Anthropophobia

Anthropophobia; the fear of people or society. It's a phobia a lot of us have, but we don't realize it or know what to call it.

It's always difficult to explain to people why I am scared to meet different people and build new friendships, so I thought it would be easiest to share my story with everyone.

I wasn't always afraid of people, I actually used to love meeting new people and I wanted to be friends with everyone. This all changed my freshman year of high school. My boyfriend and I at the time had broken up and everyone looked at me differently. I was being blamed for the breakup because my now, ex-boyfriend, had created so many lies and didn't tell anyone the real reason we had broken up. He refused to tell anyone that he tried to peer pressure me into having sex with him or that he tried to force himself onto me. When I tried to confide in my friends they didn't believe me, no one did. Everyone thought I wanted attention, the only person who believed me and took care of me was my mom. I started seeing a therapist regularly and I cut everyone off. This is what led to my phobia of people.

I wouldn't even completely say I'm scared to meet new people rather, I'm scared of who they become afterward. Nowadays, people usually put on a front for the first impression, they act how they want you to think they are. Then you get to know them and they're totally different. The thought of not knowing what comes after meeting someone is what scares the hell out of me. You could really connect with someone when you first meet and that starts to fade away as they become comfortable with you. Then all of the sudden they're the party type and feel like they have you locked in because you fell in love with the image they presented themselves as. People becoming who they actually are scares me.

You start to trust someone with your whole entirety and then out of nowhere, they become a whole different person. You open up to someone about everything in your past, no matter how dark it was and you let yourself be vulnerable. It’s like you let your walls down for someone and instead of helping you build it back up they try to tear the rest of you down. You never know what to expect out of someone.

Don’t get me wrong, I know not everyone turns out to be a monster once you meet them. I know a lot of people mean well and could potentially be the person I marry, or one of the greatest people I’ve met. It’s just hard to read people and figure out what they are all about. If it was that easy, I wouldn’t be that scared to meet new people. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy... You have to get to know someone before you can judge them and I’m scared to even put myself through all the pain I’ve gone through again.

Currently, I am slowly working towards facing my fear and building up my confidence again. I have a couple of friends now that I surround myself with that help me branch out to meet new people. I tend not to build friendships with the new people I meet, but there has been a select few. I am so grateful for those select people and the friends I had to help me build those friendships and meet new people.

I believe that I currently have the right people in my life to help me through my anthropophobia, but for now, meeting new people scares me.

LA