Either from abusive parents, toxic relationships, short or long term bullying or any other kind of traumatic past that gave you some survival reflexes that are not longer relevant but are hard for you to get rid of.
in my late teens and early adulthood i’d lash out for being slightly teased about relationships or sexuality. back in my early and mid-teens i would frequently be bullied about not performing manly enough, not having a girlfriend or even having a slightly deviant (or maybe syndromic) look. even now, if i see something that passingly reminds me of these experiences, i play along, but then after i have to take sometime alone to breathe and reassure myself that these experiences are not related.
Reflexively answering to an innocent question with a harsher tone than I meant to.
My first car crash was someone slamming into the back of my car on the highway when traffic came to a sudden stop.
I was not injured at all, but 20 years later, I still sometimes check my rear mirror when it happens. For years it was a constant thing, but lately, its just in really abrupt stops.
Living like a hermit, go to work go home, maybe go grocery shopping one a month, repeat forever.
I’m 44 years old and I still can’t stand people standing behind me if I’m sitting down. When I was a kid and I did something wrong my dad would sit me at the table while he walked around yelling at me and every so often he would walk behind me and slap the back of my head.
To this day I still get so uncomfortable that I have to get up or ask the person to move. Even if it’s my own kids, I can’t stand it.
I am just like that and was surprised how few people mention this when I searched it online. The other day, I stared down a group of people standing and chatting behind my seat while I was trying to eat my lunch. Thought it was just some common etiquette or evolutionary instinct and stared until they walked away.
Can’t recall if there was any specific thing in my childhood that causes it, but reading this made me realize that I’m not alone in this survival reflex.
Never wanted to rock the boat and never felt the need to growing up. Or at least conditioned to feel that way. Now I often screw myself over by nodding and agreeing as my default response. I like to think that I have ideals, but I hardly defend them, can’t bring myself to be reasonably confrontational. Also really bad at coming up with and asking questions and end up nodding along even if I don’t really understand.
I mask around white people to appear non threatening and I don’t like it
I’d be interested to understand this better.
What is your race, and what do you do to mask?
