Photo by Tero Vesalainen - Getty Images
Anxious woman in a crowd
“I think I’m afraid of people,” Sara told me at our introductory session.
“All people?” I asked.
“Yah, pretty much,” she replied, looking away as if embarrassed.
Most often, this sort of pronouncement suggests some sort of life trauma like sexual assault, childhood neglect or abuse, or some other victimization. Sara didn’t recall anything in her past quite that hurtful and dramatic.
Emotionally Distant
However, as an only child, she found her parents emotionally distant, unavailable and, often, intimidating. With only a few childhood friends and no close ones, much of her free time was spent alone, often in her room, which she considered her safe place.
“As for school, I was the kid in the class who never raised a hand, didn’t join any clubs or play sports. I was basically invisible,” she said.
I questioned whether her adult aversion to people might stem from a lack of experience socializing and interacting while young, but she felt there was more to it.
Degrees of Mistrust
“What goes through your mind when you think about being with another person?” I asked.
“Some degree of mistrust,” she replied. “I worry about what their intentions are, and that maybe there’s some sort of hidden agenda.”
“So, the uncertainty you feel toward others makes it feel risky,” I suggested. “You’re not sure what they might say, do or ask of you.”
“That’s how it always was with my parents,” she added. “The best I could hope for was being ignored, but when we did interact, I never could predict what I was in for.”
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“And what were you in for most of the time?” I asked.
“Usually just the cold shoulder or some form of criticism. To be honest, I don’t know if they loved me or not, but they sure didn’t like me.”
In the mental health world, folks like Sara are often quickly diagnosed as having “social anxiety disorder.” Whatever. But that label, like many diagnostic ones, tends to gloss over the many individual differences among those who feel an aversion to human contact.
Healthy Connection
For Sara, experiencing an emotionally intimate and healthy connection with another human being, should that occur, might begin to push back against her “people aren’t trustworthy” mindset. However, in a classic Catch-22, her fear made that an unlikely happening.
“In my job, I almost always work alone, but I had to partner with this guy on a project that took a couple of weeks. He seemed nice, didn’t say or do anything creepy, and treated me respectfully,” she reported.
“But that wasn’t enough,” I suggested.
“Right. I kept telling myself not to get fooled into trusting him,” she added. “Does that mean I’m paranoid?”
“It means you’re afraid,” I reassured her.
Sara’s fearful mindset made it unlikely anyone, including a sincere and kind person, could slip through her emotional defenses. For her, just being with other people felt viscerally uncomfortable, primarily because she was being fake, acting like everything was fine when it actually wasn’t.
“I play nice, but I don’t let people in,” she told me. “So, you’re the first person I’ve said these things to.”
“How does it feel to speak your truth?”
“Like a relief but mixed with disquiet,” she replied.
Indeed. Sara was violating one of her own rules, a rule that helped her feel safer in what she perceived as an emotionally dangerous interpersonal world. Putting down that shield left her feeling vulnerable.
“Is there something fundamentally wrong with me?” she asked.
“Only if it’s causing you distress or dysfunction. I can make an entirely rational argument in support of your view of people,” I replied.
“Well, I’d like to be able to trust a bit more, I mean if it’s warranted,” she explained.
“You’ve already started that change. You trusted me.”
