When I was drinking and new in AA, I often felt unsafe.
Sometimes, I was. People posed a physical threat, or were actively cruel, exclusionary, or denigrating.
However, I would also feel unsafe when disagreed with, challenged, pulled up on my behaviour, or disobeyed.
Ordinary human behaviour would also trigger me, because of my unresolved psychological problems.
In the latter cases, in other words when I was not being threatened or attacked, I would nonetheless construe and portray myself as a victim and others as perpetrators, in order to manipulate them into agreeing with me, refraining from challenging me, refraining from pulling me up on my behaviour, obeying me, or tiptoeing about whatever I happened to find distressing.
Ironically, since I felt almost universally threatened, attacked, and triggered, I failed to heed the alarms indicating genuine threat and attack and remove myself from such situations accordingly. When all you hear is alarms, you don't spot and deal with the genuine fires.
Life has become a lot easier now I can tell the difference between genuine threat and attack, on one hand, and legitimate features of human interaction. I also know how to keep myself genuinely safe.