The reason

[Deleted User]MeAndWe (deleted user)

The only one reason why I decided to join this site is because I battle major depression disorder and anxiety disorder. I'm looking for a cuddler who can try to calm me down when I'm having an anxiety attack or when I can't sleep at night, but just cuddling every night. And when I'm having an anxiety attack or something. Does that make sense? Am I the only one?

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Comments

  • “Am I the only one?”

    You’re never the only one.

    Perhaps you should seek help elsewhere; it’s one thing to cuddle another person, it’s another thing entirely to expect a person to help you with mental health disorders. There are professionals for that. And I don’t mean professional cuddlers.

  • @exsanguinate I agree. I wonder if he is trying to say that cuddling comforts him. I hope he is not expecting someone to help overcome his mental health issues, because, as you said, that is entirely unfair.

  • [Deleted User]SoftPetals (deleted user)

    @MemberofLDS I have anxiety and chronic depression too and cuddling definitely helps. You're not alone by any means 🤗

  • I always get concerned when i hear people talk about cuddling in terms of helping with their mental disorders. The feeling you get when cuddling can help with certain symptoms, but it will not help in the way that you might hope for it to. Please seek appropriate help if this is truly a burden for you. A hug may make you feel better but it will not cure you.

  • I've been (or in fact perhaps still am) in the same boat as you and the best (totally unsolicited) advice I can give you is that you will not find or get what you are looking for here. Try not to hold onto the idea that someone will save you. It feels great to fantasise about, but it's not realistic.

    Only you can save yourself and that starts by talking to your GP.

  • @MemberofLDS
    What @pmvines and @Djorge said is true. Seek help from a professional. Cuddling can make you feel better short term due to the oxytocin and dopamine that gets released when cuddling, and that’s ok, nothing wrong with it. However you need to get to the core of your problem to reach a long term solution.

    Meanwhile consider adopting a dog or cat from your local animal shelter for full time companionship, if you feel capable of that responsibility. Also, keep posting in the forums, there are many good people here to support you.

  • For every person who says, “cuddling has helped me with my anxiety” (or depression, or whatever), these naysayers get on and make blanket statements that cuddling is NOT therapeutic.

    Sorry if you don’t get long term benefits, but I do. Keep invalidating my personal experience with your generalizations. I’ll keep speaking my truth -which is that this has worked for me.

  • @HoldenCaulfield I am not invalidating your personal experience. Do whatever works for you. However i am saying and have always said and will continue to say that cuddling does not cure mental illness. Symptom management perhaps, however it will not change the wiring in your brain. It is like saying all you need to do to be fit is to stop eating sweets. Yes it will make you lose some weight or at least keep from gaining more, however you also need to exercise and make lifestyle changes to be fit. I am not downplaying your experience, but someone with legit serious issues needs more than a hug. It is dangerous and irresponsible to think otherwise.

  • edited February 2020

    Simultaneously telling people that it’s irresponsible to suggest cuddling can help someone, while with no more basis for your opinion, telling people that it can’t is ridiculous and offensive.

    My doctors tell me that habits, including exercise, eating habits, and regular social contact can absolutely change the wiring in someone’s brain.

    Do you even know the health consequences of loneliness?

    It’s a literal killer.

    MOD Edit: removed personal attack [SoulcuddlerZ]

  • [Deleted User]MeAndWe (deleted user)

    @HoldenCaulfield No need to be rude.

  • @HoldenCaulfield

    “I’ll keep speaking my truth”

    Your truth means nothing outside of your skull. It seems like you’re being overly defensive because what “worked” for you is being critiqued.

    If this is your reaction to people on the internet saying reasonable things, then maybe your truth isn’t really panning out.

  • @HoldenCaulfield nobody is attacking you or the OP here . You are obviously triggered about something that has been said. Sorry it has touched a nerve . To @MemberofLDS , good luck and I hope you find relief from your anxiety and depression and if cuddling alone doesn't help you , I hope you have other resources available to help you .

  • [Deleted User]MeAndWe (deleted user)

    @pmvines Thanks, I guess.

  • Even if cuddling isn't a permanent fix of everything, it may be a useful put-off.
    My concern would be that it puts a lot of responsibility on the other person, who is also a human with needs, and they might suffer from that.
    I've heard about getting a pet, but also the suggestion to first try getting a house plant. For some people, even looking after one of those can be a challenge.

  • edited February 2020

    My thought is to understand what anxiety is and observing if anxiety is as simple as taking a school exam or something that is excessive and interferes with your daily life. I think it's a state of mind, maybe too many minds, in other words maybe thinking or dwelling on something too much. Maybe just going out with friends, playing, laughing etc is good. All I can say is I have had anxiety all my life to interact with new people and cuddling has helped me incredibly. Even writing my thoughts in this forum gives me some anxiety and thinking how others may respond to my comments. Not a cure, if there is such a thing, but like taking a test I feel so relieved when I know I've done a good job and studied hard. I think the forum is great for open dialogue where others can relate to each others issues. Experiment, process of elimination, cuddling may or might not be right for you in this situation; I'm not going to say. There could be physiologic or chemical imbalances that you might interpret to be anxiety, such as an unhealthy diet. Seeking professional help would be advised. I would like to caution that feelings, emotions, can be transfered/counter-transfered to and from a cuddler, (and from you), who has trusted to open his or her sanctuary to you. Leave it better than you found it so he or she can also benefit from the cuddling experience, like not thinking of a cuddler as an object to heal ones self, but as a person who may be having far worse ailments than you have but doesn't talk about it. Just my thoughts... Good Luck!

  • Helping others, can be a good way to dwell less on one's own difficulties.

  • Sorry for the rude language.

    To me, this is very personal.

    I am overcoming complex PTSD and other conditions you are referring to as “mental illness”.

    I have turned my prognosis around through a course of treatment that includes an increase in close, nonsexual, physical contact as well as other methods of biofeedback that communicates to my body that I am physically and emotionally safe.

    I am here to tell people that cuddling helps me survive and that dismissing its therapeutic applicability across the board is a position that lacks necessary nuance, and is frankly offensive.

  • I love that @HoldenCaulfield. With something as challenging as PTSD, I love hearing about your success here.

  • Thanks, littermate. I got upset when, in response to SoftPetals saying

    “Cuddling helps my anxiety and depression”

    PMVines responded, essentially, that, “No, the cuddling didn’t help her. At least, not in the way she thinks. And that saying as much to LDS was irresponsible.”

    To me it smacks of virtue signaling and gaslighting.

    I recognize, however, that the comments did strike a nerve and that my response was likely out of proportion.

    Again, I apologize to the members of the community for my poor word choice.

  • To those with severe anxiety, depression, and/or PTSD, please look into psychedelic research. Also, look into MDMA-assisted psychotherapy studies. If that's too much for you, try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, AKA CBT. The book "Feeling Good" which is about CBT might help. I know cuddling helps too, even with a dog. Feel better! :)

  • @HoldenCaulfield
    I think that @pmvines has some professional expertise in this matter, and is trying to say that although a sticking plaster is better than nothing, it may not be as effective as necessary.

    Having said that, I believe that a great part of mental health is a feeling of being in control of one's situation, and having had a "win" over one's problems ; so the mere feeling that one is doing something which helps, actually helps.
    It's like an optical illusion ; if it looks like one, it is one.

  • edited February 2020

    @HoldenCaulfield i am glad that you have found things that work for you and that cuddling is part of that . You are getting hung up with me not being in total agreement with you . Other people don't agree with you but you seem to take exception with my posts on this matter. That's ok . We don't have to agree on everything we say . To you , cuddling has helped your mental distesss a great deal and you seem to value if as being enough . I don't believe that only cuddling will help with severe emotional distress in a long term impactful way for most people. You seem to be an exception to that and I am glad for you .

  • I am an occupational therapist Assistant and cuddler. I agree that sensory input such as cuddling can help combat the symptoms of mental health problems. However, as pmvines states it cannot be the ONLY action you take. You need many tools in your tool box to constantly work on yourself and improve your situation. But in saying that some people need help managing their symptoms before they can focus and deeper causes. I hope you find what you are looking for and stay in contact with your doctor. You are not alone.

  • Sounds like yet again everybody is right from their particular experience. Somewhere in all the voices there is an actual truth. Maybe no one has it. Maybe everyone just has a piece of it based on their experience. Maybe we can leave the mystery of the absolute truth as a mystery and bow to everyone's experience in the matter. I actually don't hear any conflict between the voices of experience -- someone's got the elephant's tail, someone's got its head.

  • @littermate
    "someone's got the elephant's tail, someone's got its head."
    An analogy of which I would have been proud. 😀

    @TouchofCherie
    "some people need help managing their symptoms before they can focus on deeper causes."
    If someone told me the winning numbers for next week's National Lottery, I'd still need to find a pound to buy the ticket.
    Sometimes we can only take tiny steps, one at a time.

  • edited February 2020

    @HoldenCaulfield , your observation that you cuddling activities help overcome your PTSD , is or was that by accident or from the instruction of a DR. ?
    Your entry into this discussion makes no mention of a doctors recommendation ( to cuddle) . I would say the average reader , would interpret your comment , as something like self help .
    Then you buttress your first comment with admittance that you received an RX , to increase social contact , which includes non sexual physical contact ( platonic cuddling).
    Is it fair to say you agree with other posters comments to seek professional help , for such disorders as anxiety etc , ?or other condition described by the OP @membersofLSD

  • I was advised by my doctor to walk 10 miles every day. At the end of the week, I was stuck 70 miles from home.

    When I went away to college, my mother advised me to put on a clean shirt every day. At the end of the week, I was roasting.

    Sometimes people need to be a bit more specific with their advice.

  • ... or get a different doctor . Or don’t do what mother says

  • [Deleted User]SoftPetals (deleted user)

    @littermate and @HoldenCaulfield I agree. I do have professional counseling to help also. But one must do their own research too because everyone is not the same and finding what works for you is for you. Do what makes you happy and feel good. There are things doctors and specialists do not know as well as us; things not yet discovered. So everything must be taken at a case by case basis.

    My counselors feel that cuddling is a great idea and they have seen how it helps tremendously.

    Although medicines like serotonin reuptake inhibitors (Celexa, Lexapro , Prozac, etc) helps level both anxiety (high intense emotional response) and depression (low and sometimes subtle emotional response), cuddling produces the same serotonin neurochemicals. So who's to say cuddling can't heal if it's a natural source?

    @cuddlerforu24 I understand your comments totally. I'll add that every counselor doesn't choose the same approach yet, interestingly my counselor wanted me to increase my social activities also which is proven to help. What may work for someone may not for another person. 🤗😊

    People stay strong, and cuddle ON! 🤗😘

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