11 Signs of Highly Insecure People

If you have ever had any form of social interaction which am assuming everybody has at some point, chances are that you must have encountered some of the most interesting people you know as well as those that are not very interesting. In my experience, most people think that the latter are the only ones who are always insecure and the former aren’t.

This may hold some truth to but only a half-truth. Yes, chances are higher that insecure people aren’t very interesting but insecure people can also be some of the most interesting or confident people you have ever met.

Studies have shown that most people develop behaviors to help them cope with their insecurities that may have developed from several factors like past experiences.

It can be hard to know whether someone is insecure or not based on the levels of interest they show in a conversation but once you hang out with them a little longer and they become comfortable with you, their insecurities will jump out and if you know what to look for, you will be able to tell.

At some level, we are all insecure about something and this is what makes us human. Our imperfections. But we are not all at the same degree on the scale of being insecure. Some score higher than the others and vice versa.

2 Reasons Why You Should Care

1. It may not sound like a big deal to talk about insecurities but if you cannot recognize them, you may find yourself stuck in a relationship with someone that scores so high on this scale putting you in a relationship from which you may struggle to extricate yourself.
2. As human beings, we only get experiences that match our own beliefs. It is much easier to see insecurities in other people but it is not so easy to see them in ourselves. The insecurities we see in other people are often the same insecurities we have about ourselves but those that we choose to ignore. By recognizing them in other people and knowing that we have them in ourselves, we can then begin to correct them in ourselves. Recognizing insecurities in other people, therefore, serves as a feedback loop or as a reflection of our own insecurities. When you recognize them in others, chances are that you have them about yourself as well so it makes it important that you try to change them in yourself rather than in others.

Let's talk about the insecurities

1. Someone who is extremely risk-averse

As you will see in the next point, the keyword here is “Extremely”. Not taking unnecessary risks is a very responsible thing to do and it is something that should be expected of every adult.

Even high volume wall street traders spend billions to make their machines and algorithms more efficient and hence reduce their risk as much as possible. This is healthy living.

But a person that tries to avoid any form of risk whatsoever may have insecurities stemming from past failures. It may be very hard to live with this type of a person if you are comfortable with taking risks within reason.

2. Someone who takes extremely high risks

On the opposite end of risk, we have extremely insecure people that try to cover up their insecurities by taking very high risks.

People who grew up very poor and gain wealth in their adulthood sometimes fall victim to these insecurities. They may work so hard just because they never want to be poor ever again and this determination may make them take risks to advance themselves at all costs.

Again it's not everyone that takes risks. It is those that take ridiculous risks. You may see them also trying to prove a point to someone. Be it buying a bigger car, house, yacht, jet… just to prove they are better than someone else.

3. Extremely apologetic people

It is courtesy to apologize when you are wrong but once apologizing becomes something someone does when they are in wrong or not, that may mean the person has issues.

It may be guilt from past experiences or anything that did not turn out well in their past experiences and they keep reliving them.

People like this will apologize for anything as long as they feel you are not giving them the same attention you used to in the past. They will apologize for their opinions whether those opinions are valid or not.

4. Extremely Unapologetic people

Extremely unapologetic people fall on the other end of this “apology spectrum”. Unlike extremely apologetic people, extremely unapologetic people will never admit that they are wrong and if they realized that they were indeed wrong, they would not apologize for that.

I have this mostly in men who think that apologizing when you are wrong makes you weak. I certainly felt this way when my sister and I got into a heated argument earlier this year and I went to apologize to her.

At the moment, I felt weak and disgusted with myself and my behavior. But that apology has helped me tread carefully since I never want to find myself in situations like that ever again.

Extremely unapologetic people may be overconfident but all to try and suppress their feelings of weakness and vulnerability. These emotions, however, need an outlet and when that outlet is blocked through activities like being extremely unapologetic, the emotions are channeled out through the development of other insecurities or sickness sometimes.

5. People Pleasing

People-pleasing is another character of highly insecure people. Being someone who wants to make everyone happy is a challenging state to be in.

If someone seeks to make everyone happy, it may mean that they lack confidence in themselves and they think that they need other people’s approval.

We all seek approval to some degree but when someone does this at the expense of his or her own opinions, then that person has insecurities rooted in low self-esteem and constantly seeks approval from other people.

People pleasers can be clingy sometimes and this may result in more toxic relations from overthinking everything to being extremely envious of other relationships that their partner has besides them.

6. Over Possessive people

When people are possessive, it is sometimes looked at as cute and I know of some girls who like that. But this nature of relationships is rooted in fear of loss.

Remember when you were a kid and your parents got you a toy. You loved that toy so much that you spent the first few nights sleeping with it in your embrace. This was sometimes due to fear that you may lose it.

The same thing happens with possessive people. I am not going to put any degrees to this nature either. In my opinion, possessing someone however little has nothing to do with love but everything to do with fear of loss.

I always cringe at people who say things like “This girl belongs to me”. No, she doesn’t. She is a human being with whom you happen to be in a relationship.

Saying that you own somebody objectifies that person and makes them a mere item that you fear losing.

Objectifying people is not only done from a state of insecurity but it also means that you will lose interest in those people just as fast as you lost interest in that childhood toy you had and protected when it was still new.

Men who do this to “their women” end up dumping them after a few months when they see their next woman objectify.

Women who do this to “their men” also end up driving those men away since the men start looking for other women.

You can see that both always end in the loss you are trying to run away from.

The best way to fix this is to have a relationship rooted in trust and understanding that if the other person leaves, you have not lost everything. This is a much stronger pillar to hold your relationship than to have your relationship supported by unhealthy possession.

7. Attention seekers. (Drama Queens and Kings)

People who seek attention have some of the worst insecurities when it comes to highly insecure people.

These people will go as far as self-harm when they need attention from someone. It can even be worse. Suicide.

Attention-seeking people are of different degrees where some might just get mild mood swings when they don’t get what they want all the way to those that can take their lives because of it.

Attention seekers do not take rejections very well and some other insecurities they deal with are things such as guilt besides fear of failure.

8. Clout chasers

Insecurities of clout chasers are often not easy to see. This is because they have all their insecurities hidden behind a different identity. They are mostly high-achieving people in their fields. Think people with 6 pack abs, great shapes, high cooperate positions, ambitious at all costs.

Am not saying that people with these achievements are all insecure. Far from it. Some people who have these achievements have insecurities fueling those achievements.

You mustn't take it for granted that simply because someone has all the wealth you need, that makes him or her perfect for you. Sometimes that wealth might have been as a result of them trying to drown out insecurity but the insecurity will be there never the less and they will act it out on you.

I know someone who got into fitness and he now has one of the best bodies that he actually models for top brands.

He was not always that way, however. He used to be skinny until he got rejected by his crush. He resolved to build the best body so he could make his crush jealous.

He achieved the body but his crush hasn’t noticed yet and this is taking a toll on his relationships since he seeks out girls that have the same body type as that of his crush, he uses them and then dumps them.

He says it makes him feel good about himself even if he looks and talks like an accomplished individual who has all his sh*t together.

9. Extreme Introverts.

I consider myself an introvert and most of the things that people think about us are true. But there are times when I find people who push their introverted nature to extremes to a point of being extremely anti-social.

These types of people normally have experiences in their lives that left them this way. I remember growing up as more of an ambivert. But I became introverted when my mom severely punished me for being indisciplined at school when I was 6. This made me more reserved and other events like bullying made my introverted nature even more pleasing.

But I can imagine that many people have had it worse than I did and as a result has developed anti-social insecurities as a result.

10. Extreme Extroverts

On this scale, I have also seen people who have gone out of their own character and become extremely extroverted.

These people are easily influenced by things like doing drugs, robberies or other forms of influence be it good or bad.

In most cases, all they need is a feeling that they belong and they will play by the rules if that gives them that feeling.

When you talk to them in person, however, many of them quickly break their character and you can see right through them and their motivating insecurities.

11. Racist people and Bigots

I feel like everyone is race aware and knows what things should and shouldn’t be done when it comes to race and civilization. The problem is racist people take those same things and do them just to make others feel bad about themselves.

In a way, this is their way of making it easy for them to feel good about themselves. They thrive on seeing other people get hurt through the mean stuff they do and say about other people.

Racist people have a wide range of insecurities that vary from person to person which insecurities justify their racial actions in their own perspectives.

Thinking that one race is superior and the other is inferior is their own way of trying to convince themselves that they are better human beings.

Truth is, people are all human. If you are black and think white people are trash, you are insecure about your identity. If you are white and think black people are trash, you are insecure about your identity. The same goes for all races and people.

Bigots fall in the same bracket. Just because you hold an idea does not mean it is the only truth. If you are not willing to make peace with that, then you are not willing to examine the integrity of your ideas meaning that you are insecure about your own ideas and you have to constantly reinforce your beliefs by stepping onto those of other people.

Conclusion

We all have insecurities about something but when we recognize those insecurities in ourselves, we should take steps to address them rather than trying to cover them up.

Insecurities show us the weakness in our character and addressing each of them as we become aware of them helps us to build a character with really strong integrity.