Trust

[sportinrucks]

Trust has always been a been an issue for me and I never knew it. My beleifs were everything about me was fine although I was so shameful about myslef but it recently hit me. I am so on guard around people.

Not also that the need to protect myself from attacks (not necessarily physical) but to protect myslef from anything including normal joking around and ribbing. Now this could be from a lack of knowledge and experience but also i know it stems from SA. So I beleive the next issue I will work on is trusting people again and setting boundaries without people walking all over me, and accepting myself.

 

[deck]

I know exactly what you mean. Trusting others is hard. I also find it difficult to trust myself. My judgement. You have to build trust in yourself then the trust in others will come.

 

[MrEdd]

I think trusting human beings is irrational. The best I can do is to make myself vulnerable and care about people, even though I know they will let me down or betray me if it is most convenient for them.

It seems better than being alone or cold. I am scared of not being able to feel - my Dad was that way. I would rather hurt than be numb.

I can trust God, Because God is not Human. But God doesn't promise to make things better until judgement day, so that is sometimes of limited help now.

 

[RICK57]

Mr Edd - your response hit the spot with me tonight! 10 minutes earlier, I received a text asking me to a barbecue on Sunday! I'm still screwed up to some extent due to the time I spent waiting to go to court, and all of the other issues surrounding that! It's been 5 months now 'since it was all over', and I've been pretty anti social.

I'm going on Sunday...thanks!

Best wishes ...Rik

 

[roadrunner]

sportinrucks,

If we look back we can see why trust is such a huge issue for survivors. When we were kids we thought the world was safe, or safe for the most part. The abuse taught us how wrong we were, and because we were just kids we jumped to the opposite conclusion - that the whole world is UNSAFE and that trust is a stupid idea.

I think the initial stages of recovery in a way make it even more difficult to trust. We gradually learn that so many of our feelings about ourselves are wrong, which in a way is good news because those feelings are so negative. But if we can't trust our own feelings, how can we trust anything about ourselves, much less trust other people?

You are dead right. It's all about boundaries. We have to relearn how to trust, but as careful savvy adults, not as naive children. And that means we have to learn and set up healthy boundaries in how we relate to other people.

MrEdd, I have to say I disagree with your view on this:

I think trusting human beings is irrational. The best I can do is to make myself vulnerable and care about people, even though I know they will let me down or betray me if it is most convenient for them.

That's more or less to say that as a rule people are heartless and irresponsible users and opportunists, and that seems to me to be as unhealthy a view as saying that as a rule people are boundlessly kind and moral. If the purpose of our lives is to live in happiness and fulfullment, I'm not sure I see how that can be achieved if our attitudes towards others is constantly based on bitterness and anticipation of ultimate betrayal.

Really, I think, we are back to the issue of boundaries: finding a way to life safely in a world where any kind of behavior is to be found. Others are doing this all the time. For us it's more difficult, however, because we have lived on the sharp edge of how bad things can get when they do go wrong. What we have to bear in mind is that our terrible experiences don't define the world, just as they don't define us. They define abusers, and not more.

Much love,
Larry

 

[deck]

Larry is right on this. It terrifies me at times and it difficult for me to trust but I know there are people out there that I can trust. It seems to take longer to trust your judgement on who is worthy of your trust and affection.