I want to say Human Phobia and not Social Phobia. Social Phobia just sounds too neat and tidy, too soft somehow. I’m not only phobic about social situations, and the words Social Phobia don’t begin to describe just how extremely my Human Phobia impacts my life.

Yes, I have Human Phobia. In the same way my friend has an immediate, extreme stress reaction at the thought of being in a room with a spider, so, too, do I have an extreme stress reaction at the thought of being in a room with a human. The correct term is anthrophobia. Ha, my spellcheck wants to fix that word, because it doesn’t recognise anthrophobia. No matter what you call it, I have it. I am sitting here after a horror week of human contact that could not be avoided after my cat decided to go play in the traffic. He is home now, one less leg and already up to mischief.

Dealing with the vet staff almost ended me. Truly, I felt like I was going to die. Every one of the people I dealt with were lovely, kind, caring animal lovers. All of them spoke kindly, politely, nicely. My Human Phobia doesn’t care about that. When my friend is confronted by a spider, he doesn’t have to be touching it, or even too close to it, to be freaked out and run away. Luckily for him, despite a little bit of man-shame on his part, his suffering ends there. Keep away from the scary thing, remove yourself from horror causing thing, all good. Human Phobia is different. Run away from humans and what is the general reaction? Humans want to come after you, call you, text you, email you, visit you, to help you. How can I ever make people understand that after contact with humans I need time alone? How can I explain that during this time alone I will feel desperately lonely? How dumb is that?!

If it scares you, run away from it. If it chases you…? If humans scare you, it must be because you haven’t been with the right humans? If humans scare you, you can get over that with therapy, meds, or religion. Sorry, I’ve tried it all. The meds help with a lot of my Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms, but nothing has ever cured my human phobia.

So, sorry humans, I hope you understand that I love you, I need you, I want to want to be with you, but it will only be once in a blue moon, when hell freezes over, that I seek you out AND don’t regret it. It’s not you, it’s me. Truly, it is me. Just know that on the occasion that I enjoy your company because I had the courage to see you AND my head didn’t mess things up for me, I am incredibly happy, over the moon happy, grateful beyond measure. The few friends I have left are true friends, truly loving people who don’t care how many times I cancel on them, because they understand and they love anyway.

be you xx Rachel

*please forgive me if my grammar is a little off. This content describes issues which are really emotive for me.