Tourch starvation have you experienced it?

[Szarur-abi]

Have you ever experienced touch starvation? It ties closely with loneliness so i guees some people here have experienced it, i also know that some people dont need touch in their lifes or dont think touch starvation is real thing (ergo you dont need it i added an option for it too in the pool) Or are repulsed by it due to trauma or experiences in life

Also sorry if this is unnesecary post or if im wasting your time by it...

Honestly i feel saying that i feel like i need warm embrace of someone else, like a good hug with person i like or being just touched by someone, saying that i feel this need feels like im being less of a men or being needy and desparate. Right now two closest persons left me, girl i was in love (a month ago) and my dog that had to be euthanised (its much harder for me since she was with us for 12 years and we spent most days together...) both gave me feeling of warm and security, but now that its gone i've started feeling a little bit of touch starved and lonely... ifff i would get into details i would look as needy and clingy so i wont...

 

[Redacted24]

I hear you and echo that touch can be really important (and I think scientific studies have been done on this)
My domestic partner's abuse, for instance, incorporates this (and more) and has for a long time. I've gotten more hugs (1) from a cleaning lady in a building I visited once in five years than from my partner since summer 2019 when I started tracking.
Yeah, it's not great...

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I don't tend to get touched too often by others and I prefer it that way. I don't like it when others touch me. I find it repulsive and uncomfortable. During the small handful of occasions every year where I have to be touched by family members (usually my grandmother or dad) I have to brace myself for it.

 

[Blackswede]

Yes I have. I'm desperate for human touch and I don't mean in a sexual sense. I want someone to cuddle with, hold hand and hug with. Someone that will lean their head against my shoulder as we watch a movie. But it's not something I have at the moment, but hopefully something I'll have in the future.

 

[Forever Sleep]

In terms of objectively- physically- yes. I have litetally gone years without a hug from anyone in the past. The covid period was the worst. It may well have been 3 years!

In terms of- do I miss it? Sometimes. Sometimes it's been so pathetic that just someone holding my forearm or my shoulder while talking to me has felt so nice. If someone hugged me, chances are, I'd cry now.

Sometimes, because I haven't done it for so long, it just feels weird. A good friend had a child that became very huggy and, I just felt a bit awkward. Isn't that terrible though? That because of all the dodgy things that go on in this day and age, you're not sure whether you even should hug children. Then, I felt bad because he was a sensitive, perceptive intelligent lad and he may have interpreted my awkwardness to mean that I didn't care about him.

Plus, in general, I feel kind of awkward because I'm not attractive so, I don't imagine many people truly want to hug me. Being arty, I'm usually covered in paint, glue or good old sweat- not terribly attractive either...

But, in terms of romantically, I've never experienced it but I have a very good imagination. So, I imagine I'm hugging a guy every night. My pillow has to substitute. Maybe that's better though. Doesn't your arm go numb if someone's lying on it? I always wondered that...

 

[Namelesa]

I guess I am touch starved but I mostly want to use physical touch and hugs as a way to lessen my feelings of emptiness. I don't really feel lonely that much anymore. For me having a long huggie with someone you deeply care for is the best feeling in the world as it makes me feel content, relaxed and cared for and safe. I want to be able to see my best friend again so I can have huggies with him again but we can't see each other at the moment due to circumstances and restrictions being put onto us by our parents. I am still able to get hugs from family members but it doesn't feel the same as they don't want to hug for a longer amount of time and I don't feel fully understood and accepted by them when I feel that way with my friend.

 

[Aimiya]

Multiple times a week I think about paying someone to hug me, before snapping back to reality and realizing that's kinda creepy.

Would still do it if I lived in a big city, but everyone knows everyone here, ugh.

Literally have never been touched in a affectionate way since I graduated from being a kid, and probably never will.

 

[yowai]

Before I got in a relationship I never did, I hated hugs etc, then for the first time I realized it's really nice to be physically close to someone and enjoy their touch and warmth. After switching to long distance relationship I started craving touch so much. The comfort and peace of someone hugging me, sleeping next to me or just skin on skin contact, it even got painful without it. When I was in a hospital for a month there were weekly lice checkups and the nurse would run her fingers through my hair, it was my favorite part of the week lmao

 

[HappiestAngel]

I don't think i've had physical contact with a person in like 5 months besides like.. a handshake. Mostly because family is not in this country and i've lost contact with my friends. I don't really have a strong need for it though but sometimes when I like wake up at night I wish I wasn't so alone T_T but that feeling has always been temporary so far so it's... okay.

 

[Aloneandinpain]

My only real hug ever was in 2021. Still haven't had my first kiss or a cuddle yet and I don't expect I ever will.

 

[ThatStateOfMind]

Yes but not recently, I experienced it back in 2022 pretty badly, but not since then, I now own a cat which helps immensely.

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

Touch starvation has waxed and waned for me over the years. When it's bad though, it's really bad, to the point where it causes crying fits, self-hatred, and suicidality.

It's only ever one specific kind of touch that I crave though (romantic touch), I'm very uncomfortable with all other forms of touch, especially from family. Somehow I have finagled my way into a limited FWB-type situation, and so I've been getting a small amount of that romantic touch lately, and it's pretty much everything I imagined it to be, it's not overrated at all. I just wish I could have it more than once in a blue moon...I wish I could fall asleep next to him...

 

[ShatteredSerenity]

I miss sleeping together, cuddling on the couch, hugs, holding hands on walks. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life alone like this.

 

[-Link-]

@Szarur-abi that sounds awful, losing your partner and then your dog in such a short period of time from one another.

What you're talking about here, this doesn't make you "less of a man" -- it just means you're a human being with basics needs just like the rest of us. But I know what you mean, sometimes the more "needy" we appear, the more people turn away from us. So, I get where you're coming from.

For myself, I get enough in the way of hugs from family that I feel satisfied there.

As far as a partner goes, umm, it's been a while... But I don't feel a sense of longing for that. Whenever the loneliness hits me, it's the mental and emotional voids that are driving it, rather than anything to do with physical touch. I'm certain it's there somewhere within me -- maybe I'm so far down the hole of depression, I've suppressed it or denied it as a matter of survival and keep it buried far enough below the conscious level so as to avoid feeling "starved" in the day-to-day.

 

[anopenwound]

The things I think about before going to bed are always the same: to be gently touched on the face by someone who actually loves me.

 

[Aloneandinpain]

I miss sleeping together, cuddling on the couch, hugs, holding hands on walks. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life alone like this.

Those things sound amazing. I don't think I'd even need to sleep with someone, just a really nice hug could satisfy me for a week or two

 

[Wezzy777]

Being near another rperosm and being able to hold them would be so nice.
I remember the lady ttime I asked for s hug from my mom and she was annoyed, saying "right now?"
I had a other friend who I liked hugging but they didn't like physically touch too much because of their trauma. They still hugged me but it only ever lasted a few seconds. I need more than that. I want someone to hold me for hours and not let go.

 

[avoid_slow_death]

Used to feel this way, but now, I don't like being touched in that sort of way. It's become very uncomfortable for me. Can't explain why I just am not very receptive to it usually.

 

[OnMyLast Legs]

I can't tell people this but martial arts might help a little.

I've read that single people take longer hot showera to simulate body warmth. I sit in the hot tub a lot too.

What can I say, I'm alive.

 

[vercabow]

the only thing i've hugged more than 3 times is my pillow. my sister and i are pretty close and we've hugged a few times in past 2 years, but everytime i felt nothing.

i just wish someone would hold me for a while. i don't want a relationship at all because of how unstable/terrible it would be with my current mental stability, but it would be so nice to just be held by someone who loved me just for a while. i don't even want it to be romantic honestly.