Touch-Me-Not

I am a sexual abuse survivor. I haven't been on forum in a long time. As I have aged I have changed from someone who used to be hyper sexual to someone who doesn't want to be touched. I am raising my two grandsons and I find it difficult to hug them. I'm so afraid of violating some kind of boundary that I just don't touch them at all. And this is a totally new and different type of dysfunction that stems from the molestation I experienced as a child. Man, this crap just won't go away. Any suggestions as to how I can become more affectionate with the boys. I feel like a board when they try to hug me.

While I did go through some grooming myself, I can't really speak from the same place, mentally speaking. What I can do, is give the suggestion I would in OCD forum, from people who suffer from pedophile-related OCD fears (fear of being a pedo). Which I've also never had- completely. I'm OCD, and I've felt the edges of what's abbreviated POCD before, without suffering from it too badly.

That would be to practice tuning your brain off, and perhaps powering through some of that physical contact, even though it makes you feel uncomfortable at first. As an OCD person, sometimes my brain will tickle me concerning my godchild, and I have to shove it aside and behave as I would without the fear of doing any 'bad touching'. Not all contact is, or has to be, sexual in nature. Nor all physical affection. Between my grooming, and my OCD- and the fact (possibly because of my grooming) that I consider myself bisexual, I have felt a limited amount of discomfort with contact- specifically, same-sex physical contact. And I have to remind myself that it's normal to touch other people. And doesn't have to mean one of us is feeling frisky.

I know it's not a very good parallel, but it's all I have I can speak from, and it seems to me it's still going to boil down to retraining oneself. If your grandkids are still young enough to want hugs, then... don't let their good memories of their grandparent slip by them, is my argument.

I really can't offer anything more than Snags has.

I will say I am physcial abuse and since I was late 40s I have unwittingly reducing physicasl contact, but yours is different, as you say you have gone from one extreme to the other.

You said you are " raising" your grandsons. That is sad and challenging. I commend you and wish you luck and hope for the best. Do you have a pertner to help, I am guessing not?

and your right, it never goes away, and when you think you have dealt with it all it reinvents itself.

take care