how does he want to stay married to me with all my quirks lol.  And know at the age of 44 I can and do give my Dad lots of full on body hugs, boobs and all lol.