Amity wrote:
Being yelled at is intended to be an unpleasant experience.
Its a sign that the person has lost self control, a warning signal.
If you feel afraid, that is a normal healthy reaction.
Being yelled at, initially has a startle effect on me, I freeze up or disassociate. If it continues I cover my ears, I can't process anything rationally, or even start to think of how to respond to the situation when that level of noise is vibrating around in my auditory system.
In the past I have had experiences where the person yelling refuses to stop, or has followed me when I tried to get away from the noise, at that point I usually start yelling back, but so loudly that I drown out their sound; it leads to unpleasant experiences for me and it could take many hours to start feeling normal again.
Amity, raises a solid point.
I assume all humans would experience some stress when someone is yelling at them regardless of their past experiences.
Yelling is adversarial, a threatening, aggressive act, even some non-human animals react to being yelled at(eg. a cat or dog).
Amity, for what it's worth I can relate to how you respond to someone yelling at you. It is intolerable.