When you grow up in an environment where other people's opinions mean the difference between receiving care and not, or of getting hit with a stick and not, or of being told you're going to hell or not, it deeply ingrains the belief that other people's opinions are a matter of life and death.
It trains the developing brain to automatically become hyper-vigilant of the emotions and opinions of others, and these bedrocks of thinking carry forward into adult life where they either lead to a life of anxiety and worry about what others think, or a life of unwinding and replacing it with better ways of thinking.
When that kind of thinking gets embedded at an early age, at a time when the victim has no choice in the matter, it's absolutely not correct to say that this is a choice.