My own family members won't come to visit because they are scared
I think a lot of people who have only ever known USA life have the wrong idea about how dangerous it is over here. Even I was expecting to always need to be on my toes to avoid being robbed or kidnapped but as you know, it is much safer over here than it is in the cities of our own country.
Even my own dad goes to Mexico several times a year with his new wife, both are simple Indiana rednecks. They stay in resorts and go to eat at restaurants that are only a half a mile away from kidnappings, murders, and some of the most intense gang activity on the planet. Apparently the tourism industry and the ganglords in Mexico have pretty solid agreements to not let gang activity spill over into tourist zones, so it's all mental conditioning that have created this false image. I can't even count the towns in the USA I would want to wander around after 10pm, but here in Cambodia there is almost nowhere I would feel unsafe at 2am.
I'm the same way. I tell people that you really have nothing to worry about over here other than getting conned on the price of something and even when that happens it quickly becomes a life lesson and it doesn't happen again. I have never heard of anyone being a victim of a violent crime here in Thailand or even feeling nervous about a part of town they were in and as foreigners, we are frequently lost so ending up in the wrong part of town is likely something that happens to us on a regular basis. Even in my own smallish college town there was a "no go" part of town and the population was only around 100,000 people there.