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Hands off

I don't like being touched without consent because honestly, it's an invasion of privacy. Or something like it.

Okay, so like, I think it's in Mexico where the culture is such that people have a much smaller personal space bubble. People in the US tend to feel uncomfortable when people from Mexico get right up in their faces, but in Mexico is normal to do that. Touching me without getting permission first feels to me like how people in the US feel when people from Mexico get up in their faces. I view it as uncomfortable but also as rude. I know it's the culture of Neuro typical people in the US to touch people without asking, but at least in the case of people doing it to strangers, it IS rude. It should be considered rude all the time, though.


Another aspect of it for me is I got bullied a lot growing up, and the bullies liked touching or grabbing me without asking, so in my mind I associate that behavior with bullies and it takes me mentally back to being a bullied child in that situation of old. The fact I have an anxiety disorder adds to it.

I can tolerate people I trust doing it if I see them coming, because a part of me expects it and it's easier for me to mentally grant them permission than it is to explain the situation, but I still get tense when that happens.

When strangers or people I don't like or don't trust do it, though, it's schoolyard bullying all over again for me. Last stranger that touched me without asking, I jerked away from them and yelled loudly at them, which I consider progress because always before when it happened, I'd sieze up like a terrified rabbit or a deer in headlights, quietly certain I was about to be seriously injured or worse, and unable to move. (Trying to get away in those situations as a child was nearly certain to get me beat up.)

Come to think of it, that's a good description for similar scenes in my writing.


Lastly, accidental touches by strangers or people I don't trust don't trigger that same terror, but the accidental skin contact of someone I don't know and/or don't trust gives me a weird sensation in my skin that feels like… well, best way to describe it is that a friend of mine is allergic to sunflower seeds, they make her mouth and throat burn and prickle. That's kinda what that kind of skin contact feels like to me. Friends and family touching me accidentally or on purpose doesn't do that. Could be a more minor trigger reaction. But likely just an autism based sensory issue, like the fact that touching certain substances like velvet or certain types of rubber makes my skin crawl.

This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1392211.html
You can comment either here or there.



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