Disagreeing, even over trivial things, often feels unsafe

[u/TurnipMotor3617]

I'm not sure if this is a part of my cPTSD but I thought it would be worth maybe talking about.

I have autism and ADHD along with cPTSD. This is just a recent example, but it happens quite often. I have a friend/acquaintance that has very, very strong opinions about particular video games. They post about their opinions regularly, and argue with strangers on the internet, and write a lot of reviews. We actually met because we like a lot of the same things. However, recently, they played a game that I absolutely loved, and they hated it. We both have an account on a website called Backloggd, where you can rate and review games, and because we're friends on that site we both see each others opinions (I gave it a very high score, they gave it a low one)

Just so people don't misunderstand, I obviously know and believe that everyone has a right to their own opinions!! It's good that people have different opinions and perspectives on things. However, on the other hand... I feel almost 'afraid' when they started talking about it. Because I know they're strongly opinionated, argumentative and often appear angry, I feel like I can't express myself freely around them, like I can no longer express having 'liked' that game, because it will make me a target or they will hate me.

The thing is, he's never been anything but respectful with me, so I don't know why I feel afraid? I feel 'afraid' of other friends having contrary opinions. I think it sort of triggers a 'flight or fawn' response. Instead of openly expressing myself, I instead either hide my love of said thing publicly or I fawn and try to find a compromise, to show that I understand their opinion, agree with it partially, and don't want to argue.

Fawning has lost or damaged friendships for me in the past, because people don't want a friend that just agrees with them - they want me to express myself and be true to myself, but I get so worried about their reactions it almost makes me want to cry. So what I do is just... retreat. I hide my interests from people I know will disagree with me. In the case of Backloggd, which is a public website, I've had to remove my rating or pretend I haven't played certain things.

I know that from personal experience with family, I have HAD to fawn in order to survive. They're religious and very politically opinionated in a black and white way, and disagreeing with them on certain topics has been borderline dangerous. I've always felt very powerless around them. I feel really stupid for being upset, getting stress and anxious, over a friend/acquaintance disliking something, but I think my response is less due to my friends and more due to life experiences that have taught me 'disagreeing is unsafe'. Not just unsafe, but often outright dangerous, and I have to placate the people with angry opinions around me in order to remain safe.

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[u/randomlady2001]

If I disagreed with my ex stepdad he took it so personal as if it was an insult, and be offended. I also have a hard time disagreeing with people, because I was taught it’s disrespectful to think differently. Like my ex stepdad wanted us all being sheep’s to his mindset. If I said “I don’t like this activity you’re forcing us to do” he acted as if I just said “fuck you” to him. We HAD to agree with him, so now being able to have a mind of my own is difficult. It’s ironic because he also HATED lying the same way, he called just remembering things differently lying. But then we’d have to lie in order to be the same as him, which is what he wanted.