📚 Tale Teller Club Press (TTCP)

Excerpt from the book MENO ND Autism, Touch, and the Freedom of Menopause Introduction The Puzzle of Intimacy For most of my life I assumed there was something quietly wrong with me. I loved people. I felt loyalty, tenderness, and fierce protectiveness toward those close to me. I could sit for hours talking with someone I trusted, listening carefully, observing small details about their moods, remembering what mattered to them. Emotional closeness came naturally. Yet physical closeness often did not. Touch—particularly the casual, affectionate touch that many people seem to experience as comforting—frequently felt overwhelming. A hug could feel intrusive rather than soothing. Prolonged contact could become exhausting. Even small gestures that others interpreted as warmth could feel, internally, like sensory noise. This created a paradox that took many years to understand: it is possible to care deeply for others while simultaneously struggling with the physical language through which l...