The Scary Signs of Agoraphobia After Narcissistic Abuse
The children in the local community saw me as the weird one, the crazy one. I couldn’t fit in anywhere. I was heavily bullied. And I remember to this day how those kids—and even many of those adults—would chase me on the roads. Literally, I could not walk anywhere peacefully.
I remember my mother asking me to go out and buy groceries or run simple errands. She thought I was just being shy, resistant, or lazy. When I refused, she thought I was being disobedient.
This would invite even more shaming from her, from her husband—guilt-tripping and a lot of physical abuse as well. Then I would have to force myself to go out.
Anyway, this cycle made me extremely socially anxious. I would stutter when trying to talk to people. I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone. I would shiver and sweat uncontrollably in social situations. That is what I struggled with every single day.
I just wanted to stay in my home forever—no events, no school, no social situations, nothing. But that was not my natural shyness. If you are struggling with the same thing, maybe it’s not your shyness either. It’s not even just social anxiety, and definitely not introversion. It’s your trauma response.
We survivors don’t trust unfamiliar situations because we don’t know how to navigate predictable unpredictability. We don’t know what kind of attack may be launched at us next.
So what do we do? We choose what feels like safety—even when that safety is actually isolation.
The Impact of Trauma on Social Interactions
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