Touch

[gratitude28]

Hi All,
I noticed that the idea of touch and how we feel about it has popped up in our messages a lot lately. I felt so guilty as a teenager that I never hugged or kissed my parents. If we ever did, it was the strangest, most uncomfortable thing in the world. I really can't remember any times, but I remember the feeling associated with it. I honestly don't ever remember being touched in any way by my parents.
When I was a teenager, my mother started projecting some sort of sexual idea onto me. She was always assuming I was "with" men or boys or some weird thing. We lived a million miles from anywhere and I was always at home, so I don't know where she thought this was happening. At that point, I started craving sexual attention as it seemed to me that was what was expected. I really equated love with sex for a long time. I wasn't promiscuous, but I had a share of boys... mostly semio-longterm. Mostly in college.  I can't even pretend to understand my mother's ideas... they are so unnatural.
I now have my own children. I adore them. I hug them and kiss them and tell them I am proud of them. I hold them when they get hurt. We sleep together when my husband is gone. They are not ashamed ever. I do tell them what is not acceptable in front of others (scratching and such...) and that that needs to be done in private. For my mother, anything even remotely sexual (and, hey, kids are going to be curious abouttheir bodies, ya know) was some indication of weird sexuality. So I guess that's why she doesn't touch.
I learned to kiss on the cheecks in Europe (sweet and friendly!). In Texas, we give big bear hugs. My In Laws are great and I am comfortable with them. My mother in law and I can sit on a bed together and read or chat and it is not uncomfortable. I could never, ever do that with my mother. It would be sooooo strange.
So... your thoughts?????????
Love, Beth

[moonlight52]

Hi Guys ,My 27 year old daughter is old enough now she has noticed on her own n grandfather is not nice.She has seen other grandparents ,she has a grandmother on her dads side that is nice,  and is loving grandmother.You can talk and hug and be real with one and not with the other.Small 13 year old, I have observed comfortably hugs the sweet non n grand mother and
not n grand father.So my children know the difference in there comfort zone.
Moon

[gratitude28]

bean,
Thanks for sharing that. I also don't know what was normal teen behavior and what came from the weirdness...

moon,
It will be interesting for me to see this summer how my children are with my nmother. I don't know how she will be with them, either. I try my hardest not to talk about negative things in front of them. I think they will figure out enough as they grow up, as your children have.

[sleepyhead]

Hi all! I think maybe N's don't like hugging and such because it's supposed to be reciprocal, and they see us more as objects than as people. My mother told me I was too old for goodnight hugs when I was eleven, and those goodnight hugs was the only ones she ever gave me .  Now she hugs people, but is so stiff and unnatural when she does it, that it is just uncomfortable and awkward for everyone involved. She is even awkward when holding my seven-month-old daughter, and has been since she was born. I guess it's the fakeness you are talking about moon, they don't "get" hugging, but do it because they sense that they are supposed to.

Anyway, when I was in high-school, me and a few friends started hugaholics anonymopus, not to cure us, but so we could allways give each other a hug when we needed it . The sex stuff is also weird... When I got my first period, my mother told me:" Now you have to be careful with boys." As if until then I'd been sleeping around!?    She has always had this weird mix of being extremely uncomfortable talking about sex, but talking way too much about it, and inapproprietly, to me when I was a child. Maybe it's a generation thing? Coming from strict background and then being a young adult during the sixties? I guess I'll never know... All I know is that I'm giving my daugther (and my man and my friends) all the hugs she never gave me. My name is Sleepyhead and I'm a hugaholic! And darn proud of it too!

Hugs for all!

[Me]

I have said for years my mother had snakes in her head as it related to women and natural sexual response. From the moment her three daughters began to develop, she began to act like there was something wrong with us - like we were a disaster wating to happen. Mother did not touch ever unless it was to feed babies from bottles, which she stopped doing when we were about 5 months; she taught us cup drinking early.  WE were not allowed as babies to get fed in the middle of hte night either. SHe hired a nurse to "train us" to not need food then and the traing began as we came home from the hospital. I remember being about 5 and her telling me not to hold her hand as we walked across the street together.  Now that I am a grandmother myself, I am very aware of mother's tensing up when she gets hugged.  She hated being pregnant and she goes into different forms of trauma when she has to see a new male doctor especially a gynecologist or get a breast exam. Thought it was odd over the years. As to teaching me the facts of life, it consisted of one sentence: "You do not need to know all of the answers to the questions you ask.  Your husband will teach you what you know. Until then just endure."  I married an emotional abuser who learned everything he knew about sex from watching a bull mate with a cow. I divorced him too!

I asked her once if she was ever sexually assaulted.  I do know her father was a mean alcoholic and her mother a social alcoholic. She said no, but said when she was about 4 she remembers being at the apartment by herself (were her parents also insane?) and a man coming to the door and saying "little girl, your parents told me to check on you.  let me in." Mother only remembers going to the door and touching the knob.  Imagination fills in the rest. 

No wonder she has this stigma about people showing emotions and weak people going to counseling.  She does not want to remember and projects it.

Hugging is great.  Took me years to learn it, but I love it.

[Portia]

Hi Beth

Interesting that you said you felt guilty as a teen for not hugging your parents, as though the responsibility for hugging was with you? Hope you don’t feel it was, now.

I don’t remember my mother holding me, gazing lovingly at me or even holding my hand in a protective way (like when crossing the road). I’ve tried to remember good times, I’ve tried to remember touch. I do remember my grandmother holding me and gazing at me, my grandfather too. My mother and stepdad both had a habit of a goodnight kiss on the lips, which I don’t like and never did. Mother and stepdad didn’t hug and if they were touching in my presence, I felt excluded. Their bond was sexual and not loving and that affected me – I equated sex with love for the longest time. My stepdad projected his anger at my mother’s latent and then active promiscuity on to me; he tried to restrain and control me, instead of her. My mother told me I was sexual whereas she was romantic, thereby dumping her promiscuous traits on to me and telling herself and me that all she wanted was ‘love’ (I wasn’t sexually active at this time!). My father was uncomfortable with physical stuff once I got past mid-childhood I reckon. I remember he used to give me shoulder-rides and do manly type rough and tumble stuff when I was smaller. No affectionate hugs though, I think the incest-taboo is very strong in him and as we didn’t live together, it kind of makes sense to me. It’s a tricky thing for some fathers I think.

Now I don’t mind holding my mother’s hand or arm when we walk, I hug her and all the time she responds like a hungry child, it’s very upsetting for me because it’s so sad. I keep my boundaries. My stepdad is dead. I hug my father now and feel he wants more of a hug than I do these days. I realised something odd the other day. He has four children, is married to his third wife and I realised that in terms of family who have known him the longest, I’m that person, we go back further than anyone else and I think that affects the way he sees me. He tells me things that he doesn’t tell his wife, and I don’t feel comfortable with that (and I tell her and she isn’t happy about it either, but at least we talk). Sorry that’s beyond touch. I hug a lot more now and I allow hugs but I keep pretty strong boundaries. If strangers touch me, I react strongly and if they persist, I shout.

I read about people who go in the sea with wild dolphins as a healing thing (kids with trauma or mental illnesses). I also read about one wild dolphin swimmer who witnessed another woman trying to swim with dolphins. She swam out into the water and the dolphins avoided her, while she tried to get close to them. The more she tried, getting frustrated and angry in the process, the more they stayed away. She left the water complaining and angry that the dolphins hadn’t obliged her. I guess dolphins have the kind of intelligence that I’d like to have.

[petra]

HI ALL
I can honestly never remember receiving a hug or a kiss of either of my parents. To this day i feel uncomfortable if anyone i am not REALLY close to tries to hug or kiss me (although i hug my kids all the time.
Also (and this is a bit creepy to me) when i was about thirteen, my mother started to make sarcastic comments about my lack of experience with boys (how much experience are you supposed to have at 13). She would say things in front of people like "oh Petra wouldn't know what to do with a boy cos she's green" (said like a joke but also in a taunting way. Apart from being really embarrassing, it also felt like she kinda set me up to try to prove her wrong.



"

[Brigid]

I also was never hugged, kissed or even touched with any tenderness as a child, except by my grandmother.  In later years, after I had moved away, I would get the perfunctory stiff hug and kiss on the cheek by my father and my mother wanted to start squeezing me (sort of like she was making up for lost time), but none of it was ever comfortable for me.  I hug my kids all the time and always hug and kiss friends when I haven't seen them for awhile.

Sexuality was a different issue for me.  I was molested by my best friends 14-year-old brother when I was 9 and date raped when I was 16.  That was my first experience with intercourse.  My mother NEVER talked about sex at all while I was growing up (neither did my father, but I thought that went without saying).  I constantly sought the attention of boys--lots of hugging and kissing since I did not get it at home, but was never promiscuous.  However, after the date rape, the idea of being sexual with someone I was dating seriously, became easier.  I married my high school boyfriend at a young age, and my second ex was the first man I got involved with after the divorce, so there was not a lot of opportunity for promiscuousness.  Maybe I would have been otherwise.

I could definitely relate to the comments about mothers being in competition for male attention, however.  My mother was never comfortable being around other women (much prefered the company of men) and I think she was jealous of how my father felt about me.  Even though he was never nice to or supportive of me, I think there was a part of him that admired my strength as a woman.  I think he felt a lot of disdain for my mother's weakness and consequently played on that a lot.  My mother always favored my brother (no competition) and to this day, we have absolutely no relationship with each other.

Now that I am in a normal, healthy relationship, the touching just feels so good.  I am definitely making up for lost time now.

Brigid

[Healing&Hopeful]

Hiya all

My first memory is when I was about 2/3 and playing on the steps outside our home on my own.  I can't remember being hugged or kissed.  While I was growing up my stepdad used to say I wasn't a huggy child... he said he'd go to hug me and I'd pull away.  Apparently I was frightened of his beard, but I think it's more that by the age of 3 he was already in our lives and I guess a 3 year old doesn't adjust to a new daddy very quickly.

Mum never spoke about sex... not once.  The older I got the more jealous she got when my stepdad said something nice to me, so said she was being too hard on me.  I think this was to do with the rivalry that some of you speak of.  Bio dad on the other hand went on about sex every time I saw him, and how stupid I'd be if I got pregnant and I'd be totally on my own.  I didn't get pregnant but was still on my own at 17.

As a result from age 17-20 I was promiscuous.... like Portia I equated sex with love and I craved love and thought these men could give me that.  I was very lucky one time, early on when I said No the guy stopped.  Then I felt bad and guilty for leading him on, so the next time I went through with it.  I know I've been very lucky in lots of respects... I could so easily be telling a different story about that time in my life.

Now things are very different... my husband and I hug and kiss a lot, he's tought me a great deal about affection.... I hug and kiss some friends too and it feels good, but my family.... when I leave Mum's I kiss them on the cheek and my stepdad hugs me, my brother hugs me too.  It's different but ok.  Bio dad used to hug me like he was sucking me dry....

Take care

H&H xx

[blue]

I thought this was a great thread
My b/f does not hug or touch. When I give him a hug he stiffens up and turns away and makes faces when he is kissed He looks like he is in pain
My mom and dad were both N's and i can never never remember being hugged by my dad. My Mom was not a touchy feely person at all and I can never remember  her coming in and kissing us good night Not once She would give us a brief hug when we were leaving
I asked my b/f if his family ever hugged and touched and he said no. I am a very touchy type of person and have no problem hugging and kissing family or even close friends.
Does anyone know why N's hate to touch and kiss?
Is it fear? Something else too. My b/f is always convinced I'm out (or interested) in having sex with others He  talks alot about sex though truthfully I do not think he is really untested in it at all. He will also talk about how others must be cheating or doing something deceitful in their relationships (His father cheated through 50 years of marriage and made everyone keep it a secret though the kids new)
I think touch is healing.
blue

[Hopalong]

Thanks Beth for this thread. It's comforting though sad to hear how so many us developed similar responses to the distorted affection (or lack of it) from parent/s.  I feel less alone in my history:
--confusion of sex for love
--promiscuity (young adulthood)
--obsession w/Nmen for decades (chasing NMom, I believe now)

I was lucky because my non-N (CoD, and mildly OCD) Dad was gentle and affectionate.

Trying to hug NMom was like hugging a surfboard. I remember putting my head on her lap and having it bounce like a basketball, because she wore a ferocious girdle. I remember her fussing over me to fix my clothes just so and braiding my hair very tightly. I have no memory of her stroking my hair, my cheek, or looking at me with love. She could be very sparkly when she approved of my appearance or performance, but it felt staged. She tries to love. Today one of her closest friends of over 65 years died and NMom said, But I'm doing very well myself! (She has always responded to death in a bizarre way, with unnatural perkiness or strange off-key comments. She doesn't seem to grieve...although I know she did feel great sadness at my father's death. She told me not to touch her at the funeral when I had my arm around her, "because I might cry.")

One of my greatest griefs about being single is about not having anyone to lovingly touch. When I am in a relationship, it's a great joy.

Hops

[adrift]

I've always wondered why I never wanted to touch my parents. It just always felt so icky and unnatural.  From around puberty on I remember I never wanted to touch or hug my dad because it felt so perverted.  Neither of my parents were physically or emotionally affectionate that I can remember. I"m an only child (well, not really but those are skeletons for another thread I guess) and grew up very isolated and lonely.  My mom wasn't from our region and she never felt like she fit in or was good enough--although she never said those words her actions said them.  Therefore she really never had any friends and never had a social life at all which in turn meant I didn't either.  It was like my mom hated people coming to our house (except for a very few people she didn't feel threatened by and they were strange in their own ways).    Dad was very social and definitely enjoyed being with his friends far more than being with me or my mom. 


As for mom's being jealous, my mom definitely began acting weird when I started dating.  I kept getting these vibes from her that I was "dirty" and shameful, although I wasn't sexually active at all.  My parents became super strict and I was never allowed to go anywhere or do anything.  I was allowed to date, but had to be in very early and the guy couldn't come in the house usually. I remember being SHOCKED at some point in my teens when my mom came in the den (my boyfriend was there) with a housecoat on that was tied in such a way as to show LOTS of cleavage.  I had never seen her show cleavage in my life  (then again, she used to always change clothes with the bedroom window curtains wide open at night--there was lots of yard between us and the neighbors but still,,,,,,,,,,,, and besides that, I remember her telling me once that she and dad had found evidence of a peeping tom outside one of theirbedroom windows years earilier so why would she then not cover the bedroom window???????????? Well, I guess the answer is "exhibitionism" but that is just too gross to think about.  My mom taught sunday school all my life and was at the church every time the doors open for crying out loud )  Sorry, I digressed there.  Anyway, the bathrobe/cleavage incident happened more than once and with more than one of my boyfriends. And it's really sad and sick because she was all out of shape and not attractive at all.        Looking back, her actions and attitude toward me went really sour when I turned 16 and was allowed to date and I suppose maybe she was jealous---jealous that I was getting attention and jealous that her young days were over.   I remember when my oldest daughter turned 16 and began bringing home cute, hunky guys I began to realize just how old I was becoming and wishing that I could be young again but I never did the cleavage thing, that's for sure! 


Where was I going with this?? Oh yeah, touching.  I guess I was so starved emotionally that I couldn't wait for the hugging and touching to begin--like most girls I fantasized about guys kissing me way before I was allowed to date. But as much as I yearned for physical touch, sex was, and still usually is, very unfulfilling    I had sex with guys because they wanted it and because it was something to do, but out of all the guys I've been with (not that many, really) only one really excited me. Needless to say, my lack of enthusiasm for sex has not helped my marriage   I'm working on it though.  I'm trying really hard to connect with those feelings and to have desire for my husband.

I feel like I'm dumping all my life on y'all and I have nothing to give in return. 

[IamNewtoMe]

Hi adrift,
Welcome to the board!  I haven't read your new thread yet, but I will soon. 

I feel like I'm dumping all my life on y'all and I have nothing to give in return.

I think you can ditch this idea right away!  You are sharing your story and your voice, and that is a lot!



This is a great thread that I had wanted to reply to for a while now.  I won't get into my whole story now, but wanted to just say "ditto" to a lot of this (not just Adrift's post but the whole thread) .  My Nmom was sort of inappropriate about sex when I was little.  She was very open about her sexuality and was promiscuous.  She was not affectionate with us kids.  I was starved for affection, and in my 20s and early 30s confused sex with affection... or used sex to get affection, etc.  Now that I get tons of affection from my very loving husband, I am having to learn what sex is actually for (in my marriage anyway).  I have also had to learn how to express physical affection towards my women friends, as hugging felt weird for many years.  Still does.  Therapy helps me.

[pennyplant]

I feel like I'm dumping all my life on y'all and I have nothing to give in return. 

So very not true, Adrift.  From the thread you started, which I will reply to, I am receiving great comfort and insight.  You just never know what it is sometimes that will impress or help someone else!  You are definitely a contributor already.

About touching--I was never hugged as a child.  My first boyfriend, now husband, was the first to hug me and I vividly remember how warm that felt.  It fulfilled a need and I would crave being close to him.  We are close now.  Amazing that the first man to bond with me turned out to be the right one after all this time and in spite of so many difficulties.

I'm guessing that my mother was not affectionate because she never learned it as a child.  Her mother suffered from depression and really never bonded with any of the daughters.  She couldn't give what she didn't have I suppose.  My father probably received affection as a child, but he had uneven social skills and may have had Aspergers.  He had feelings and emotions but not a clue what to do with them sometimes.  I had an awkward upbringing to say the least.

It seems like now that I'm learning I can be physically affectionate, I'm also learning what I'm really like as a person.

Pennyplant

[adrift]

THanks for the support    After my mom died I began digging into her past as I knew there were skeletons there, I just had no idea how many!!!  My best friend kept telling me to ask my mom about things before she died but I couldn't.  Some of you probably understand--some areas are just totally off limits to a severe degree.  Anyway, after mom died I did a little digging but was afraid to do too much for fear my dad would find out. He would have been ticked at me if he'd known.  I never really had rights as far as he was concerned.  After he died, I really started digging into my mom's past and found out so much that it's no wonder she was completely emotionally unavailable to me.  I'm in SC and she was from Oregon and I've almost no contact with her family  (funny how they don't seem to be my family too).  She never had much contact with them either---definitely not a healthy family life ever existed for them.  I figured I had nothing to lose by snooping and asking pointed questions  so I did and in front of me I have a letter from an aunt that says that my mom's dad was harder on my mom than the other kids (my mom was the youngest).  My mom went through lots of sorrow in her life.  It's so long and complicated I won't even try to go into all of it except to say that if she had ever given me the slightest idea of some of these things I surely could have cut her more slack. At one point in her ife she moved to SC to start life over (and also to supposedly escape an abusive husband but that story is questionable since she told it to some friends but not to others---I think maybe she made it up to get my dad to feel sorry for her) and she tried to bury her skeletons but she didn't--they haunted her, I can see that so clearly now.   I've found out she put a child up for adoption when she was 16  (1950) and no one in her family even knew!  They thought she had had an abortion but Portland, OR records proves she did put a boy up for adoption. ((I asked my aunt, the one who drove mom to Portland and left her there, just why would she assume mom was going to have an abortion since they weren't legal in 1950 and didn't it seem odd to the family that mom stayed in Portland for about 6 months, but my aunt claims it never dawned on her that mom had the baby)) Mom didn't go back home to live after that but went to live in another town with some friends.  Somehow in the following years she ended up being married to two men at the same time ( ) as I've discovered from divorce papers and in them she claims that her first husband told her their divorce was final but that he lied to her, hence she ended up marrying husband #2 and that's the one she supposedly fled from.  So she arrives in SC pregnant, again,  and gives birth to a hydrocephalic baby that lived for 6 months and is buried near here but I can't find any records anywhere.  My best source on the baby  is a friend from the time who remembers her giving birth and remembers the baby's death.  (1957?)  I'd love to find the grave to tend it since I'm sure it's never been tended but all of my searches have been futile thus far.

 So then my mom meets my dad and I think fed him some pity stories, she gets her two divorces  (which I imagine he never knew the full story on---I think he thought she was only married to one guy because my dad came from a very religious family and I can't imagine he would have married her had he known it all) and marries him and two years later has me.  She told me all my life I was an only child and how she had trouble getting pregnant and prayed to have me and what a miracle I was and then I find out alll these years later that I have a half-brother somewhere and that so much of what she told me was lies.???????????/   


So maybe she never touched me much because of guilt over the one she put up for adoption and out of emotional trauma over the baby that died.  That makes sense.  I think the crappiest thing though was the day she looked at me coldly and said, "You know, you were supposed to be a boy".  Dad wasn't home so no one else heard it and I couldn't even process that so I reasoned in my brain that since male chromosones determine sex, it certainly wasn't my fault I wasn't a boy and let it go.  But as you all know, shit like that buries in deep only to resurface years later.  There were other times she told me I was supposed to have a boy (never when anyone was around to hear it though) , but the first time stands out sharply in my memory.  And you know, she never, never followed it with , "but we love you anyway" , or "we're so glad we have you" or "you're special" or "we love you" or anything, just that I was supposed to be a boy.  One time she said that I was supposed to have been a boy because my dad was the last chance for that branch of the family to carry on the family name and what a disappointment it was to my granddad and dad that I was girl.  I didn't question at the time why they didn't try again for a boy since she'd lied to me and told me what a miracle I was----I just assumed she couldn't get pregnant again. 


Guess this would be a good time to mention my dad use to beat the heck out of me. He used to brag that I got spankigs every day of my life when I was young.   I got 50 licks with a belt on a bare bottom (hard licks) for going too close to a swimming pool that hadn't been fenced in yet.  I was 5 years old.  The last spanking my dad gave me was when I was 16 (not bare bottomed) and I have no memory of  what it was for but I remember him telling me several times after that that he'd still spank me when I was 35 if I needed it AND HE MEANT IT!!  Can you believe that???? 


So what does this have to do with touch?? Well, I never felt comfortable being a girl.  I didn't have homosexual desires, but just didn't feel comfortable in my skin.  I'm finally getting in touch with my feminine side at the age of 43.  I'm finally feeling sexy and attractive and I really enjoy attention from men now (where it used to make me uncomfortable for most of my life) but I'm realizing that I am not normal when it comes to love making.  I always thought it was my husband's fault--that he didn't have the ability to arouse me, but I realize now that some switch in me turns off. I should end this here, exept to say that to get into the sex/love making I usually have to get somewhat intoxicated and also that my fantasies are not normal.  And during it all, I usually feel extremely lonely.  How stupid is that!!  My poor DH listens and trys to help.

Thanks to everyone who posts in all the threads. It helps to realize I'm not alone.

Adrift