A response can begin in a very particular situation. You become careful around one person because their reactions are difficult to predict. You stop asking one person for help because asking rarely goes well. You learn to hide mistakes because being wrong brings humiliation.
At first, the response belongs to the situation. But the system does not start over every time something happens. It learns from repetition.
If being careful repeatedly reduces trouble, carefulness becomes easier to access. If relying on yourself repeatedly works better than relying on others, self-reliance becomes more available. If hiding uncertainty repeatedly protects you from embarrassment, hiding becomes familiar.
Eventually, the system begins using what it has learned before it knows whether the new situation requires it. You meet someone new and watch them carefully. You need help and assume it will be easier to handle things yourself. You make a small mistake and immediately want to hide it.
Nobody in the present situation has necessarily given you a reason to respond this way. But the response already has a history.
Repetition teaches the system what to expect. What it learns in particular situations begins to be applied more broadly. Expectations formed in one relationship appear in others. Responses developed around one authority begin appearing around authority more generally.
Eventually, what began as a response to particular conditions becomes part of how you enter new ones.
The system is no longer only responding to what is happening. It is arriving prepared for what it has learned might happen.