I think a common pattern in some of our anxieties is paranoid that people are persecuting us. Honestly, I don't think your neighbors can read your thoughts but that the insults were a coincidence. In any case, the paranoia of people hating us is real. I believe it is similar to how I spent a good part of 2 decades thinking that people were looking at me funny and thinking I am a disease to them wherever I went. It's all a part of this crippling thing we call anxiety and perceiving that people don't like us.