Affection and anxiety

When we are small and not yet using language much, physical interactions tell us who we are. Children mimic what they see, and learn to use their bodies in part by emulating what others do. Physical affection gifts us with regular affirmations and proof of acceptability. I’ve seen a lot of things online (so it must be true!) that longer lasting hugs have anxiety reducing effects. My own experience would seem to bear this out, as long bouts of being held will bring anxiety down more effectively than anything else I’ve tried.

It might be fair to assume from all of this that a child who is seldom touched could well be more anxious. My personal experience, of being largely untouched and a deeply anxious child, seems to go with this. Both sides of my family struggle with physical expressions of affection. I know one part of that story probably has a lot to do with serious abuse, the other side remains a mystery. My more immediate ancestors did not go in for affection much, and so awkwardness, anxiety and untouchability is handed down, one generation to the next. If you don’t feel acceptable, and you do feel anxious, you aren’t well placed to seek affection, and so the cycles continue.

The threads of how we got to be as we are can weave back into the past far beyond our own lives. (If this interests you, there is Druidry and the Ancestors). Unpicking those threads is not easy, and if they lead back to the dead, there may never be proper explanations. However, simply recognising that you may be living out an ancestral pattern that you’ve learned, and that what happens might not be a manifestation of who and how you are, enables change, I am finding.

As a child and young teen, I was almost incapable of touching anyone affectionately. I had a fear of contact. I still don’t really know how to seek comfort when distressed, because that just isn’t part of my frames of reference. I was told off for crying far more often than I was comforted. In my teens I made the simple discovery that sexual activities could be traded for, or would create a passable match for affection, and this opened the door to just how deeply I craved affection, in whatever form I could get it. This did not lead to the wisest choices imaginable. Which in turn has left me with a lot of anxieties around physical contact.

Recent years have brought different experiences, and those in turn make it possible to think differently. There is affection in my life now that comes without any kind of price tag. That’s an absolute game changer. As I’ve got used to this, my overall levels of anxiety have come down perceptibly. Where I really trust how I physically interact with people, I feel a lot more secure. Those connections are not numerous, but in the process of working through the recent meltdown, the spaces I feel bodily safe have become more apparent to me. And also how profoundly I need those safe and affirming spaces. I’ve discovered it’s not just about bodily contact, but about body language, how space is shared, and all manner of subtle things about being around someone else.

Alongside it comes an awareness that if I cry, there are people I can rely on to handle that kindly – not to ridicule me or tell me off. People willing to stand between me and the world for a little while so that I can have the space to recover. People who do not seem to think any the less of me for that. Belonging may be as simple as a gentle hand on the shoulder when everything hurts. One thing is clear to me – these are not issues any of us can tackle alone.

The untouchable Druid

I’m really not good with social hugging. I had thought this was all very straightforward. My childhood was definitely a non-contact sport, as an adult I have been physically abused, and I suffer a lot of pain. Why would I want anyone to touch me? Unexpected kisses can give me panic attacks. However, in the last year or so, I’ve had a lot more very tactile people in my life, lots more scope to find out what I want. I think it would also be fair to say that in the context of my marriage, I am not an untouchable ice queen. Whatever my issues are, it’s not as simple as an absolute unwillingness to make contact.

It’s worth pausing to note here that it is very easy indeed to be doing things and not know why. If something has become normal, if you grew up with it, if it’s part of your culture then going along unquestioningly is very easy. Who we are is somewhat malleable and we are easily persuaded by our environments into being someone who fits. But if that’s not who you are, there’s an accompanying unease, a chaffing sense that something is out of kilter. So here I am, doing a thing, and not knowing why. Hating being pounced on and resenting casual, unmeant contact, and assuming it was because I’m not a very tactile person.

In the last year I’ve had three very important sets of exchanges around the issue of reduced physical contact. Three different people who, for different reasons are not able to make physical contact with me on the level I would have gone for. There have been conversations to understand why and to figure out what would work, and how to honour boundaries. These are three people I really like, and in the space where contact does not occur, I’ve been seeing a thing. A great welling up of joy and affection that seeks expression. I find it mildly frustrating that I cannot pour that emotion out in the most obvious ways, but at the same time to inflict unwelcome contact is, as I know from grim experience, a pretty disgusting thing. There is no way I would do that to someone I care about.

And that may be the critical point in all of this. Unmeant social affection, I realise, troubles me because it is unmeant. On occasions when I’ve expressed discomfort with being kissed, it’s tended to be the case that the person doing the kissing kisses everyone and considers it to be no big deal. I am really uneasy about doing that casually precisely because it’s not an empty gesture when I do it. I don’t like hugging people where nothing is felt or meant.

I’ve put in some serious contemplating time around this issue over the last few days. I realise I am not a cold and standoffish person, and that all my issues with contact come from somewhere else entirely. I’m an intense, emotional, passionate sort of person and (when I’m not hurting bodily, which is a different issue altogether) my inclination is to express surges of joy and adoration by throwing my arms around people, and in more serious cases, kissing them on the cheek. When I mean it, I hug tight, close and serious and I stop there for as long as I think it acceptable to the other person. In learning to accommodate people whose wants are different to mine, I’ve become more able to understand who I am and what I want, which is an interesting moral to the story. When everything is the same, when we don’t allow difference, we are less able to find out about our own authentic selves. Who I think I am has just shifted dramatically. It probably won’t change what I do, but it changes things within me.