Take a stroll through the internet; type the words, “Otters holding hands,” and see for yourself. It goes beyond cute. It speaks to the impact of touch.

Supposedly, these wild creatures make it a point to hold hands while they’re in water. They don’t want to lose touch with one another. It’s safety. Bonding. Instinct. Maybe even, love?

Whatever may be going on here, it still shows how touch is important. Life or death important. Certainly, quality of life important.

I didn’t have the touch-feely experience for a significant part of my life. Yet, I felt the absence of it. It translated as unmet need for me. And unmet need, left unaddressed, will not be ignored forever. It speaks up; it screams, in fact, sometimes.

Why touch? What is so significant about it?

There is Sense of Self Found In Touch.

If my memory serves me, I no longer was touched or held by the time I was five years old. That didn’t mean I agreed with that decision. It didn’t mean that I no longer needed human touch. On the contrary. And the confusion and negative messages I internalized led me to believe harmful things about myself, like…

I did something bad/wrong to no longer have anyone hug me. I must be bad.

It’s wrong for me to want to be touched.

They don’t see that I’m here. If they did, they’d want to touch me.

Touch and identity go hand-in-hand, pun intended. Invisibility can be a desperate “reason” we give, trying to explain to ourselves why we are not being held. This can be even more painful if we, as children, are trying to give ourselves the satisfactory answer. Touch is a message. It conveys “I see you; I hear you.” It affirms, to each one of us, “Yes, you are a person, an important person.” Ideally, through touch, there is no shame found in that message. It’s a natural expression of recognizing worth and relationship.

For many years, with touch’s absence in my life, I didn’t know who or what I was.  I even went through a period in which I wondered if I even existed. I had no literal touchstone, affirming that, yes, I am here, I am included in the touch experience.

What about you? How did touch, or the lack thereof, make you view yourself as yourself? Were you bad, wrong, lovable, cute, ugly, needy, or deserving?

How has touch affected who you are today? It does shape who we are and who we become.

There is Approval Found in Touch.

When I was in high school, my English/Drama teacher met my need for approval through touch. She believed in my ability to write and perform. I remember during many a rehearsal and performance, she engulfed me with bear hugs that could have suffocated me. But instead, I felt the breath of acceptance.

This was in direct contrast to the rest of my adolescent existence. No one else wanted to offer physical affection to me. And I needed it desperately.

Indeed, my teacher was the sole source of human touch, and I savored every bit of it. It helped me survive high school, an extraordinary feat, all by itself. Those bear hugs taught me, in three dimensions, that I was huggable, ergo, loveable.

Someone wanted to hug me. And I didn’t want to argue the point.

Yes, human touch can transmit the message, “you are loveable and approved of.” Its absence or denial can, likewise, send the opposite message, “you are hated/rejected.” The powerful impact on the “touch-ee” is in direct correlation to the intention of the “toucher.”

Approval comes when someone wants to touch us, because they love and value us. Without that, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, we can feel like the most repellant leper.

And no human being does well internalizing that message as a core belief.

Who touched you and how did it help?

Did you learn the inherent truth, that you are valuable from its presence? Did you learn the untrue concept of unworthiness through its absence?

How do you live your life today? Do you approve or yourself, or do you constantly chase affirmation, largely because of you “skin hungry” experiences?

There is Healing Found in Touch.

I have received abundant lessons in this concept right here: healing through touch. Eating disorders, painful experiences in my youth, AND cancer have each showed me the power of touch concerning the separate issues, how the absence of touch proves significant in sparking and worsening all three.

First, there was the issue of disordered eating and image. There have been studies done, suggesting that children, particularly females, who grow up with more distant and emotionally removed family members, can be more susceptible to eating disorders like Anorexia and Bulimia.

“Families of People with Bulimia Nervosa:

Parents are critical and detached

Characterized by hostile enmeshment

Non-nurturing

Emotionally unresponsive

May have an obese parent, a parent with an eating disorder, or who may have been overweight themselves during childhood.”

Ohio State University FactSheet. <http://ohioline.osu.edu/ed-fact/1005.html>. Used with permission

For me, afflicted with disordered eating, the emotional detachment I experienced, through lack of human touch translated as disconnection. And I wanted to connect.

So, seeing there was no human source of connection, I bonded with food and its myriad of maladaptive behaviors instead, to achieve any kind of relationship and the all-important comfort that accompanies that relationship. Disordered eating, food, unhealthy behaviors, and mind-sets were all surrogate hugs, held hands, and kisses.

Touch helps me in my eating disorder recovery, as I am reminded of my worth and lovability. Loving physical displays of affection serve to confirm I am a human being with a body that is not disgusting or wrong. I am enough, worth of that hug instead. That’s as big of a part of my recovery as nutrition and therapy.

Next, I discovered that touch heals as I continue to recover from the pain I experienced. I am currently in the thick of trauma therapy. And here is a VALUABLE lesson I learned, while engaging in it, DURING a pandemic: do NOT do it alone! This has been a most painful emotional marathon for me. Unearthing layers of memories, triggers, harmful associations, and lies has been lonely, isolating, and challenging to my identity and personal issues. I usually leave a session with my therapist feeling like I have been wrung out and punched with brass knuckles that have spikes in them.

So, yeah, I need comfort; I need self-care.

And beyond the baths, eye masks, and foot soaks, part of that self-care has been to get affirming physical touch from my husband and chosen loved ones. These chosen individuals, have been there for me, holding my hand, hugging me, kissing my forehead, all while telling me, again, how loved and special I am.

And that’s vital when one is recovering from trauma. The level of my need for reassurance has been upped as I’ve been involved in this kind of therapy. I say this to encourage anyone out there who is also dealing with this challenge. You are not a weak failure; you are addressing excruciating issues that cut deep into your psyche. This is hard work.

How much more, then, is the comfort of physical touch needed, as you and I dig through the pain and into our recovery?

Do you feel like an untouchable minster?

Have past painful experiences distorted how love and affection can or should be expressed?

Are you convinced you are too shameful to be touched in a loving manner?

And then there’s the issue of breast cancer.

It wasn’t just about my trauma recovery. It also applied to my cancer experiences and as well.

“Benefits of Healing Touch:

• Strengthens the immune system and increases energy levels
• Improves athletic performance and mental focus
• Quiets the mind and promotes relaxation
• Helps prepare for and recover from surgery
• Reduces unwanted side effects of drug therapy
• Supports cancer care
• Eases acute or chronic conditions
• Enhances hospice or end-of-life care
• Reduces pain”

Healing Energy (abmp.com)

Used with permission

Cancer is trauma; it is traumatic to those diagnosed and treated.

Why do you think we see so much “fighting cancer,” “battling cancer,” cute little pink birds, with slogans like “one tough chick,”  written on them, especially concerning breast cancer? It’s because the disease is a bully. It terrorizes and beats up the person who hears the words, “You have cancer.”

I felt beat up. And no, I was not objectively approaching my diagnosis, having come from the pain of both my eating disorder and abusive past.

But hearing about your diagnosis and getting treated for it are two animals that are both tamed, even if ever so slightly, by touch.

When I heard that my biopsy results were cancerous, my husband immediately grabbed my hand.

Human touch was needed and was there.

When I was preparing to undergo six weeks of radiation, I read in the “radiation manual” my clinic gave me how, while sexual activity, especially, without the use of birth control, was HIGHLY discouraged, touch, itself was recommended at every possible turn.

Hugs, cuddling, holding hands, back rubs were all specifically mentioned as crucial to getting through the radiation process. Everywhere else, in the manual, it was clinical, discussing what happens to one’s skin, how the machine works, and even the risks of the treatment itself. Everywhere else it was clinical, except for that segment about human contact.

Again, the touch from loved ones, including those in my cancer care team with whom I had become close, helped me with the fear, the pain, the burned skin, the changed self-image.

Touch. Touch did that.

Like the cute otters, touch kept me from drifting away from my life and getting lost. Touch was often keeping me together as a person.

Be Like Otter.

Bruce Lee was famous for saying, “Be like water.” And yes, it’s a beautiful sentiment.

I think what is just as significant- especially concerning the human touch issue, is “Be like Otter.”

Life is brutal. There’s so much that threatens to rip us apart. Touch connects. It connects mind, body, and spirit. We don’t do well without it. Premature babies are touched by nurses in the NICU, all so they don’t have the words “failure to thrive” attached to them.

We don’t do well without touch. We don’t thrive without touch.

Otters are cute and playful. And instinctively wise. They hold hands. (Or paws. I’m not sure what is the accurate description for their limbs). But they’re holding onto each other WITH them.

And they don’t get lost. They float the life waters together.

Copyright © 2021 by Sheryle Cruse