Anyone else shares this fear?

[Kelculator]

I struggle with trusting people. Not like wholeheartedly trusting someone, but for some reasons, especially on bad days, I just fear that people are out to get me with bad intentions. I fear forming connection with others, convinced that they would use me for bad intention or even stalk me in some way. This is possibly caused by my bad experience of having a person... stepping over boundaries while I was a minor, but nothing physical was involved and it was almost a year ago. I also have had a bad experience with friendship because my friend and I both had our share with mental disorders, and we had a huge fall-out.
I noticed that this fear intensifies when I'm around new people, and when I'm not getting enough or quality sleep. Any advice? I'm not visiting a therapist at the moment, as I don't want to burden my family with the expenses. Thank you in advance for reading this.

 

[triceps]

Hi Kelculator. I have just the opposite problem, trusting people too much. Unlike you, I just assume any new person will treat me the same way I treat them, with respect. Sometimes you meet someone new where just by their appearance, you can tell they might be capable of not being trustworthy. Sometimes I get burned and do my best to never get burned by the same person twice. My goal for you would be to find the middle ground between our approaches, an approach where the new people you meet have to earn your trust through their actions. Try to get the poor experiences you've had left in your past, a place to not worry about as there's nothing you can do about the past except move past it.

 

[adamden]

Hello Kelculator, since you helped me, I'll help you now.
I'm with triceps in the sense that if I trust people too much, it would eventually come back to bite me should they feel they can manipulate me for any particular reason. As someone who just graduated high school and knows what the drama of trusting someone is like, I can completely understand how that might be difficult for you in your sense as well.
I can understand where you are coming from in the sense that past memories are coming back to haunt you, I think that's common, I know it does that for me too. Worrying about the worry basically.
My advice to you would be to ultimately, find ways to face these fears, because I've learned through this anxiety that if I don't face my fears head on, it's not gonna get any better. Running away from them has not worked for me.