Warning for mentions of fictional violence and my responses to it. 

In addition to anxiety, my first therapist thought I might be a Highly Sensitive Person who has more intense responses to physical and emotional stimuli. I've always struggled with violence and gore in movies and games, particularly when I was a kid. If a movie showed blood everywhere and played scary music to communicate "it's coming to hurt you", I'd have to leave the room until the scene was over. I remember playing Mortal Kombat and running into a stage hazard over and over again that crushed my character between two walls and I really viscerally felt what that would be like and could never play MK again. It got so bad that when Bioshock came out, I was so excited to play it, but after the first "jumpscare" of the spooky Ryan statue I turned off the Xbox.

Now that I'm an adult I can handle most horror movies (and the ones I get recommended are generally more slow-paced and cerebral anyway) and I've been able to get used to blood and guts in my action games, but I can't go anywhere near horror games that aren't visual novels. Something about the player character's survival being dependent on ME and MY REFLEXES AND SKILL is so much pressure. The more violent the death animation, the more severe the consequence, the worse it is. I couldn't even finish Inside because of the dogs and the underwater girl. I'm not sure how I'd handle a horror game where you don't really die, something like PT maybe?

My partner is a big fan of Resident Evil and has tried to introduce me to it many times, and I feel bad that I can't play it. I've gotten into the RE characters and lore too and not actually playing the games makes me feel like a fake fan. Was anyone able to overcome this problem?