What I truly mean: “I need someone to platonically lie across me with their full weight, crushing my body and providing deep pressure until my errant soul is reabsorbed into my flesh. Also, a hug would be nice.”
I’ve had to explain this to people who think it’s weird, but when I add, “You know… like cats…” they seem to understand.
I hope everyone has an excellent day today, and that you’re doing well!
I need to look at the weather and see if there’s storm weather supposed to happen today, and if it was supposed to start last night, because that might explain last night’s sudden mood drop and this morning’s pain and internal screaming that is wanting to be external screaming. Possibly screaming and tears, but tears are hard to manage.
It’s not that I’m having a bad day, even, I haven’t been awake that long yet (twenty minutes when I started typing this, about an hour by the time I am about to post it). Just. There was the trip, and then I haven’t had enough chance to rest since because I’ve got the medical stuff I’m working on, and I need to get things done for that, and everything’s just wound up in a way that means I haven’t had a chance to actually rest and recover.
I’m glad to start tackling the issues, and possibly getting answers to what the hell is going on and what treatment options are available and what treatment to go with that will help the most. Getting there, though, is stressful and hard and it’s leaving me without the energy to deal well with other things.
Today is supposed to be swimming. Today I’m supposed to be looking forward to getting into the water and being able to move without the same limitations I do when gravity is dragging at my limbs, and all I can do when I think about doing that is feel like bursting into tears (and maybe get my eyelashes damp, because apparently that’s all I’m going to get in the way of tears right now). Because it’s all too much.
Everything’s too much right now.
I want to be able to reach out and ask for help, and right now, I can’t even manage that, because while yes, the sympathy and love are appreciated, right now, they’re overwhelming even in small amounts.
There was a tumblr post with stuff about touch starvation and how it effects things and I know I get practically no physical contact, and even when I reach out for some, I might get a brief hug, but there’s nothing more, and anything more than a brief hug is not allowed. And I can’t help but wonder if that’s part of the whole mess.
I need to get a dog. I need to get an animal who is willing and happy to cuddle up next to me, and put its head in my lap and just be there without needing me to be high-energy and run around with it. That knows what the hell fetch is so I can throw a ball from where I’m sitting, and will go get it and bring it back. Who isn’t going to freak the cat out, and who is going to understand the cat is boss, because Jess knows dogs are big and dangerous and could eat her, and needs to feel confident about any other animal I bring in.
It’s not human contact, but it’s more than nothing. And it’s more than the contact Jessamine allows, because she is a cat and a cat who does not do lots of physical contact (she allows me to pick her up every day, but she’s not sure about more than a minute of cuddling at a time, and I need to have a pet who is willing to be cuddled for lots of minutes at a time).
And before I do that, I need to clean the apartment, at the very least, because there’s no way this place is in any shape for a new dog.
Anyway.
I’m going to attempt to get up and get breakfast and see about doing something today.
Thinky thoughts for the evening – really, for the last week or so – that I’m to the point of going “fuck if someone else has said it, or if it pisses anyone off”.
There has been, since I started writing, this concept of the Mary Sue. The “badly written authorial insert”, nominally. Always female. Often young. Always the protagonist of the fic.
And you know what? That discourages people from seeing themselves as the protagonist. It says that only certain types of people are allowed to be protagonists, and certainly not anyone who identifies as female.
That probably has been said more eloquently by people who have more time and faster fingers on the keyboard. I’ve probably even seen it float past on my dash. Still needed to articulate it anyway.
But that definition of Mary Sue has made it incredibly hard for me to be confident of OCs, especially non-male OCs, until recently. Left me wary of shaping characters who in any way resembled me that were meant for anything other than throw-away fic. Stuff meant to be self-deprecating and laughed at. Not with. At.
It’s that which made the post about doing a self-indulgent self-insert thing in January make me stop and think and go… “yes, yes I want to do this, even if no one reads.” And honestly, I don’t think the intrusive, niggling thought that no one wants to see a protagonist who is agender, aro-ace*, with invisible disabilities and mental health issues, deeply introverted, sometimes non-verbal, sometimes can’t be brief to save their life, both badly touch-starved and averse to physical contact (especially with strangers and/or without knowing it’s coming), and prone to severe bouts of anxiety when in unfamiliar non-emergency situations (and sometimes in emergency situations, too, the mess in my head keeps getting worse) will go away.
In short, I keep having this niggling fear that no one is going to want to see me in a story. Especially if I’m doing me from a first-person POV, as I am with the one. And may well do with the other. And doing the “gonna save as many as I can” thing, provided someone believes me, and doesn’t just think I’m crazy.
Anyway. I keep telling myself that this fear is my brain lying to me, and I’ll be fine, but it won’t shut up, because it’s winter and there’s not enough sun and it’s been a crap year for brain chemistry anyway, and yeah. I’m going to go back to attempting to write myself into my favorite universes, and see if I can’t keep my favorites alive because what else is writing self-indulgent fluff for?
(Do not tell me for getting into the pants of favorite characters, unless you mean that literally in the “their letting me borrow their clothes because I only have what I showed up in” sense. For others, yes, it may be. See also aromantic asexual*. I’ll be fine without sex or romance.)
*Asexual spectrum, because seriously, there’s flexibility and fluctuation in there for me, and it’s just easier to say ace and be done with it than try to explain further.
Alrighty – I’ve gotten a lot of questions from aces who’re hella confused about sensuality, and I’ve decided to point out something that I debated for a long time against sharing:
With all the ‘gal pal’, ‘bromance’, and ‘white people’ jokes we see, we risk missing on some important details involving sensuality and platonic intimacy. There’s an entire side to the ‘intimacy’ discussion that most of you aren’t aware of, and being unaware isn’t an ok thing; y’all don’t know about the diversity of intimacy because of neo-colonialism, whitewashing, and gentrification.
Water births being a ‘white hippie’ thing. Two men kissing ‘obviously’ being a case of heternormative washing. And so on. Behind a few of these bromance/gal pal/yt people joke hide not only whiteness, but a rhetoric that erases asexuality/aromanticism. And it’s time to address that.
Why? Because American views on intimacy erases non-American people of color, and also forces compulsory sexuality upon people in the ace spectrum. Being an ace of color, my patience is tried.
Listen; America is notoriously neurotic when it comes to intimacy. And only periodically throughout the centuries. In so many other places, kissing on the mouth is what friends and family do. My cousins and I were breastfed until past kindergarten, by our mothers, aunts, babysitters, and friends of family. I’ve seen, touched, and hugs many naked friends throughout my life, all ages across. What western culture sexualizes, not everyone agrees with.
Sexual attraction is described as the compulsion to commit sexual acts with a specific object of desire. Romantic attraction much the same, except not explicit. Sensual attraction similar guidelines, and so on. So what happens when one person’s ‘sexual attraction’ is another’s ‘I just want a goddamn cuddle, is that so damn important?’
When we see vintage footage of old-timey Americans who kiss, cuddle, and embrace each other’s bare skin, there is no doubt that many of them are same/multiple-gender-attracted. But a lot of you say so with absolutely no comprehension of the diversity of physical intimacy, and how different it is around the globe.
In so many other countries and cultures, you regularly cuddle, kiss, and touch your friends. When someone pulls out a camera and says, ‘smile!’ you drape your arms lovingly around your mate, and kiss them on the neck. And that photo is uploaded to facebook and all that jazz.
In modern day America, holding hands is literally second base. Our desire for physical intimacy has been heavily sexualized. And for some people, that’s a huge deficit to their wellbeing and themselves.
As an ace of color, I really don’t appreciate my desires for physical intimacy to be sexualized. I am very much compelled to touch, cuddle, and kiss people. Sometimes it’s romantic in intent, most of the time it’s not. But because of who I am, my actions are very much scrutinized as sexual. Which is very white sexuality and I want none of that in my life.
Thank god someone said it. I always want to kiss and touch my friends, I consider sleeping with them totally normal, and lots of manners of casual touch to be normal, but I don’t fucking touch them because….Culture. And then in my long term relationship I have a hard time with intimacy because it’s always attached to an expectation of sex or feels like it is and I get nervous.
I’m an intensely cuddly person who literally never cuddles.
I don’t know what happened here (I’m lying I know) but our society is SO WEIRD about physical intimacy and we’re all fucked up but like, a lot of the cultures that aren’t mainstream here allot for physical intimacy which in turn has to be treated differently if it can be somewhere it’s judged by the Average American Eye.
I think I’ve kind of always known there was something wrong with how we were raised and not something wrong with me specifically, but it doesn’t help that WHERE in the US I grew up is so intensely puritanical.
I remember when I was about 4 I had a nightmare and my brother invited me to sleep in his bunk with him. When mom came to wake us up for school, she screamed at us about how inappropriate that was, and I remember that was the very last time I was ever cuddly with my brother. That incident caused my sense of intimacy to be warped dramatically. I was always allowed to be cuddly with mom or other little girls who were my friends, but I wasn’t allowed to be the same way with boys who were my friends. To this day intimacy on any level with a woman feels more natural than the same with a man.
Also, the bath image above from My Neighbor Totoro intensely infuriated my mom. She kept going on about how no grown man should be bathing with daughters and about how creepy it was. She then went on to say that it’s disgusting for any adults to bathe with their children after a certain point. But I don’t understand that logic at all.
Americans are taught that bodies are shameful and that sharing our bodies in any ways other than what’s deemed as acceptable by our culture is the most shameful, sinful thing you can do. This kind of platonic or parental intimacy is so shamed that we’re /forced/ to have an unhealthy relationship with it by the time we leave home. And when intimacy of any kind is demonized like it is, we end up with situations where parts of the human body are sexualized because they are taboo. Even now, women are being constantly shamed for breastfeeding their children, teenage girls are forced to cover up shoulders and collar bones for fear of being distractions to boys…
And for what? All because Americans shame displays of non-sexual intimacy and up-sell sexual intimacy to the point of causing the sexualization of non sexual body parts and so on. It’s so ridiculous, but American culture is just really weird like this.
“Americans shame displays of non-sexual intimacy and up-sell sexual intimacy to the point of causing the sexualization of non sexual body parts and so on.”
^^^THIS^^^
folks in North America and a larger extent ‘White British Colonized’ places- have ‘flattened’ human interaction into touching=sex, nude=sex, affection=sex and to finish it all off Sex=BAD. This strange hyper-sexualization and parallel rejection of sex has created an entire culture of touch and affection starved people. With all the psychosis and trauma that goes with isolation and rejection.
It is critically unhealthy. We’re primates. We belong in communities- that groom, cuddle, and show genuine warm affection with one another.
Do u ever not realize how starved for affection u are till someone hugs u a bit tighter than normal and you find that you really don’t want to let go
Touch starvation is actually a thing. The term for it that’s emerging in medical/psych circles is “skin hunger”. We as humans are meant to be much more social- and especially physically social – than we actually are, and Americans in particular are often touch starved because the casual, platonic contact that often happens between friends in other places just. Does not happen here.
There’s a really Puritan idea that’s pervaded our culture, that touch and sex are inherently linked, and it’s doing us a massive disservice. Touch is incredibly important for humans- hugs reduce blood pressure, cuddling releases oxytocin, and babies will straight up DIE without being touched enough because the stimulation releases hormones that are integral to their healthy development.
We were never meant to hold one another at arm’s length, and if you feel you need physical contact, don’t be afraid to ask for it! Hug your mom. Cuddle a friend on the couch. Ask. There’s a good chance that they need contact just as much as you do.
Hoo. I was for a while, and I’m not sure I know how to describe the sensation. (I’m also very tactile, which made it so much worse that to this day just a simple touch is enough to be soothing.)
If someone laying their hand on you feels glorious, even if you don’t necesarily want sexy-times (or any other times) with them? Touch-starved.
If you crave someone else’s touch in any manner–platonic, sexual, professional–you are probably touch-starved.
If someone touching you even if it’s just their job makes you want to break down in tears because you feel like it’s filling a giant, gaping hole in your life? Touch-starved.
I went without comforting touch for so long during developmental years that just getting my fucking hair washed before a hair cut is bliss, even if it’s a stranger, and I don’t like strangers.
Anyone else want to chime in?
Wrapping yourself around stuffed animals/plushies because there’s no one to go get a hug from.
Wanting a dog because at least then there’s always a warm body to hug or cuddle, even if no humans are willing to do the same. Or a cat. Or a ferret. Or a damned lizard.
Trying to decide if you can justify spending non-existent money on a weekly massage because then there’d be fifty minutes a week of human contact.
When even virtual hugs are enough to make you cry, because it’s the promise that someone would be willing to give you a simple damned hug if you were in the same space.
Being willing to go to large-scale social events with strangers just for the human contact, even though you’re a massive introvert and crowds get claustrophobic and overwhelming very quickly.
… I’m going to go hug my bear because my cat will not appreciate a hug, and it’s better than nothing.
Body pillows are great for this, and I’m seen them for as low as $5 on clearance at places like Target or Walmart.
I do this with my pillows, too.
Fuck, that’s all very sad. What the fuck was wrong with all our parents ? Was it so hard, to be cuddly and warm with your own child ????
At least my (parent’s) dogs do like getting hugs.
My parents were fine with hugs and cuddle when I was small. I’m pretty sure the cuddles dropped off about the time I hit the growth spurt at the beginning of puberty.
And now, I’m lucky if I get more than a ten second hug, and I always have to ask for it. There’s no time for anything else, as far as mom’s concerned, because taking time to get/give a hug is time that could be better spent doing work.
(And dad is just not comfortable with long hugs, from anyone other than mom, and I suspect that is bloody stupid social conditioning that physical intimacy is reserved for romantic partners, especially if you’re designated male.)
I need to get a new body pillow. Or just new pillows in general. More, rather. New ones go in the pillow under my head, the older ones migrate to new pillowcases and become a nest for me to sleep in.
Hoo. I was for a while, and I’m not sure I know how to describe the sensation. (I’m also very tactile, which made it so much worse that to this day just a simple touch is enough to be soothing.)
If someone laying their hand on you feels glorious, even if you don’t necesarily want sexy-times (or any other times) with them? Touch-starved.
If you crave someone else’s touch in any manner–platonic, sexual, professional–you are probably touch-starved.
If someone touching you even if it’s just their job makes you want to break down in tears because you feel like it’s filling a giant, gaping hole in your life? Touch-starved.
I went without comforting touch for so long during developmental years that just getting my fucking hair washed before a hair cut is bliss, even if it’s a stranger, and I don’t like strangers.
Anyone else want to chime in?
Wrapping yourself around stuffed animals/plushies because there’s no one to go get a hug from.
Wanting a dog because at least then there’s always a warm body to hug or cuddle, even if no humans are willing to do the same. Or a cat. Or a ferret. Or a damned lizard.
Trying to decide if you can justify spending non-existent money on a weekly massage because then there’d be fifty minutes a week of human contact.
When even virtual hugs are enough to make you cry, because it’s the promise that someone would be willing to give you a simple damned hug if you were in the same space.
Being willing to go to large-scale social events with strangers just for the human contact, even though you’re a massive introvert and crowds get claustrophobic and overwhelming very quickly.
… I’m going to go hug my bear because my cat will not appreciate a hug, and it’s better than nothing.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 