"Do you ever get the sudden and completely overwhelming fear nobody likes you?"

This is the text I got at 9:58pm on a Thursday from one of my best friends who I love to pieces and who is completely adored and successful and fosters quality friendships and is in a loving, committed relationship.

"Yeah I do," I responded quickly. And from a trauma-informed lens my mind went straight to attachment and environmental failure, because it's fairly safe to assume that this feeling doesn’t come from the present moment at all. The sudden and completely overwhelming fear that nobody likes you is rarely about whether people like you now. It’s usually about what your nervous system learned then.

Many of us grew up in environments where connection wasn’t steady or predictable. Love may have been conditional. Approval may have been tied to performance, mood, achievement, or emotional caretaking. When that happens, a child doesn’t conclude, “This environment is failing me.” They conclude, “Something about me must be the problem.”

That conclusion doesn’t disappear just because you grow up, become competent, or are objectively loved. It lives on as a background assumption that can get activated at night, when you’re tired, hormonal, lonely, or quiet enough to hear it. It can also get activated by larger environmental failures and feelings of helplessness, as with the ICE murder of Renee Good earlier this week.

---

My friend then asked me "How do you handle it? And do you notice any patterns?". Here are some things I recommend, based on what I do personally. Take what works for you and leave the rest!

1. I check in on how I'm relating to myself. I told my friend, “I'm pretty quickly able to scan my life and think, well, that's probably not true.” The word "probably" is important here. I'm not arguing with the feeling. I don’t try to talk myself out of it with affirmations. I orient to reality. And I also tell myself something else that feels very grounding to me: “There are probably parts of me that are unlikable. That’s too bad. And a little embarrassing.” That part is important too. I'm choosing how I relate to myself with agency, not collapsing into shame, and not insisting on perfection to deserve connection. It’s allowing complexity: I can be loved and imperfect. Sometimes, though, I notice myself slipping into listing out those “unlikable” parts. I start comparing myself to people with more friends, more status, more likability. The moment I start ranking people in my head, I know exactly what’s happening. “That’s my dad’s voice,” I told my friend. “Not mine.” This is another core trauma therapy principle: recognizing the internalized relational voice that shaped your nervous system. These voices often show up as comparison, judgment, or an urgency to prove worth. Naming them isn’t about blaming parents; it’s about separating what’s inherited from what’s true. When I notice that voice, I don’t wrestle with it. I just loop back to to the beginning of this step.

2. I keep a list on my phone titled "People who like me." It's literally just that. A list of people who I think like me for the most part. I have a sub-category of people who I could invite to coffee or on a walk and feel fairly certain they would say yes. I started this list a long time ago when I was going through a divorce and feeling depressed, unlovable, and socially isolated. It was amazing the way my mindset shifted over time and I was able to invite in more and more connection with others. My friend loved this idea. A few minutes later, she sent me a screenshot of a new note on her phone titled “Like Me.” My name was the first one on the list. There’s something quietly reparative about that in an authentic, human-to-human way.

   

3. I also suggested something else I’ve found surprisingly regulating: tracking mood in an extremely simple way without overthinking it.

   In a bullet journal or calendar:

   • A dot when you’re on your period

   • A little teardrop on days you cry

   • A heart when something happens that makes you feel love or loved

   Over time, patterns emerge. You start to see that these moments of disconnection come in waves. That they’re often linked to physiology, stress, or old relational activations. And that they pass. It’s also grounding to flip back and see the little hearts. To remember what happened that day. To see evidence of connection that your nervous system may temporarily forget.

The work here isn’t convincing yourself that everyone likes you. It’s helping your system update the belief that connection is fragile, conditional, or always about to be withdrawn.

That fear isn’t a flaw. It’s a survival adaptation that once made sense.

And now, gently, practically, with lists and awareness and compassion, you get to teach your nervous system something new.