No matter how silly they say something sounds, or the date. I will automatically assume someone is being serious unless they say it’s a joke after saying it because if it isn’t a joke and I take it as a joke that could be harmful. I’ve been bedbound due to CFS for the last 7 years so I don’t have a good idea of what is normal and what is not anymore.
What’s normal is that you had a traumatic experience, then internalized a Survival Rule to avoid repeating the behavior that led to the trauma. Depending on your age when the original incident happened, the Survival Rule might sit very deep, causing you to follow it even without thinking and without knowing why.
All that is normal: expected, sensible, reasonable.
The rule itself might no longer be needed. Can you imagine a situation in which it would be perfectly fine to interpret as a joke something that someone says without specifying it as a joke? Can you imagine three? Ten?