, 23 min read
My fear of people
1. Introduction and Purpose
I wonder if this can work.
Okay, this is going to be a oneshot video. I'm going to be reading, and what I'm going to read is the story and documentation of the transformation of the internal map that I have created about the world.
Okay, preface. I wrote this piece for three reasons. First, to document the internal shifts, realizations, and healing that I have experienced over the last few years, and especially over the last year. Second, to hopefully help anyone who has experienced trauma to recognize themselves in this story. I hope it allows someone to feel seen and not judged, to understand the mechanisms behind their reactions, feelings, and triggers, and to give language, perhaps for the first time, to internal experiences they cannot name. My hope is that this story can encourage them to look more deeply at their own internal reactions and perceptions of the world and to begin asking questions. Third, to help people who may not relate to these experiences understand what it can feel like inside the mind and body of someone who has experienced trauma.
This story is exactly that: my story. There may be places where others recognize their own experiences, and there may also be parts that are unique to me. I did my best while writing this, but there may be moments where I misspoke or where something is not as clear as I intended. And if something is misunderstood, I ask for grace and invite you to ask clarifying questions rather than making an assumption. It would be impossible to document this entire journey perfectly. The process has been a constant everyday, moment-by-moment transformation over the course of years, and it is still ongoing.
Okay, sorry, this is a long one. It will probably be like 25 minutes. I wrote it down because there's no way that I ever could have written or recorded a non-scripted video and explained all of this.
2. The Internal Map and Physical Reactions
My entire life, I have lived with an internal script—an internal map that told me who people are, what to expect from strangers, who I am, how dangerous the world is, how dangerous men are, and how much value I have in other people's eyes. It gave me a map for what other people think of me, how they feel about me, and what to expect from their reactions to me. I operated from a series of gut impulses and bodily reactions that I never understood or questioned. Yet, I fully believed that if I felt tense around someone, it must mean they were dangerous. I moved through the world with this internal template of reality that predicted and interpreted almost everything about other people and the world. It made me feel as though I was prepared for anything and that I understood everything around me.
I lived and operated according to bodily reactions and emotions such as feeling vulnerable, exposed, embarrassed, terrified, self-conscious, tense, violated, disgusted, triggered, and feeling angry. I operated from these reactions and feelings as if they were accurate perceptions of reality—of my reality in the situations I was in and with the people around me. Not knowing the underlying explanation for these feelings, I believed that they were truth. If I felt tense, it must mean they are dangerous. If I felt embarrassed, exposed, or vulnerable, it must mean they were judging me, going to harm me, or that they disliked me. Basically, I trusted my feelings.
I lived in constant daily tension and bracing that I rarely noticed. If I did notice it, I believed it was simply normal, my baseline state.
3. Hypervigilance in Public Spaces
Every time I walked into a public place, my body tensed. My muscles would tighten, my eyes would scan, and I would feel as if I was walking into enemy territory, even if it was something as simple as a coffee shop. I would immediately feel that I had entered a dangerous place where people were hostile. That feeling itself was unconscious. My body would brace and tense as if the environment was hostile, but consciously, what I experienced was extreme self-consciousness, immediate embarrassment, or the feeling of being exposed or looked at.
I would feel that anyone who glanced in my direction already disliked me. My body would respond to people as if I were apologizing for existing, apologizing for being in the space, apologizing for asking for coffee. I felt as though the other person was annoyed by me, as though I were burdening them.
This constant tension and scanning followed me into every social environment. I projected onto every stranger a belief, a map of who I thought they were and how I believed they perceived me. Every person in the grocery store, I imagined, would look at me and think, "She's so awkward. She's ugly. What's wrong with her? Why does she look like that? Why is she walking that way? She looks stupid right now carrying all of those things. She looks prideful or stuck up." My body responded to every stranger as if they already disliked me and were judging me, and I responded to their perceived thoughts. Again, all of this was subconscious. The only thing I consciously felt was the sense that people were judging me and that I had to brace myself. I felt constantly tense. This is what I believe people call hypervigilance.
4. Reactions to Men and Believing the Template
The worst of it happened when men looked at me. Anytime a man glanced in my direction, I would feel the most tension, the strongest flare inside of me. Sometimes it felt like a sudden surge of anger or violation. Sometimes it was self-consciousness, fear, sometimes an adrenaline spike that shot through my body. If it was a man I was not attracted to, the reaction would often be anger. If it was a man I was attracted to, it would be terror and adrenaline, sometimes my heart racing faster and faster.
I must stress that the way I experienced the world and the way I experienced people felt like reality to me. If you had asked me just a year or two ago, I would not have been able to say that I saw everyone around me as a threat because I didn't have the language or understanding to explain the physical reactions I had to people. The only things I was aware of were my tension, my fear, my embarrassment, and the way that I would shrink.
For many, many years, I blamed myself for my reactions. I thought it was me. I believed I was the broken one. Why was it that I was the one, the only one, who could not order a sandwich when I was young? Why did I see everyone around me laughing, open, dancing, and talking with each other so comfortably? How could they do that so easily while I could not? For years, I believed I was defective.
From my internal experience, however, I was living in a hostile environment every day of my life. And perhaps the worst part was that it felt normal. The bracing feeling every time I walked into a room, the bracing feeling when someone looked at me, when someone spoke to me, every time I walked up to a checkout counter or a barista, or had to speak to anyone in any situation—I believed this internal state of constant tension, discomfort, and fear would never go away. I believed it was simply my normal response to the world.
5. The Self-Fulfilling Loop
These reactions also formed a self-fulfilling loop. Imagine walking into a space already assuming that everyone dislikes you and wishes you were not there. Of course, the way you respond will be to shut down, be self-conscious, uncomfortable, and terrified. You cannot be open, friendly, or warm, because openness, friendliness, and warmth arise when you feel safe and comfortable. Safe and comfortable was something I only felt when I was alone. So, you interact with the person in front of you as if you already know they dislike you. That response confuses them and eventually makes them uncomfortable. Their discomfort then sends a signal back to your body that they really do dislike you, which feels like proof.
6. Challenging the Lens
Over the last year or so, that internal template was challenged again and again. The first shift came when I realized that the internal template we carry of the world, of other people, and of ourselves is something that is created. It is not reality; it is a perception of reality. In order to perceive reality, you must look through a lens.
(And one moment, I'm going to change the brightness.)
I realized that the lens I had been using must have been given to me or formed at some point. I just needed to trace it back because, logically, there is no way to read people's thoughts. Every person you meet is a brand new person. They are a blank slate. So why is it that you can look at a blank slate and almost immediately fill it with what you believe their perception of you is? In one moment, I realized that it was possible I was wrong. And if I was wrong, that meant I actually had no idea how I was perceived. If you suddenly realize that you do not know how people actually experience you, the ground beneath you shifts. You feel ungrounded. You feel disoriented.
But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.
7. Uncovering the Beliefs and Their Origin
I asked myself where this internal template came from. And to answer that, I asked a simpler question: What exactly do I believe people are thinking about me? What do I believe strangers are assuming about me?
And the answers came quickly. I believed that every person wished I did not exist. I believed they saw me as a burden. I believed they were judging everything about me—my hair, my makeup, my face, my clothes, my style, the way I walked. I believed they thought I was awkward, uncomfortable, cringe-worthy, embarrassing, pathetic. I also believed they might think I was rude, insensitive, impolite, or stuck up. Every time I posted a photo of myself on social media, I believed people were thinking, "She's an idiot. She's self-absorbed. She's one of those girls who likes to take pictures of herself. She's superficial. She's vain. She's prideful. She thinks she's so great when she really isn't." If I tried to look beautiful or sexy, I imagined people thinking, "She's trying too hard. This is pathetic. This is embarrassing. This is cringeworthy. She looks stupid—even more stupid because she's trying."
When I saw all of those echoes together and saw them out loud, it suddenly became clear. Every single one of those beliefs, every one of those sentences, had been said to me again and again and again. They came from somewhere: my family.
That was the moment everything connected. That was when it all clicked and came together at once. I realized that my entire map of the world, of myself, of my place in the world, of my value, and how I believed I was perceived had been given to me by my family. Everything they told me I was, everything they accused me of, every time they mocked me, every time they made fun of me—all of it formed the internal template I carried into the world. It taught me how to operate and what to expect from others. It taught me that when I opened up, when I laughed, when I smiled, when I tried, when I put in effort, when I felt proud of myself, that was when I would be knocked down, mocked. That is when someone would make me feel small.
So I learned how to survive. I learned that I must stay contained at all times, guarded at all times, never try too hard, never feel proud of myself, never try to rise, never show extreme emotion, never cry, never reach, never assume someone likes me, never open—because of how much it hurts when someone strikes you in the most vulnerable place while you are unprotected.
8. Childhood Environment and Its Impact
I grew up in a home that was violent and hostile. Abuse was passed down from person to person. Everyone was trying to survive and chose different methods. It was the kind of environment where people wanted you to fail because your failure made them feel better about themselves. It was an environment defined by hierarchy and domination, often physical domination. I was the youngest and, for many years, the weakest, which made me the easiest target.
My nervous system learned very early that the presence of men or boys meant danger. If a man or boy was nearby, I felt that I was at risk of physical harm at any moment. Even if they were simply sitting there, even if they were just in the same room, I never knew when someone might suddenly turn, sprint towards me, knock me over, or try to dominate me. I could never predict what would make them angry, or when they might burst into my room. I learned that men were unpredictable and that almost anything could make them angry. When they were not angry, they might still dominate you simply because they could.
In that environment, I formed an internal template about myself as a woman. I believed that in men's eyes, I was pathetic, worthless, annoying—someone who held no value at all.
9. Adult Relationships and Dynamics with Men
So, when I began dating as an adult, I was still operating from the same template my brothers had given me: the belief that I was somehow less than human. It shocked me slowly over the course of years to learn that men actually desired me. I began to realize that I had a kind of power in their eyes, and that there was something called the power of choice, and that men sometimes felt they needed to impress me or earn my interest. For most of my life, I had believed the opposite. I believed that I would be incredibly lucky if a man ever chose me, because deep down, I believed I was worthless and annoying.
My relationship with men has always been the most complicated. With women, my fear was mainly about judgment and being disliked. With men, it is a far more complicated mixture of feelings and reactions. It begins with being a little girl who desperately wanted her father's love but never received it; I entered the world craving male love and validation. Then, being dominated, mocked, and bullied by my brothers created feelings of worthlessness; I felt annoying and unwanted. Being abused by men as a child taught me that men could use people and not care about how they hurt you; that led to feelings of anger, violation, and disgust.
As an adult, all of these layers existed at once. I carried a mixture of longing and terror. I wanted male approval and love and felt desperate to receive it, while at the same time experiencing absolute fear. My heart would pound, my mind would freeze, and adrenaline would spike through my body. Alongside the terror were feelings of anger, disgust, and violation, as well as a deep sense of worthlessness that caused me to place men far above myself.
I responded to this mixture of emotions in different ways depending on the situation. In relationships, I became docile and agreeable. I fawned. I tried to keep them happy, tried to earn their love, tried to prove myself. I asked for nothing. I lowered my standards and accepted everything. With male strangers, the reaction was different: I felt fear and anger. My body would brace and tense. When I went on dates, I was guarded and locked up. I felt frozen, unable to be open, warm, comfortable, or friendly. This was extremely difficult for me to unpack.
For a long time, I believed that I simply loved men and wanted them to love me. That was like in my teens and early 20s; that was the first emotion I could see and feel. But as I got older and began to feel a little more safe, other feelings began to surface. Helplessness appeared, and anger. After the helplessness and anger came questions: What is this feeling? Why do I feel violated, helpless, and angry around strangers? Why do I brace internally when they stare at me or even glance in my direction? Why do I feel so uncomfortable and violated when they compliment me or try to talk to me? Why is my body so tense? And I compared myself in these reactions to other women and how they responded to men. And I knew that something was different, because other women felt comfortable in the same situations that I felt these feelings.
Eventually, I made the connection. The template that I carried about men had been created from my experiences with my father and brothers. I was shaped by unpredictability, violence, mocking, and abuse. And I didn't realize that I was operating from that place. It was all unconscious, subconscious, and in my body. The trauma and the template were stored in my body and the way that I reacted—the way that my body felt. It was almost all unconscious.
10. The Deepest Layer of Subconscious Protection
Perhaps even more powerful than what it taught me about men was what it taught me about myself in the presence of men. Again and again in my life, the lesson seemed to repeat itself: In the presence of a man, I was powerless. As a child, I had been physically overpowered, held down, controlled, and abused. As an adult, I continued to override myself for men. I ignored my own discomfort. I ignored my own safety in order to keep them happy. I was terrified of male anger and terrified of what might happen if someone became upset with me. I sacrificed and compromised almost everything about myself in the presence of a man. Over time, I learned to believe that who I am in the presence of a man is weak and unsafe—someone unable to protect herself and sometimes even unwilling to protect herself.
That was the deepest layer. It took me a long time to realize this. In fact, it was one of my most recent realizations: I did not trust myself in the presence of a man. My subconscious knew that I would allow almost anything to happen to me when I was around a man. I had spent my life abandoning myself, so my body learned that I could not be trusted in those situations.
My nervous system did what it does best: It tried to protect me. It convinced me subconsciously that all men were threats. Even when I met men who seemed kind or gentle or good, I still felt terrified. I would freeze, tense up, feel my heart race, and my mind would go blank. I was at constant war within myself. My conscious self would want to connect and be closer; my subconscious would immediately pull the brakes. My nervous system learned to shut me down every time a man came near. It learned that when I shut down, men usually leave. And that was often true.
For most of my life, I never understood why I would feel locked inside my own body whenever a man showed interest in me, came close to me, or even seemed to want to approach. Whenever I felt male attention or sensed someone's eyes on me, my nervous system would decide it was time to shut down. It would flip a switch, and I would shut up. All it knew from past experience was that when a man came close, one of two things happened: Either he hurt me, or I abandoned and overrode myself in order to keep him comfortable. So my nervous system found a solution, and this was formed as a child: In order to stop either of those outcomes from happening, it shuts everything down.
11. The Conflict of Longing and Freezing
For years, I could not understand why men rarely approached me, even though I deeply wanted love. I wanted a husband, a safe man, a good man. I've always been a romantic. I've dreamed about love from the time I was a child. Now I understand something I did not before: My nervous system was locking me up from the inside. When I feel male attention on me, my entire body tightens. My heart begins to beat faster and faster. A spike of adrenaline shoots through my chest and into my stomach when I notice a man looking at me, especially if I feel attracted to him as well. If I sense that he might want to come closer, panic floods through my body. I look away. My face goes blank. My body stiffens. I turn my entire body away from him, look down, suddenly look busy, or reach for my phone. Even though consciously I might want him to come closer, my body is sending a completely different message. Every signal says the same thing: "Stay away." And internally, it says, "Danger, danger, danger."
There is another painful lesson underneath all of this. I learned that the moment I reach for something is the moment I am the most vulnerable. Whenever I showed desire, that was when I was the most exposed. Those were the moments when I was most often targeted and hurt. Imagine living in a body that believes the things you want most will hurt you the most, especially at the very moment you show that you want it.
If a man comes closer anyway and tries to speak to me, my body goes into full panic. Adrenaline moves through me. My heart races and my mind shuts down completely. If he asks me a question, I am internally panicking while trying to appear calm on the outside. Sometimes I cannot even hear or process what he's saying. And if I do hear it, my mind can be so blank that I cannot form words in response. It may be difficult to believe, but this is true. Many times I have tried to speak—I have a sentence or words in my head and try to say it out loud—and I cannot open my mouth. I try again and again, and I cannot open my mouth. That is how locked up, frozen, and trapped inside myself I have felt. Everything inside me screams, "No, no, no." Every signal in my body tells me to get away, to leave, to escape. It feels as though this would be the moment I would be humiliated, rejected, or laughed at. And sometimes it's difficult to even try to explain why the panic appears or what triggers it, but the panic itself is overwhelming and makes me want to run.
I have countless stories like this. Many times I've liked someone and it seems they like me, too, but I have run away or walked away before anything can happen. And then the moment I get away and reach a place where I can finally breathe, regret rushes in. My nervous system had successfully kept me alone, even against my own conscious desire. Consciously, I longed for love. I longed for a husband. I wanted a safe and good man in my life. But subconsciously, my body was protecting me from all men. And for most of my life, I did not even know that was happening. I was in constant war with myself.
12. The Path to Healing and Rebuilding Self-Trust
There have been internal shifts happening within me since my early and mid-20s, but the change has never been as dramatic as it has been over the last two years, and especially the last year. Several things began to change during that time.
First, for the first time in my life, I began focusing on building self-trust and safety within myself and within my life. My body needed to learn that if I was ever in danger, I could protect myself. It needed to know that I would not override myself for someone else, that I would not push myself through discomfort simply to make someone else happy, and that I would not allow terrible things to happen just to avoid someone's anger. I had to show myself through my own actions that I was going to start saying no. I needed to prove to myself that I would set boundaries, that I would leave relationships and walk away from people who hurt me, and that I would no longer allow myself to be abused. I also needed to show myself that I could take care of myself in simpler ways. I began building routines of self-care, creating stability in my life, earning a stable income, and showing myself that I could follow routines and rely on myself. My body needed evidence that I could show up for myself in the ways a human being needs to be cared for.
As one of my first steps, I made a conscious effort to expose myself to examples of good men. I followed people on social media who demonstrated kindness, integrity, and respect. I actively looked for examples of healthy masculinity so that my nervous system could begin to experience a different pattern. I also disengaged from any content or man that aligned with my old template. I'd been unconsciously re-exposing myself to harmful, abusive men online—misogynistic, cruel, violent men—almost as if my brain needed to tell me, "See? You must never let your guard down. You must never forget."
Most importantly, I needed to experience a sense of power and agency in the presence of a man. I needed real experiences with safe men. Truly safe men. Slowly, I began having those experiences. I met men who were respectful, kind, gentle, and patient with me. Men who did not take advantage of me. Men who cared about my comfort and my safety. Men who wanted me to say no, who encouraged me to speak up for myself, who cared about me without expecting anything in return. I also chose to work with a male therapist so that I could learn what it feels like to sit in the presence of a safe and respectful man.
13. Updating the Belief System and Creating New Templates
As I gained these experiences and began to feel safer within my life and within myself, I noticed something else beginning to shift. As it turns out—and this is extremely important—your mind can only update certain beliefs when it finally feels safe. I started to see kind, good men more easily. I could look back at my past and suddenly remember specific men who had been kind to me all along. Somehow, my nervous system had overwritten these memories with the template I carried about men. But slowly, it became possible to see the fuller picture. I began to remember the men who had always treated me with respect and gentleness. And for the first time, I could receive and feel the care that they showed me.
I found that it became easier to differentiate between a good man and a bad man. I no longer had to say that all men are the same or that all men behave in one way. Instead, I had internally created a new template of what kinds of men exist by exposing myself to examples of good men. Because of that, I knew what was possible. Instead of believing that a bad man represented the definition of a man, I could compare him to the new template and simply recognize that he did not represent what men have to be. I already knew that all men were not like that, and it was much easier to dismiss him.
The last frontier for me is dating. But even in that area, I have changed so much. And that story is a story for another time.
14. A Recent Shift and Final Reflections
I will end with a moment that happened recently. And by the way, this is an ongoing journey.
The other day, I was walking through a thrift store. My body was braced unconsciously the way it always has been. An older man looked at me, and I immediately glared at him without thinking, as if to say, "What are you looking at?" My reaction was hostile. He looked away immediately, and in that moment, a thought occurred to me that had never occurred to me in my entire life. I realized that I had always felt like prey, and that I had been treating every single man as a potential abuser. The look I had just given him was the same look I used to give my brothers when I was preparing for the possibility of being attacked.
Then a question arose in my mind: What if not every man is an abuser? What if I have been treating every man as if he is a threat? What if, my entire life, I have been seeing men through a template that was created by my family? But what if my family were the outliers? And what if most men, most people, do not want to hurt me? What if I am not the prey animal I have always believed myself to be? What if I hold the same value as everyone else around me? What if I have the same power? What if people naturally treat me with respect?
In that brief moment, something inside me shifted. I felt my threat detection system power down for just a few seconds, and it was as if my entire perception of reality changed. Suddenly, I had no reason to brace. It no longer felt as though all eyes were on me or that I was in a hostile place. I felt like I could breathe and relax. I didn't feel the need to scan every person around me. The world suddenly seemed kinder and warmer. Instead of tension toward the people around me, I felt warmth. I felt more connected to the people in the room.
And I wondered: Is this what reality actually feels like? Is this what it feels like to be safe and comfortable in a social environment? To see a man looking at you not as someone who wants to harm you, but as someone who means no harm and sees you as an equal?
In that moment, I felt hopeful about a future that is possible for me now as I rewrite my internal script and recreate this internal lens of men and women, of people and reality—how they see me, how I see myself, and who I am in the world.
All right, hopefully I didn't misspeak too much.