Post Traumatic Stress, the gift that keeps right on biting you!
 

I have a question about having a fear of being around people out in public. I'm not referring to agoraphobia that is being outside your house in public places, just a fear of people, including a fear of being yelled at for things that other people just don't get yelled at for or, getting yelled for things that other people did and you had nothing to do with.

If you have surmounted that fear, were you the one who made contact in order to get help? Or did someone somehow get through to you to help you, and why did you decide to trust that person?

I ask because after about the age of nine I trusted NO ONE, and that distrust lingered until I was about forty.

Does any of this sound even vaguely familiar? Starting in childhood and lingering through adolescence to early adulthood, how many of you were incapable of reaching out to another person to make contact because of a feeling of unexplainable fear that they may yell at you or physically attack you? Things like on some days not being able to go out in public because there were people there, or only going out at night because of the fear of having to deal with strangers. Such things like being unable to ask for directions to some place important, asking for assistance to buy something at a store, requesting somebody to move out of your way so you could punch an elevator button, or worse yet having someone punch an elevator button for you because you couldn't reach it, or anything where you had to connect with a stranger? Even for a split second, ask for personal assistance for something that no one else would even have to think twice about, all because of being afraid of a harsh response? Even extending to calling a stranger on the phone, or using a fast food drive-through intercom? For you, the drive-through might as well be on the moon as far as you being able to use it.

I have met others who tell kind of similar stories. I found out where this stuff came from and got a handle on it and my life got a lot better. Interestingly, this stuff came from several unfortunate and quite real events when I was a very small child at a time when I had no parental support and protection from attack - amazing how many adults relish crushing the spirit of a small unprotected child - PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN! I had already quit drinking years before I found out what it was all about, but I might have quit drinking sooner if I had known when I was a lot younger.