My Reign of Terror as a Safety Mechanism

So cuddling.  Cuddling is this weird thing that is, in theory, something that I really enjoy.  Yup!  It's physically nice, it's emotionally nice, and I sure do love me some cuddles.

In practice, cuddling oscillates between being the nice thing that it is in theory, and being a terrifying pit of terror and doom and angst.  And spiders.  And terror.

There seem to be two main forces that drive cuddling toward the terror end.  One is the very real phenomenon of cuddling transitioning from a non-sexual activity into a sexual one.  Except that I'm never on board with experiencing that transition (except for ISSP), which means that suddenly this nice thing that involves physical closeness has turned into this terrifying thing.  Worse, there's some period during which I am still physically entangled.  This leads to very trapped feelings on my part, and having experienced this enough has made me very jumpy about anything that might even look like it could maybe possibly turn into any sort of sexual interest of any variety.

The second driving force is my phenomenally jacked up sensory processing.  Types of touch that feel nice for most people- light, fingertippy contact- make me want to crawl out of my skin.  Unfortunately, many people often use this type of touch without being conscious of it.  It means that, depending on somebody's cuddle style, I may spend a fair bit of time taking their hand and firmly pressing the whole thing against my skin, while giving a verbal reminder, "Surface area.  Pressure."  'Cause even with a pre-game explanation that I need adequate surface area and pressure when people touch me, it's the kind of thing that can be challenging to remember.

Somewhere along the way, I started building up walls to head off the things about cuddling which terrify me.  I think that many people have some sort of read on those walls, and note that they are carefully guarded walls.  Which in turn puts others on guard- they don't entirely know what's going on, but there is clearly heightened vigilance.  I've had a couple of people tell me that they're afraid to share much physical contact with me, which I take to mean that my vigilance is translating clearly.

And... good?  At some point, without my conscious awareness, I learned that people who are afraid of touching me are less likely to.. well.. touch me.  And if I'm not being touched, it means that I'm not going to have any panic moments of, "OMG, teh sex is lurking!" and I'm not going to have any panic moments of, "Oh fuck, I can't handle this contact and I've already reminded them a couple of times and I know they're trying but this is really uncomfortable and maybe they'll change what they're doing soon and holy shit I can't handle this sensation any more."

So there it is.  I maintain what is perhaps the most awkward reign of terror conceivable over people who I care for, because it functions as a safety mechanism.  Are there healthier ways to navigate this?  Obviously.  But maintaining a Cuddle Reign of Terror does have a certain appeal to it.