Fear Of People?

[Hatshepsut]

I'm wondering if what I have is social anxiety or something else? I don't feel anxious based on any certain situation, place, or form of communication (although I hate making phone calls because people are always so rude on the phone). In fact I've done public speaking before with no problem and feel I have fairly decent conversational skills, but I feel on edge and fearful just being around people. I can be around people but I hate it the entire time and can't relax. I feel like at any moment someone will attack me and I have to be ready for it. I don't fear how they see me or if I'll say the wrong things...sure I want to try to come across good, be seen as intelligent, etc. but if that doesn't happen oh well. I just don't trust anyone!

When I talk to people all I can think is I wonder if they are someone who will use a knife to the back or go right for the throat when they attack me? I just wonder if what I have would be considered more of a phobia? I feel absolute fear when around people, and feel they are going to hurt me and can't be trusted. I really don't want to talk anymore so maybe I won't be forced to be around people so much and live in this constant fear, but I tried and I couldn't because it really bothered my kids and I don't want to hurt them or anyone else...I feel like I'm at the breaking point however and don't care to socialize at all anymore. I always thought the best of people even when I didn't trust them in the past but now I find myself just starting to really hate people in general...even though I crave having deep friendships etc. I can never have them because I can never get close to people to form anything more nor do I trust anyone to let them in. I feel like my soul is broken and I don't trust anything or anybody anymore. I really just want to stay in my room and be left alone by the world until I die. Honestly even posting this makes me fearful...less so than in person...but fearful of being insulted and my feelings invalidated/rejected. Does anyone else feel this way too? How does one go about fixing the fear of just being around people?

 

[Eternum]

I can relate to this, especially the sensation of hating people and wanting to hole up in my room to be left alone all the time. Even after years of work I'm still on edge around people. I don't think I'll ever be fully comfortable around them.

In my case, I was never really concerned with what I had, like whether it was a phobia, a disorder, etc. That wasn't something that would help me come to terms, but it may be for you. In which case I would ask, do you see a therapist? Could you possibly get some official reading materials about this?

What it came down to for me was a question: Did I choose to trust people, or not?

When I was ready to say yes to that, the next question was, "What do I need to begin learning to trust others?"

For me, it came down to mindfulness and information. I learned:

- MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), essentially a method of categorizing people's personalities
- Healthy vs. unhealthy behaviors
- Coping mechanisms
- The 5 Love Languages
- Small steps for extending trust
- How to self-evaluate, intellectualize my fears so I could continue extending trust even when fearful
- Healthy communication, boundary setting

Being able to quickly evaluate if someone is of good moral character really helps. Once I do, I anchor myself to my knowledge, knowing that I have analyzed this person to be good. HTH

 

[Hatshepsut]

I can relate to this, especially the sensation of hating people and wanting to hole up in my room to be...

Hey. Yeah I've been seeing a counselor for a few months now and he doesn't diagnose. He just put down that I'm working on past trauma and anxiety in our sessions. I just don't believe I really have anxiety issues...at least in the general or social anxiety sense. I feel like the main problem is that even if I trust or not it doesn't matter because people are going to eventually hurt you anyway whether you let them in or not it still hurts to be attacked, insulted, or rejected. Maybe it feels so bad because I don't even feel human and like everyone else is a different species and if they get too close to me they discover that and have to attack me because different is always a punishable offense. I'm just living in survival mode and it's like everyone around me is a zombie and trying to get me and I'm just trying to survive one more day but I'm not really living and every day is painful and lonely fighting off the zombie hordes. I know that sounds melodramatic but to me it really feels analogous to real life. Anyway, I can continue surviving but honestly once my kids are grown I'll have no reason to stay here if I'm not really living still. I'm giving it the best I can because I have family depending on me but if I didn't I'd have stopped talking, moving, or trying years ago because all of it seems pointless to me. Small talk is tedious, I loathe superficial conversations and relationships, and so being around most people is emotionally draining anyway.

I'm an INFJ by the way so I know a lot of this is common with this personality type:..feeling alone in the world/different, craving deep relationships, being slow to trust, etc. so maybe it's just the way I am. I've been trying to force myself to trust others too but whether I trust or not people usually hurt me, and it's because people don't understand or care about getting to know someone beyond surface value. Anything less than a deep fulfilling relationship only leads me to more loneliness, rejection, and pain. I can't really blame them...they just can't relate, or their personality is just different, and so they reject what they don't understand. I feel like I need more in this life than life is capable of giving to me. I need deep connections with others, understanding, love, and complexity and others are only capable of giving me shallow superficial relationships, loneliness, and pain. Also you can't trust someone quickly because most psychopaths are charming, manipulative, and cunning...it takes time to really get to know someone but most relationships never last long enough for trust to be earned.

 

[Eternum]

Thanks for explaining the deal with "anxiety issues." This makes sense.

As to being INFJ, now this clicks in place. I'm an INTP, but I have a BFF who's INFJ. We have a ton of these kinds of conversations, especially about how people just don't want to or can't handle the deep connections you're talking about.

Interestingly, I relate a lot to what you mean about zombies. I used to have tons of nightmares about zombies. I can relate to the feeling of fighting a horde, though something he and I realized is that we tend to arrive at the same feeling from different places.

There was a time in my life where being insulted, rejected, or attacked was excruciating pain. Like, I can't even give you a description of it. It was like I had no defenses to it, it hit right to the core of me. Even though I can't explain this well, I'm confident you know the pain I'm talking about.

For me, that pain was something I needed to heal internally. I needed to start trusting myself. My friend is learning to trust himself, and I'm seeing him become a lot happier. He's also very spiritual and does a lot of praying. The way he's explained it is: the struggle for him was in trying to find a perfect love in imperfect people. He realized he needed to look elsewhere for it. I don't know how this will take shape for you.

As for not being able to trust anyone quickly, I didn't say trust them. I'm saying trust your analysis and instincts. Even the most charming axe-murderers start out with tiny little inconsistencies. I'm learning that trusting others only comes after trusting yourself. Like the fact you don't agree with this counselor's conclusion. That's important. I would say trust yourself and do something about it, whether it's confront him about your disagreement or find someone who gets you better.

I know my friend really, really struggled with that. I admit I don't understand your intense battles with identity, with seeing yourselves in the third person, so I don't feel adequate in offering insight to some of the deeper stuff you're dealing with. if you want me to, though, I can see about getting my friend on here to talk with you.

 

[Hatshepsut]

Thanks for explaining the deal with "anxiety issues." This makes sense.

As to being INFJ, now this clic...

Thanks Eternum. It's so crazy you mentioned that your friend is very spiritual because I too have just started working on finding a sense of spirituality again! I used to be religious but I went through a long phase of research and thought into religions and rejected my religion (and religions in general) and haven't been spiritual at all sense. The thing is that I've really felt lost without a sense of a higher connection to the universe and life the last few years,so within the last few weeks I've started working on my own personal form of spirituality and I've already noticed that I feel much more at peace than before. I think you are dead on that finding deeper meaning in life outside of others is essential for INFJs and it's nice to know that it was helpful for your friend. Makes me feel like maybe I'm on the right track with what I've been thinking lately. It was so nice to talk to someone who understands what I'm feeling. Thanks again for your insight. I think you are right and I should keep working on feeling at peace with myself and learn to trust my instincts and if I stay the course I think it will definitely help me with this. :hug:

 

[Eternum]

Awesome! You sound like you've definitely been on the right track. I haven't yet hit the post count to post links, but whenever I watch Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot on Youtube, I feel like I get a sense of what it's like for an INFJ. This world is just too small for your mind. :) :hug:

 

[shell]

Honestly even posting this makes me fearful...less so than in person...but fearful of being insulted and my feelings invalidated/rejected. Does anyone else feel this way too? How does one go about fixing the fear of just being around people?

Know that you are not alone in these feelings, although mine is more along the lines of being rejected and a belief that others see me the same way my abusers did, and attack me and had resulted in me avoiding people and socializing for many years as I am easily triggered when around other people and feel extremely unsafe.

It has been possible for me to change the way I relate by challenging the thoughts that create the feelings, a belief that all people are essentially unsafe, like my abusers, and will hate me and then chose to harm me. It is true, no, essentially the majority of people are safe, caring people who given the opportunity could be supportive, safe friends as long as I respect my boundaries and theirs.

As I focused on my perceived lack of safety my sense of being unsafe increased, until I can look back and admit for over ten years I have restricted my contacted with others to those essential for work and immediate family. As result I increased my depression, fear and felt terribly lonely.

While I can totally understand why you would feel that anyone could physically attack you, because I have felt that way, it is just a feeling, and feelings are not facts.

You deserve so much more from life, and by working on the validity of your beliefs, it is quite possible to make gradual changes that can improve your feelings of safety around others.

While I have managed to overcome a lot of my fears, I still really struggle with intimacy and feel very unsafe trusting people who really matter to me, and to be able to depend on them in a healthy relationship for support. I have come to realize that the majority of people wish no harm to others, and would not be a physical threat to me, and that in fact sustaining the belief was both unkind to them and unfair of me.

There is a very helpful article on the home page about primary cognitive distortions, that may help you to find the beliefs that are sustaining the feelings that are making you feel so unsafe and fear people.

By supporting yourself to challenge those beliefs, you can make a real difference towards being able to socialize without being overcome by fear. I no longer fear social situations the way I once did, and no longer isolate myself, although that's not to say the fear is never there I just manage it now, by supporting myself and acknowledging the trigger, and the fear but addressing the cognitive distortion in my thinking, so I can comfort myself enough to recognize the other person will not harm me or reject me, that if I am to allow my fear to win, I will be the one who is rejecting and hurtful.

Your feeling are very valid, and are result of trauma, as was mine, but it doesn't have to be this way.

 

[Hatshepsut]

Know that you are not alone in these feelings, although mine is more along the lines of being rejected and...

Thanks shell. It's nice to be heard and understood. I've been working really hard to try and change my perspective on things and stay positive but it's really difficult sometimes. For the most part I've been trying to get out and interact more with people and try and maintain a positive attitude about the interactions, but I think my personality type doesn't work as well with this sort of thing since superficial interactions and conversations seem pointless, fake, and unfulfilling to me anyway. I can be in room full of people and talk with all of them and still feel utterly alone. I think for me personally I might need to focus more on feeling more confident in myself, and fulfilled without looking for it from other people since I will just be disappointed if I continue to do so. I think my trauma history has amplified my personality type and made all the bad things feel that much worse and compounded on my natural issues and way of thinking about the world and connecting to it.

Often it's more an unconscious or unnamed tension/fear just being around people because they are capable of just about anything. My parents were all over the place and I think I'm used to living in that state of fear of what kind of mood they will be in or whether they will come home that day and decide we're moving, etc. Change happened so suddenly and the moods as well. For example, I went by my mom in the kitchen when she was cooking one time and she suddenly freaked out and grabbed me. She pulled my hand against the hot stovetop and kept saying over and over again "Do you wanna burn? Huh? Do you wanna burn?" I fought and pulled way with my whole body and fell backwards hard, but it's the look in her eyes I remember the most. That look of murder...that she could burn or murder me and would feel nothing. It was always like that in my family...never knew what to expect next. My parents always acted like perfect upstanding citizens out in public, but inside the house both of my parents were narcissists and played awful mind-games. I know I will probably always feel this way a bit but I hope I can at least lessen it to a more manageable level. Anyway, I'm feeling pretty positive about moving forward now so thank you. ;)