Always being in conflict about being touched and touching and sexualizing it

Always being in conflict about being touched and touching and sexualizing it

EdfromNYC

Registrant
I wasn't touched or held or given physical affection. When I was abused/molested, I was touched and it "felt good". I needed to be touched and held because I am a human being and that's part of my makeup. But my boy brain mistook this sexual touch as the only affirming, feel good touch that I would ever get and I ended up seeking more of it in secret. I didn't know that's what I was doing consciously but looking back I can see that wires got severely crossed and I ended up being compelled to seek it. For me, the sexual feelings and touch felt so good and again, they are designed that way, and I was hooked. But I was ashamed, I was doing something wrong, I hid it, I managed a different image up front but I also guarded my secret because it was a place where I got "attention" and "affection". I didn't get any attention or affection at home and that yawning gap was filled in by adult men. I am still ashamed to be writing that but I am getting more comfortable with shame and not denying it or avoiding it. I'm allowing it out.

I want to keep the focus on touch avoidance and shame and how it affected me. I missed out on all formative relationships from high school on since I was secretly seeking touch through sexual acting out (reenactment). The crazy thing is that I would find strangers and jump right into sexual acting out but around family, friends, peers, it was like my skin was electric and you couldn't touch me. I was afraid I would be sexual if people touched me. I was afraid that I would turn any touch into instant sexual behavior of that might be what people wanted. I mean I was afraid of that happening with anyone including family. The only real "feel good" touch that I received was sexual and it was like nothing else and it overwhelmed me, empowered me and activated me. It was as if I didn't need my family or friends at all since I could secretly go find this source of "attention" and "affection" and not have to deal with the regular ways to get that met (which I didn't even really know existed. I didn't know people touched each other in good, positive ways.) I festered in that closed loop of secretly seeking attention and affection (not knowing how empty and abusive it was) and acting like I didn't need anyone else's attention and affection.

I went to sex addicts groups and thought that would solve it but it didn't because I was sexually abused and still in conflict about touch. I wasn't able to acknowledge unmet needs and wants and that I was still afraid of love and affection (I guess feeling unworthy, dirty) and still sexualizing every touch and still seeking that sexualized attention and affection. I am doing a lot of work now and talking about things more with other survivors (and others) and accepting my story as it is. I am in pretty much constant psychic pain right now. Overnight, I was just very aware of how much touch and REAL affection and REAL attention and love that I missed out on - giving and receiving and just being a part of. I see how my family of origin dynamics led to my availability for abuse and preponderance toward mistaking sexual touch for good touch. Every day feels like a new bottom. I am very lonely and very isolated (which I tolerate and am taking actions to change slowly) and I've been "blaming" myself but I'm starting face how and why I got here. I'm facing a lot of shame about the state of my life. I didn't know until now that I was ashamed of virtually everything including my needs for touch and affection. I do need them even now and it's like learning a new language to separate out sexual touch from other forms of touch. I realize how much touch I missed out on, how much intimacy, how much I always had one foot out the door, how much I was always on edge and hypervigilant to touch and to be intimate and loving, touch is part of that.

I'm just writing this to be honest about my shame and accept it. So much shame is in here and I am grieving.

Edit: TL DR - I have issues around touch and the sexualization of it and acting out and then going into avoidance of ALL touch.

Also, I put this in this forum because of the underlying dynamics. I wanted to be wanted by a man - my father. He didn't seem to want me. But I needed and wanted to be valued by a man. I was seeking that attention and affection. I was sexually molested when I was seeking exactly that attention and affection and since I was a "participant" in the sexualization of me, I thought I must have been seeking that kind of touch, attention and affection and therefore spent much of my life thinking that I was gay and having no place to work it out. I was ashamed, overwhelmed, perplexed, guilty but also I felt like I was "attractive", had worth and value, that I was seen. I didn't know that my youth and innocence and hunger for touch, attention and affection were what these men valued. But that way of being "valued" took on a separate life that I didn't tell anyone about. I ended up seeking most of my value in that secret world. And here I am writing about it.
 
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Thank you Ed
I am also grieving over this loss - as I see it more and more starkly. Touch is such a power thing! I have heard many times on this forum people taking about not feeling able to touch or be touched by their own children/loved ones for similar reasons you mentioned.

The power of others have over me to sexualise my hunger/loss for touch from a father and peers, is diminishing. Their words weaken as I connect with others like you who know what is really going on. I have to trust that this bullying will be justly ended and that recovery and healing for others will be less of a minefield / assault course.

The biggest blocks to grieving are denial: "I'm fine" and self pity.

Much thanks.
 
I recoil automatically, without thinking, whenever anyone tries to touch me, especially in public. I can't seem to help it; it just does. Even holding hands, and/or arm around waist, or other shows of public affection embarrasses, or frightens me.
 
Ferguson: this post was an example for me that I am moving out of "I'm fine" and self pity. I am recognizing loss and feeling it and processing it. Thanks for putting it simply.

RobbieJoe: recoiling like my skin is electric and public affection has had same effect on me. I wrote this post because I want to change my reaction to touch. But I read your words and you describe me perfectly. Thanks for identification.

My post was up for a day and there were no replies and It affected me a bit but much less than it would have before. I realize I am coming out of long term isolation and avoidance. I am determined to be fully a part of life after having lived much of my life apart from others or with very limited intimacy and very limited expression of myself. I've lived in my head a lot. So to come out of isolation, I'm going to sometimes post or say things that are not the norm and I am able to speak for myself without the same desperate need for affirmation. I'm unwinding the habits of living in my head and I need to have places in which to do it and this is one of those places to start offloading thoughts and beliefs that have kept me separate for way, way, way too long.
 
Ed, An everyone. I know for myself I read a lot of posts I don't comment on because often what someone writes resonates with me , but I just don't have anything to add.
 
Yeah, thanks Morgan. I appreciate that thought.
 
I can relate very much to both rejecting & craving touch. I enjoy the caring & warmth attention from my partner, but I often find it hard to initiate hugs or other touch, for fear of it turning into a more sexual expression (which is nice, but not always appropriate or wanted), or fear of not being able to simply enjoy the warmth & affection of someone who cares.

My family weren't very big on physical displays of affection both at home or in public, towards myself & each other, so I didn't receive any real love or affection growing up. The abuse I received at a young age from family also made me feel confused & overly reactive to touch from another. It took me a very long time to not recoil from hugs, or feel odd at receiving them: even today I often still feel confused or that I "don't deserve to feel wanted & cared for" when receiving positive & health affection.
 
I'm doing something similar Ed in the thread I created in this forum on crossdressing. It has been that behavior that has produced the greatest shame for me, though acting out with men has been a close second in that regard. Unpacking these places where shame resides is essential to healing. I always respect the honesty of what you share. That tells me you're looking deeply at the roots of your behavior. It is important to not allow the shame to define us. We are not defective men, we're not perverts. Sadly, 12 Step fellowships are designed more to control behavior than to understand the trauma that lays beneath it. The acting out we've done is rooted in trauma. The shame really belongs to the perpetrator, not us. You call our acting out behavior reenactment, which is key. We only know to do the things we do because someone used us for their pleasure and introduced us to experiences that re-wired the circuits. For me the silk petticoat my mother used to stimulate by genitals when I was an infant both terrified me and felt good. The terror made my mother unsafe and the physical arousal made what the neighbor boys did to me enticing. The die was cast and my life became a hell realm.

I know you have your own version of this Ed. It is incredibly confusing. For you the confusion centered on sexual orientation, for me it was both sexual orientation and gender. Hiding those behaviors, that profound shame was the best we could do. Simple intimacy was impossible, of course. And so we end up here, doing our best to find the truth of what happened and how it affected our lives. I speak in terms of finding compassion for ourselves... what I call the antidote to shame. But the second half of the equation is learning how to care for ourselves moment to moment so life becomes less a minefield and more an honest expression of our aliveness. Thank you for being so honest about your journey... it helps all of us look squarely at our own lives. This is how healing happens.
 
For you the confusion centered on sexual orientation, for me it was both sexual orientation and gender.
I get this. As my understanding of my experience grows, so does my understanding of others experience grow, too. As my true understanding of what I really went through and the decades long struggle to get out of the labyrinth of my mind makes more and more sense, I am able to listen, really hear and identify with other people's experiences and that includes different aspects. I know what abusive behavior and direct and indirect messaging about our worth, our bodies, our gender and what we're "good" for can do to us and the toll that can take on the ability to live life fully. Unraveling the mess made by others is deep and requires persistence and stamina. But I do get to share it here with other men who had to undertake a similar journey like mine. I value the fellow travelers.
 
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I "don't deserve to feel wanted & cared for" when receiving positive & health affection.
That is helpful for me to think about. I am very much aware for first time or I can sense my damaged sense of self worth. I can feel the boy in me who wanted that affected and care but who is shy to receive it or feels it is a lure to set me up for pain. I can now see this part of me and understand that it is time to start trusting and seeking and being able to ask for positive affection without feeling ashamed. Or even if I feel shame, acknowledge it and move toward the affection while not allowing old shame to get completely in the way.

I keep picturing a dog or cat who has been traumatized who wants affection from a new owner but has to take his/her time trusting and allowing and reprogramming. And then like a cat or dog being reaccustomed to touch, taking it in small doses and being around people who respect that.
 
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