Someone's being friendly and my brain is like: "Here are all the ways this person could potentially be trying to manipulte you."

Why brain? We met a nice person. Why are you like this?

Because paranoia is strong and a survival instinct to anyone who's been fucked over multiple times or seen people fucked over too much.

Yeah, pretty much. My brain keeps expecting people to do what my parents did. I know they most likely won't, but irrational fear is hard to beat sometimes.