touch me

i'm reading "Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin", and am suddenly struck by the passages i'm reading. some hear messages in the radio, i've found my message in a book. The passage follows:

"The loss of human physical contact generated feelings of loneliness, frustration, a sense of coldness, and a lack of emotional warmth."
"Loneliness is very much in the same class and of much the same kind as the separation anxiety that infants and children experience when they are deprived fro any length of time from contact with their mothers. It is a separation anxiety which causes us, as adolescents and adults, to become restless when alone for any durable peroid of time, and at any cost to seek out the company of others.
"Loneliness is a state of being unconnected, to be out of touch with others, of wanting to be with somebody who isn't there, of having nobody to turn to who can affirm one's essential humanity."

we know that infants who are not touched enough suffer greatly. why would it stop at infancy? i've said before that i suffer from adult onset failure to thrive. (people think i'm kidding around when i say it) an illness, seemingly unknown (okay, maybe i named it). so, maybe it's just me. but when lengths of time pass that i'm not touched, i start to wither and life gets harder. i may passionately need to "get my fins wet" and spend time at a spa, the water and steam and heat a substitute for the warmth and caress of human hands. or, i may need to reasure myself that i'm still alive, still feeling--and then we know what happens (i'm sorry E).
there is a curative power in the laying of hands on another person. i think we deny this need to our detriment. one of the women at the house today had returned from her visit to the sweat lodge. she was disconnected and said she wasn't sure who she was. maybe this was an effect of the ceremony, or maybe it was due to her mental illness. regardless, i put my hand on her forearm for a moment when we were sitting and talking. she visibly and almost instantly calmed and cleared. that touch reminded her of her self, of her connection to her body, and it's connection to the outside.
so maybe this intense loneliness and sadness, this isolation and despair is stemming from lack of touch. maybe this isn't my crazy coming out, but a simple lack of physical, tactile tenderness and nurturance.