Connection and working on my child hood trauma. Synopsis of my childhood--I'm a twin. Every day i'd be stripped naked, berated for being too fat ( even in preschool) , weighed and made fun of in front of my brothers still naked, my mom would grab my belly or skin and humiliate me, if I cried I got it worse or hit or she pretended I did not exist and would not acknowledge me
. Then when all this was done she'd snuggle and read to a nd tickle my brothers while I was banished for fatness.
I received so little kind touching from anyone I didn't KNOW I was ticklish til I was 15.
The juxtaposition of my humiliation and abuse with my twin getting all that love and affection forever made me feel that I was not human. I was deformed, too ugly too be loved. I had an eating disorder by the time I was 10 in part because my mom was making me throw up as a 5 year old. I still have my eating disorder 30 years later but it's getting better.
So one time we were talking about it and my T said "well ill give you snuggles" ( which she does)
And I was in a pissed off "you don't understand " mood and said " yeah? What about the tickles?"
And she said " we will figure that out"
And over a few years as we have done my trauma and inner child work we gradually established that I really DO love being tickled ( I do . My wife and friends do a lot of it. It makes me feel.human) and we established how to be certain I wasn't scared or flashbacking and when it would happen and I became able to ask for it.
And it's been tremendously healing. It makes me feel like a non disgusting non deformed human. When I feel too "fat" to even let her look at me tickles get me out of the shame. And the effort she has gone through to.try to appropriately use something she has never used before and likely never will again. Had a tremendous positive impact on our relationship.
Plus she says she loves to hear me laugh which is something my.mom used to say to my brother usually in the same breath that she said i.made her physically ill. I didn't tell.my T that. She came up with that on her own but it's one of my favorite things to hear....

ETA:
I have a rich meditative life including my inner child aka "little wolf" so it's a cycle. I get tickles from T. Then I'm feeling strong and Loved so little wolf gets tickles from me. Healing occurs.