Please Crush My Soul Back Into My Body

I don't wear loose-fitting tops. Not because of how they fit on my body, but because of how I feel when I wear them. Loose-fitting tops, when worn on their own, make me feel like the world is spinning completely out of control. I'm not sure when I first noticed this phenomenon. Young me always wound up with clothing just a bit too big "so I could grow into it." Tween/teen me spent quite the number of years after I'd stopped growing still wearing clothes that were still slightly too big because "if a boy was going to be interested in me, it wasn't going to be because of what I looked like or how I dressed." But then one day one of the other girls at church wound up not fitting into the size small shirt that she'd requested, and her friends convinced me that I was a horrible person for not wanting to give her my medium when I'd fit into her small, and so I traded under peer pressure, and I've never gone back. Even when faced with the necessity of wearing something looser, I have to have a skintight tank/cami underneath. I've come to refer to the concept as being in need of a human thundershirt 24/7.

The fact of the matter is, I'm a more regulated human being when I feel pressure against my chest. All of my anxious energy has lived in my sternum for as long as I can remember, but pressure against it helps that physical anxiety symptom to dissipate. So I wear tight-fitting tops. I stand with my arms crossed (despite the decades of being told what a massive nonverbal communication error that is) or with whatever object I'm holding pulled tightly against my chest. When I reach the point of meltdown, I find a place to sit with my knees squeezed as tightly to my chest as possible. Whatever pressure it takes to pull everything exploding from my chest back inside of me to a point of stasis.

When faced with the question of whether something was missed in one's initial understanding of how one's brain and nervous system are wired, one sometimes finds themselves in new corners of the internet. For me, this included finding a different framing of the 5 love languages. One of them? "Please Crush My Soul Back Into My Body" (aka Deep Pressure). And my immediate response? Yep. That's it. The best description possible for my human thundershirts, arms to chest, and tightly balled up body. But missing from the list these days? The most obvious version imaginable - the hug.

I was once the ultimate hug person. "4 hugs a day - that's the minimum. 4 hugs a day, there's no maximum" I sang wholeheartedly in my 1st grade class. It was one of my favorite songs we sang that year - I was all about no maximums on hugs. I sought out hugs from all my favorite church people each Sunday during sharing of the peace or fellowship time between services. At camp each summer when my counselor gave us the option of "hug, handshake, or high five" at bedtime, I always picked hug. I lived for the hugs that followed closing prayers at every senior high church thing ever. I still have listed on my Facebook favorite quotes the "If you leave without a hug, it's your own fault!" that was announced at the end of my college's camp-style worship each week. Hugs were where I found safety and regulation for so much of my life.

And then suddenly I didn't. I don't know quite when the switch flipped, but it was definitely a switch flip. No slow fade. I just suddenly became an "I absolutely do not want to be touched" kind of a person. There were plenty of times I'd still acquiesce because the other person needed it even if I didn't (though I had to tighten that boundary after some unfortunate happenings last summer), but hugs were no longer a thing I sought out.

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what changed, and while still I can't quite put it entirely into words yet, there are some reasons that have risen to the top. First? It's the vulnerability of it. Because for much of my adult life? Vulnerability has so not been my thing. I mean, to be fair, stressed out me has been known to lack a verbal filter and will spill far more than I should or even intend to share. But the vulnerability required to admit that I'm flawed or that I can't go it alone and could use help or support? Absolutely not. I've been burned too many times. And every time I've dared to trust people again, my trust has been so deeply betrayed that I retreat once more into isolation. Despite what every therapist ever has preached to me, that kind of vulnerability has felt so many levels of overrated. And as long as hugs felt vulnerable? I've had no interest in them.

Another reason? I've found the older I get, the more often that hugs shared between adults too often have emotional strings attached that I'm not capable of fulfilling. Hugs that come with "I'm going to fix you" strings when you're in no mood to be fixed, and extra not in the mood to be fixed in the way the other person tries to will upon you. Others that come with "I'm afraid of losing you" strings that make the you who already fears vulnerability want to sprint in the other direction never to return. And so many other strings I've yet to find the words to describe. So the me who can't handle the pressure of the emotional strings flees in the opposite direction.

The problem with that? I still need a way to crush my soul back into my body to be a functional human being, and doing it myself has never worked as well as the hugs of my youth. So I rotate hugs among the family dogs (as they're willing to tolerate). I look forward to the near-tackling hugs that my friends' kids greet me with when I walk in the door and their goodnight hugs when they head for bed (because kid hugs come with none of the pressure that adult hugs do). And I continue to wear my human thundershirts, find new ways to stand where I can hold pressure against my chest without seeming standoffish and/or awkward, and sit with my knees to my chest as often as possible (even in places it's not necessarily deemed appropriate).

And from time to time, I make note of where the good hugs come from. The ones that come with no strings attached, where I am an equal and not a step (or more) below. The ones where vulnerability feels safe. The ones that say "I will sit here with you in this moment without trying to change a thing." And somehow those always seem to be the hugs that are best at crushing my soul back into my body, too.

Still, there are the moments when a hug would help lead back to a more regulated me, but I'm so far gone that the hug will make me in some ways worse before I feel better. Because across my spectrum of emotion, regulated moves through outwardly falling apart and on to numb. And while I'm generally fully aware that numb is a less-than-healthy state to be in, it's much more functional (and much less socially awkward) than me outwardly falling apart. So where a hug would take me out of numb and into outwardly falling apart before I can find regulated again, I've still been known to turn it down for the sake of social preservation (because the me who outwardly falls apart all the time has a long history of losing friends and jobs to not being able to hold it together around other people).

I've spent a decent chunk of the last year focused on healing from the handful of years before that. And over the last couple of months, I've slowly but surely started picking up once-foundational pieces of me that I'd thought I'd lost for good. First it was writing. Then it was my faith walk. And in the midst of those things, there have existed more and more moments where I found myself longing for one of those perfect "Please Crush My Soul Back Into My Body" hugs again (even got one a time or two). And for the first time in a very long time, it feels like being a hug person is back on the table. It's not a piece I'm fully ready to pick up again, but the possibility is there. And in that I find hope.