I haven't been back to that thread since my last reply. Decided to step away from that in case I was moving into the territory of projecting my former friend onto you. Wasn't sure if that was happening or not so just disengaged to play it safe, then forgot about it.

And yeah I was physically and sexually abused by my biological father growing up, and my mother was more so the passive-aggressive type who would abandon/reject/neglect if she was angry. Both of my parents did not tolerate confrontation or independent thought in the least. For example one time when I was in the age range of 8-11 (I can't remember exactly, my childhood timeline is messed up in my head) my father was freaking out over something random and I tried to calm him down by explaining to him that he wasn't making sense, and he responded by slamming my head into the kitchen table. So as an adult I tend to have a strong, ingrained flight response to confrontation, especially with authority figures. Usually makes things very difficult in a work environment. I also tend to be hypervigilant about people's true intentions because my parents were very skilled at playing the part of good parent outside our home and also luring me into a sense of security, only to do some really ****ed up **** the moment my guard was down. While I logically understand that other people are not my parents, I am physiologically programmed to see pretty much everyone as a potential danger.

The anger phase might last very long for me, because there is no "anxiety" phase, so if boils down to a fight/flight response and flight is not an option, then "fight" it is.

So it's flustering because I understand the whole "why" of my dysfunctions, but it also doesn't make logical sense when I logically know that random people, friends, etc are not threats, are not my parents and that everything is fine. But some deeper, primitive part of me that I can't communicate with believes otherwise.