I had a support worker I had to fire 2 weeks after I hired her. On the topic of hugging. She asked if there were any specific support requirements I had and I explicitly told her that no physical contact would be accepted in any way shape or form. She seemed a bit put off by this and said she was a very physically affectionate person (autism missed this red flag - fucking boundaries man, who is touching their clients unless for personal care type support) but hey she had been a worker for 16 years so what did I know. We went to a Kmart and she answered the phone on shift with me to talk to a different client without asking before excusing herself to go into a different island and sort of caressing my arm as she went. I flinched and sort of felt myself start to dissociate as I felt like my boundary again wasn't fucking being respected cause laid down one simple fucking rule. Don't. Touch. Me. It isn't hard. And you shouldn't be doing it anyway.
Ended up firing her a week later because of this, the fact that she pressured me to let her leave work early despite not having prompted me to do any personal care, and charged me $90 an hour for 2 hours for only doing a 20 min shift. And she used a fake disability parking permit to pick me up and I'm like 'what the fuck are you using that for, you know I have no mobility issues, park up the road. I can walk 5-10 min to the car it's a nice walk. It's morally wrong to prevent a phsyically handicapped person from utilising this parking spot just because you're helping me and I have a developmental disability.'
All three things tipped me over the edge and I called my support coordinator to fire her. I texted her about the hugging thing and explained that I was basically done with her that shift (which was the first) but I gave her another shot and she didn't make the cut.
The thing that annoyed me though is this. She was like 'aw no I'm a hugger' when I told her. As though I'm somehow doing her a disservice or being unfair.
Oh no, I'm not? It's my support. It's fucking 2 goddamn hours. Do your job. I hug other people I care about when I must to make them know I deeply care for them. I'm expected to ensure shoulder pats and handshakes and all sorts of shit. Relationships involve a significant amount of physical contact on a regular basis. All of these things I do for other people, and you can't keep your huggy little hands to yourself for 2 fucking short hours? Not even 30 minutes into the first shift you did it. Like oh my lord above. How atrocious.
I really hate that hugs are seen as the standard. I enjoy forcing non hugging dominance early in a relationship by refusing to engage in the hug dance where someone offers one. I just stand there and make no move to accept it. I don't pretend to do it for people I don't really care about and I don't buy into hugging people I don't trust. My willingness to hug someone directly correlates to how deeply I trust them. My old housemate always, always gets a hug. I always ask for one because I love him a lot and he has done a lot for me. His partner, before I dumped her due to her poor attitude, lost the hug card because she once sexually assaulted me at an event when she was drunk by caressing me all over my body while I froze up and couldn't move and was asking her repeatedly to stop saying no over and over again until a friend pulled her off me and allowed themselves to be mauled instead. I ran out the door, all the way home then fell into bed without getting changed. When I woke up the next morning I messaged a friend asking what it was about me that made people (my dad during all this time was infringing on personal physical boundaries every single time I had to see him so I constantly was alert for it) just not fucking listen when I loudly and aggressively state I do not enjoy being touched and despite all evidence to the contrary, they will proceed anyway. My friend said this person seemed a bit rapey, and that I should message her telling her that she had really upset me and see how she reacted. She was very ashamed of it but understood when I told her I wouldn't hug her anymore.
The big thing I want anyone who reads this to take away from my post is this. Non huggers often (but not always) have a damn good reason for not wanting the action to occur. Many autistic people hate how hugs feel due to sensory issues. I'm in that category and I need consistently distributed pressure over my body using compression garments or use of a weighted blanket to benefit from any type of 'hug like' simulation. Some autistic people seek out hugs as they love the feeling of them. Many survivors of sexual trauma, especially childhood sexual abuse, have a pathological drive away from hugging. For me it was automatic. Guys at lacrosse would hug me at parties while drunk and I'd come out swinging ready to pile them into the ground for daring to touch me. Or I'd fight and push them away before running around the corner and hiding. Many of us want to have 'safe' touch but it's hard to know exactly what that looks like and I would argue it requires certain people in a survivors life to provide the slow introduction to various forms of physical affection to build that tolerance.
With me it came from friends doing this thing where when I arrived they would stand there making the motion for a hug, and I'd walk past going 'not today man' and they'd stop and follow me in. When I left they would do the same thing. And I'd go 'sorry, not today' and that continued for over a year, with random successes here and there. Then I started accepting the hugs. I didn't view them as initiating them as I clearly was in total control of the outcome. Eventually it progressed to me just saying 'hug me?' and they would do that. Finally now it is more automatically done. That is a whole 6 years of targetted, organised, coordinated efforts by a connected group of my friends who brainstormed and communicated about my progress, success, deterioration, and finally the ability to end the gang.
So the next time someone says they don't want a hug, I wish more people like those in this thread would think it's chill instead of us being standoffish. I don't judge them for throwing out what I consider a more special connection to whoever they want, nor should I be judged for my unwillingness to do so.
TEAM NOT HUGGING
WTF else do we have these days? 
