I just HATE being looked at. People judge constantly, and whether it’s good or bad, honestly, I don’t want the weight of their opinions on me. Plus, physical closeness has too much energy; very uncomfortable.
For me the switch from being introverted and shy to introverted and socially anxious came about through bullying. There is a strong fear people won’t like me and I’ll get in embarrassing situations and people will attack me and make fun of me.
Social phobias are very often caused by a combination of inaccurate self-criticism and projections of inaccurate criticism by others. Mental health pros say most of it is caused by a combination of genetically predisposed over-sensitivity + habituation to and normalization of the expectation as the result of such criticism during early life.
The psychosis made me feel like most of the World knew every intimate details of my life along with every bad decision I made with a sad recall of what I was thinking when I made those decisions. My depression has made me remember almost exclusively the negative things in my life with that kind of recall. So I have felt like I was unworthy of anyone’s respect and would be criticized and attacked for that reason.
My reason is because people found it most appropriate to often interact with me in ways like with a fist to my face growing up. And now I deal with adults who are more experienced mentally and are able to hide their true intentions easily and hurt people in way worse ways.
It’s not like I don’t give anyone a chance but once there are signs that are highly supported by evidence they are going to screw me over I tend to withdraw and when they actually do betray me they go on my ■■■■ list forever no matter who they are and if they were dumb enough to confide anything to me I can use against them I will do everything in my power to ruin them as much as I can because as far as I’m concerned betrayal in any way shape or form is the worst atrocity you can put someone through.