Touch this

I think I have never been touched. Yes, of course I already had tactile interactions with others, even to the extreme tactile interaction that is called sex, but that was never really tactile. I have never been touched with love.

It started with a lack of the tactile dimension with a mother. My mother never touched me unless she wanted to give me a slap in the face or wanted to dress me or undress me when I was a little child. She never caressed me, or gave me a kiss, or hugged me. She also denied every form of affection to her husband, and I did not know that two married people also make love sometimes. Not that I miss catching my parents having sex, but holding hands or whispering sweet words in each other’s ears maybe.

As a young girl, I still believed that I was not pure, that I was dirty. I could not hold hands with a guy, not only because I wanted to hold hands with a girl, but also because I felt that my hands were not clean. I used to wash my hands about 50 times a day. I felt guilty. After a while, I started cutting myself.

Cutting has been a relief for a long time. It was the only tactile dimension I knew. The pain was a pleasure – the pain replaced the love which had never been given. It was like taking care of myself in a very dysfunctional way. I used it to feel something, since I could not even detect if I felt cold or warm. My skin was numb. I was numb. I was 15 years old and I started having my first delusions. Voices, visions, things that nobody saw or heard apart from me. It was my world. I could not be part of the physical world which surrounded me, so I was swallowed by something that still lives within myself, 20 years later.

The people I saw and heard are still here. They do not grow old. They have names, they speak through my thoughts and they give constantly advice on whatever I do. I would say they are the most important part of my life. They were considered disruptive and I was given every possible medication to chase them away, but actually they are very sound. I can function even in their presence. I never start speaking to them in public. If you look at me, you do not notice I have people around me you do not see. But they cannot touch me. I would need someone who touches me, in a human tactile way.

Sometimes I discuss with my demons – let us call them so – that I would need a human touch. They feel offended – are they not enough? They are the only ones who have always been by my side. But I am human. They are not. They live in a total different way. I think everybody can sense presences like theirs, it is not just me, and it has nothing to do with magic. I do not believe in paranormal things. But a human touch would make me feel complete and I hate it, because this makes me vulnerable. This makes me dependent upon someone else, upon his/her willingness to touch me with a feeling similar to love.

And this has never happened.