Hi. I'm so sorry to hear of your past. I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and understand what you are feeling. I am not afraid of people as you are but I can really understand how anyone with your past could be.

Have you been to therapy? That really would be your best bet to help your inner children heal from the trauma they went through at the hands of their own parents.

Even with my own background I have found that most people sharing this planet with us are good. It's also important to remember that this is not a dangerous world. The world you grew up in was dangerous. The world that encompassed your home - a place that should have been safe. That small personal world has translated - over time - to be the entire world. This is part of the phobia thinking and partly because that's just how our minds work - over time we do tend to inflate the original thought. I have emetophobia (fear of throwing up) and over time I managed to changing something small - being sick - into a deadly suffocating illness. Which I know it is not. We all do it. Therapy is your best bet.

Sorry no one replied to you here. That is an awful feeling too and I'm sure it also reinforced your feeling of loneliness and perhaps the feeling that all people are bad. But we are not bad. We are all just struggling to survive in our own personal worlds.

I hope you find peace soon.

i was also sexually abused as a child. this caused to develope androphobia (fear of men). i have learned to cope with over the years and you would probably never be able to see that i had some sort of discomfort towards men. i still struggle with triggers that cause my phobia to act up. thats when i really show the signs of my phobia. Do a google search of support groups in your area. are there any in-person support groups that apply to you. its great that you're here but for your specific situation, i think it would be beneficial to go to a support group in-person in addition. it might help you be more comfortable to test the waters with people who just as afraid of you as you are of them. best of luck!

I also have a fear of people but I don't know why. I really don't remember much of my childhood. I have tiny little memories but the last therapist I talked to said those memories might not be true since I don't remember them that well--just bits and pieces. I feel like I was sexually abused but like I said, I really am not sure.
Still, I do have the fear of people and I have tried hypnosis and it did not help me at all. I had too hard a time letting go of control and just relaxing into it. I even tried taking an ativan before being hypnotised and it didn't help. So really, hypnosis isn't for everyone but it can be helpfull for some. I wish I could figure why I am so afraid of people but I don't think I ever will. I am 45 years old now and it is still a big mystery to me.

i find its a resinable thing to fear people mostly becase there capible of doing so muhc wrong and pain to others

Hi, I had the same phobia for the same reason for a long time. I couldn't even stand up to people verbally when they were mean to me, even in calm way, because I was sure they would hit me. If I ever stood up to my parents, that's what would have happened. They shaped my view of the whole world: mean, dangerous, victimizing. I got used to feeling helpless because that's what I was as a child at their mercy.

What helped me was finding a good therapist to make me face the fact that my fear of people comes from unresolved emotions and not from logic. Once I accepted that and started telling myself "I'm an adult now, I can defend myself and I don't have to let that happen to me ever again", it got better. Most people don't want to be in a violent situation anymore than you or I do. How could society survive if that were true?

Good luck, I know it sucks but it can get better.