Paranoid to be Alone with Men

[hedgewitch]

So I've finally talked to my therapist about it, but I'm really hoping I'm not the only one. It kinda scares me that I have these thoughts without any basis to them.

As far as I can remember, I've always been really scared to be alone with men. When I was a kid, it was adult men, and now as an adult, it's all men. I get anxious and am terrified they're going to sexually assault me. Even when I was a child, I was terrified my dad would come into my room and do something to me. To my knowledge and memory, I remember absolutely nothing ever happening to me as a kid for these thoughts to even occur. My father has never touched me inappropriately. In college, there was a guy who molested me, but this fear was well established before that happened. If anything, it just confirmed my paranoia.

Even as an adult with men I am friends with, I'm scared to be alone in a room with them. For example, my improv coach, whom I am close with, was giving me a ride to the metro station and I was anxious getting in the car with him! Like, he drives a Prius! Why was I so anxious?! He has no history of inappropriate behaviour and I've never seen him be inappropriate with anyone else. This has happened in public spaces with men, private spaces, etc. No matter how well I know the man, no matter how many times we've been alone together, I'm still afraid of being sexually assaulted.

My therapist is Jungian and believes it could be something that happened to me before my memory developed. I was a child model from 6 mo - 4 years and maybe something happened then that my psyche remembers, but I don't. Anyone else have these experiences without having any recollection of abuse?

[IdentityPoltergeist]

Hello hedgewitch,

We live in a culture that promotes and allows violence against women. Women are simultaneously seen as a sexual object and advertising meat. We are the meat.

It's so easy to internalize that fear and become paranoid even for a person who has need experienced an assault. You have experienced an assault based on your admission. And, unfortunately, you should be wary of men. Particularly being alone with a man, or being a young girl new to college at a party where men are aiming to take advantage of freshmen girls' naïveté.

Something may well have happened to you as a child as well, maybe not even a young child, and your mind immediately began overwriting the memory to protect you. As a twin, I have a second account of most of my childhood experiences. It's amazing how many accounts match up in some ways and don't in others, what I remember and she doesn't and what she remembers and I don't. I had no idea of the sexual abuse in our childhood, only one memory my mind changed to make it more okay. It was shocking for me to learn the full story and have flashes come back. I didn't believe in memory repression until this.

Focus on what you can do to sort out the situations you SHOULD be cautious and those in which you are holding yourself back from life experience and really getting to know and trust someone. Try putting yourself in a situation where you can trust the men around you and have female friends who will watch your back. I think coming to terms with my sexuality and being around a lot of gay men helped me feel safer around men in general and understand that men aren't all out to take advantage (btw some gay men take advantage too and think it is ok to touch women without permission, I just am giving an example of how I came to let my guard down a little). Right now your guard is on overdrive.

I do feel for you because this is something I am still trying to deal with and I think every woman can relate to a degree. But a large part of intimacy in friendship or relationships is vulnerability and it sounds like you are preventing that from happening with men to protect yourself and exacerbating your fears by not allowing yourself to know and trust men around you. I hope your therapist will work on this with you. I wish you the very best and keep in mind all of my advice is coming from a crazy person so get a professional opinion

[oak]

Thanks for posting. I am glad you shared.

Yeah, if you are afraid of men, honor that.

I am a 38 year cisgender dude, and I can handle myself, and I am wary of men. Not that I speak for all men, but I have worked in fraternity life, so I know the score. Some thoughts:

* In any situation, ask yourself: "How can I get out of this situation?"

* Also, understand that most men operate on the brinkmanship model: escalating situations until one side sees that escalating further is too expensive/not in his interest.

What I am getting at with the two points above is that men will suss out a situation, interested to see how it will go, until they think they could lose something of value, then the wise man will GTFO.

If you are concerned about sexual assualt (and we all should be) what this means in practice is that it is good to have a plan to extricate yourself, escalating the situation as much as you need to (but no further) in order to GTFO of a situation that could quickly get alot worse.

Here is my advice: having seen many women get ditched by their friends, I highly encourage you to keep a charged cell phone and $100 secreted in your wallet. Have $50 in your wallet and another $50 elsewhere on your person. Then, even if one of the fifties is stolen or lost, you still have $50 for a cab.

Also, I tell my teenage nieces and nephews that they can call me 24/7/365 and I will pick them up anywhere, no questions asked. You may want to get two or three friends to be willing to do the same for you.

All that being said, most men are great, wonderful people. They would never want to harm or assault anyone. If things start getting bad in a situation, find these men. And people in formal authority may not always have your interests in mind.

I took horseback riding in college, and was fascinated to see that two male horses would get nervous when put face to face. Human men are the same way. Or just like fire and knives: male energy can be powerful and creative, or destructive.

I hope you continue to be wary of men. It is better to be safe than sorry. But I also hope the fear doesn't steal the enjoyment out of life that you deserve. That is a difficult needle to thread.

[ArmyOfMe80]

Sounds like it could also be a past life issue. Ever considered a past-life regression or visiting a psychic who specializes in past lives? Just a suggestion, if you believe in that sort of thing.

I don't have this problem as a general rule, but I don't like being alone with them in a laundromat, even in broad daylight with security cameras. I am guessing that maybe it goes back to when I was a kid in the laundromat with my mom and this guy walked by and pinched a lady's butt on his way out the door. She hollared at him very loudly in front of everyone in the laundromat, so we were all well aware of what he did. He looked stunned and got out of there fast, but he didn't try and look confused or innocent either. No cops were called or anything, like they'd probably be today. This was the late 80s. Also creepy that he tried to get by with it in front of other people.