To fear reading certain messages from people?

[BalloonCityBaseline]

I wouldn't describe myself as anxious but I'm definitely a people pleaser. I get very anxious about reading certain WhatsApp messages and texts.
Last night I messaged my friend saying I didn't want to do something, nothing big, but something I knew she would be upset about. Now I can't open WhatsApp as I know the reply will be on there. I know 90% of the time it's better than I expect but I can't help feeling it's going to be much worse.
Does anyone else feel this way? For example if you email a colleague a response and you know they might take it badly, do you avoid reading the response? How can I become more confident and stop avoiding?

I get this. I found turning off blue ticks and hiding my last seen helped. Also I used to still get anxious about people seeing me online and realising even without ticks on that I'd read their message and ignored it (especially in groups where blue ticks still show and it still shows who has read messages) so I read somewhere that if you put your phone on airplane mode, it stops you showing online and doesn't show as read in a group. So I read a lot of my messages that way so I can process first.

'Rejection sensitivity'. All these names to make perfectly normal human experiences 'a thing'. OP if you are finding certain individuals make you feel like that then it might be worth looking at those relationships. It only happens to me with one specific person and when I realised that it meant I was able to see the funny side, treat it like a game rather than finding it a threat. Reframing it can be helpful. If it's with lots of people it's worth considering some therapy around people pleasing and what is driving it.

You have to tell yourself that other people’s views, wants, demands and opinions are not as important as your own boundaries.

This is really important.

It's difficult and it takes practice. Your response is totally understandable and it won't be easy but you need to work on this.

Women are socialised to think that having boundaries makes them aggressive/scary/difficult/unattractive. Which is why they are disadvantaged, overlooked and sometimes abused. In fact, boundaries are essential to your self-respect and not having them will lead people to respect you less. Enforcing them is sometimes uncomfortable, but critical.

I have found it really helps to think of it as educating yourself to protect yourself. A bit like forcing yourself to undergo practical therapy. You know it will be difficult to go through it but you know you will emerge stronger and breathe easier on the other side.

@BalloonCityBaseline It's very typical to feel more "anxious" in the morning - your cortisol levels are higher because thousands of years ago you would have been out hunting and this would have been a useful rise in "fight or flight" hormones. These days it's not so helpful. You could try a cortisol/stress hormone balancing supplement - there are many natural options out there. Obviously it makes sense to address the mental aspect of this too - I'm not advocating CBT in the modern sense, but perhaps google the work of Abraham Low and his approach to anxiety. There's an abridged version available by Robert Courtade. My advice would be to get this under control now. Good luck!

Yes, definitely. I can't open letters or emails from official bodies. I "know" it's going to be bad news.

I don't. But I don't think my anxiety has ever properly de-escalated from years ago when the plain clothes police came looking for my ex and I had no idea why. It was terrifying.