I’m not bi-polar and I loathe being touched by strangers or my people I know but needlessly or surprisingly. I can’t go to dance club type places, because all those people bumping into me makes me want to have a meltdown. Usually in my case my dislike of being touched triggers aggressive behavior, so this meltdown would be a disasterous Begbie style throwdown.
Very interesting! I don’t have all the symptoms listed but I definitely have quite a few of the tactile defensive/hypersensitivity symptoms. I hate tags in my clothes, don’t particularly like to brush my teeth and I hate flossing. I wash my hands with soap after touching anything slightly dirty, even after just petting my dog. Can’t stand itchy clothes, I have sensitive teeth and I am easily irritated by noises other people don’t seem to even notice. (I once had a waitress unplug a fountain because the noise the motor made was bothering me so much.) I also get dizzy quite easily. I hate to be chased/approached from behind. I have experienced sensitivity to light and for several months in the last year have been so sensitive to smells that it has induced dry heaves.
I am so bringing this up with my psychiatrist the next time I see him. We thought the nausea may have been due to some of my medications. Maybe this is what is going on.
Good luck! 
tactile defensive
Wow, this shed some light on some things…
I’m bipolar, live alone, and I don’t get touched enough.
When I go home to visit my family, I’m always more hungry for talk than food, and positively starved for human contact. Luckily for me, my mother and two of my brothers are big huggers. (It’s my mother’s dog who hates to see people hugging each other, and will make every effort to break things up!) My long-time therapist asked me in our first session if I liked being hugged, and I said yes, so she gives me a big hug at the end of every session. Feels good.
My small circle of friends includes several people who are as in need of non-sexual, non-invasive touching as I am. I’m not overtly touchy-feely, but every now and again the warmth of the embrace of someone I trust is better than medicine.
The OP got me to thinking about the movie David and Lisa, which opens with Keir Dullea being brought to a sanitarium. He’s supposed to be about 19, and although his specific illness is never mentioned, he can’t stand being touched. When anyone so much as lays a finger on him, however innocently, he screams bloody murder and starts throwing himself around the room. This defense mechanism is eventually resolved, but in a pat and unsatisfying way, IMO.
I would like to just put out a blanket apology here.
I am a toucher. Not a hugger, per se, because I have my own ideas of when a relationship is intimate enough for that, and it’s a pretty conservative estimate. But I do find myself touching people on the arm or whatever when I’m talking to them. Even as I my hand is reaching out, I will think Don’t touch! Some people don’t like it! Even worse, they find it creepy! and I always apologize for it, but sometimes, I just can’t get the STOP signal to my hand in time.
FTR, the bipolar clients I had were all very touchy/feely/huggy, but I see we have settled that debate already.