I am disproportionally afraid of doing something wrong and angering people.

Couple of stories to illustrate what I’m talking about:

When I was a child, around 9-10 years old, I was playing around in my classroom with the other children. We were throwing a ball around, and in general doing something I think we weren’t supposed to be doing. Our clay sculptures were drying at the back of the class and I threw the ball and it hit one of the sculptures and broke it. It belonged to this one boy who never really talked and didn’t really have a lot of friends. When he saw it, he got angry and I felt really bad for ruining his sculpture. Yet, I panicked and didn’t just apologize on the spot to him, partly because I somehow felt that being nice to boys was an invitation to be bullied and being nice to a boy who wasn’t terribly popular was like a gate to social hell. I can’t remember what I did or how I handled it (or rather, didn’t handle it), but I started to be afraid that he would tell the teachers and that I would be punished. I felt like I had committed a crime. The boy never said anything and probably let go of the incident a lot faster than I did…since it haunted me for around 2-3 years! Every time the boy opened his mouth, I was afraid that he’d tell what I had done. Sometimes I was stressed to go to school and when summer came around, I was relieved to know that I was “safe” for a while. It didn’t take over my life, but it was always there at the back of my mind and the way I responded to the guilt really was unreasonable. I think I still feel guilty for what I did, even if it was an accident, but I feel bad for not telling him that I was sorry, as he seemed so hurt.

Yesterday for the first time in a very, very long time, I contacted some of my friends and logged into Facebook again. I had been living under the radar for about couple of years or so. What happened? Well, things in my life were rather difficult and somehow I managed to mess things up more and more all the time. I knew it was me who did the wrong things, but I was unable to change. Then a friend of mine asked me to create this website for his friend who had just started a company. I agreed and made promises to the man. Things had gotten difficult and I was escaping more and more, and that included mail and bills, and as a result my phone got cut off. I sought peace from escapism and online and found someone to talk to and spent the next couple of weeks mostly being into that. Every morning I said to myself that I would check my e-mail and start the work, but I procrastinated. Then I finally read my e-mails and found three from the man, starting with “so when can you start the work?” escalating into him basically threatening me. I completely collapsed, I was so afraid. I was unable to speak and was just in a shock. I knew that I had done something wrong and I had made a person very angry with my inaction. I started to fix the situation by calling him and he was kind of surprised by how dramatic I was being. I created the website for him and then I just disappeared. From everyone. I knew that if I were to contact someone, then my friend would hear about it, who was the friend of the man with the website. I was physically afraid of reading my e-mails and talking to people, as I was expecting them to be angry with me. I didn’t stop interacting with all people. Just with pretty much all of my friends.

I don’t know how much damage and hurt I’ve caused others with this, which is kind of ironic. I do realize that I partly procrastinate and do other not so great things because I’m afraid that I mess up and get yelled at, yet if I don’t do things, I’m afraid that I get yelled at. So I become stuck. I wasn’t able to pinpoint what exactly went wrong for me before, but then this morning it became more clear, even though not completely. I simply am not equipped to handle guilt and I take it way more seriously than I should. To me it equals complete betrayal of other human beings, and it’s not just a mistake that I’ve made.

I’m not afraid of people yelling or being angry, if they’re not angry towards me or if I know that I haven’t done anything wrong. So to me it’s clearly the combination of guilt and fear of the punishment; it’s like a primal fear of being cast out of my tribe because of my wrongdoings. As you can see, my idea of wrongdoings might be different to others’. I see other people doing much more questionable things and they don’t feel the guilt. Interestingly, I don’t judge them. I have several friends who have been on the wrong side of the law or have questionable ethics and while I don’t approve what they’re doing, I don’t judge them. Yet, I’m incredibly hard towards myself.

I grew up in a rather dramatic household and I often escaped to my dreams and fantasies. Dissociation from reality was my way of coping with things. Both of my parents lacked relationship skills. My father was an alcoholic who often got angry and a bit aggressive, though not violent. My mother doesn’t like intimacy and has a rather selective memory. I wouldn’t say she’s emotionally cold, but she doesn’t show any kind of affection. I’m still confused when someone is affectionate towards me. I don’t know how to react and I don’t understand why they are being so nice to me. I often witnessed my parents fighting and it was scary, because I was afraid that I’ll lose them and I’ll lose my home. I have always craved safety, yet has come to realise that it’s a feeling, not a status quo that can be reached at some point and from then on it’s smooth sailing.

I’ve healed a lot during the time I was away from my friends, so that’s good. I think I had managed to create several codependent relationships and to be cut off from those allowed me to focus on myself. I didn’t realize that this was another huge sore spot for me. Just the thought of being of inconvenience to others so that they get mad at me puts me into a state of anxiety. That triggers my need to escape reality and that in turn causes me to stop doing things, which doesn’t help, but just makes things even worse.

I wish that someone would be able to look at this situation and offer another perspective or insight. I don’t think I can see things so clearly, because when I think about it, my heart rate starts to go up and I become fearful.

Thank you for reading.

P.S. I’m going to meet that friend of mine, who asked me to do the website, this Saturday for the first time in years. I wanted to meet him first. I don’t think he realizes what I’ve been obsessing about over the course of the time I was “missing” and how scared I was. I am going to tell him, but I don’t have the proper words yet.