I also have a great amount of difficulty trusting others. To me trust means allowing myself to be vulnerable and not expect to be hurt. Trust is not black or white, I don't trust anyone completely, but I have been allowing myself to trust some people to a degree. I do notice myself testing people as to how much I can trust them.

I had written down what trust meant to me, personally, as it relates to others and as it relates to strangers. But, it doesn't feel right now so I must sit with it some more.

As RichieD said, it's a word with few letters and many meanings.

And Dragonfly, when I clicked on the link you gave about the root meaning of trust. I had to take a hard look at whether or not my life really reflects integrity, as it was defined--or if I'm living in a twilight world of reality-denial. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Healing is hard work and it can hurt to discover a hidden dark side.

hylie - I agree that being with humans (can) hurt less than being alone. But is there anything that is really inevitable if we decide otherwise?

loum50 - IMO, testing others--as long as it's not extreme and a permanent thing--is okay.

Will continue to be with the meaning of this word...trust, because now I must dig deeper, look deeper and come to an honest answer--as it relates to me and my life.

xx
SuzA

SuzA66:
Such a simple and elite question - "what is trust?"; yet, as we can see, abuse has even made this simple and elemental, foundation concept SO difficult.
Trust is something that most children seem to form just naturally, depending on their parental attachment and such - it is something that should just come naturally for people, but for those who learned betrayal at an early age, or even later in life, it can become so incredibly out of reach.
To me, trusting someone means knowing they will not inherently want to hurt you - even if at times, due to human frailty and faults, we do get hurt by those we trust, if they are truly trustworthy people they will go out of their way to make it right and have that trust restored.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, survivors of abuse are SO used to not trusting, we often allow ourselves to tolerate untrustworthy people - this is another trap the abuse can lead us into.
But, I feel trust is inherently necessary for relationships to prosper, so if you do not trust, you will not have quality relationships - it's all about risk taking isn't it?
So IMO we trust again only when we feel we are strong enough to endure the resultant pain if that trust is misplaced and we are betrayed......but, I do think it is an element of ourselves that we crave as social creatures. How can you be social if you think everyone is going to harm you?
Thanks for the post - very enlightening and a deep thought in a little word. Some really good responses everyone!!! Thanks again!
All my best -
Refuse2quit

This morning I am asking of myself: do I trust myself to live the life I want?

Refuse2quit, you made a very important point when you said, "...due to human frailties and faults we do get hurt by those we trust [but] if they are truly trustworthy people they will go out of their way to make it right and have that trust restored."

Maya Angelou said, "People tell you who they are; believe them." I know that it's by their very behaviors that people let us know who they are.

So, if someone betrayed my trust and did not go out of their way to make it right, I'd have to believe they were not truly trustworthy people. I'd have to believe what they're telling me about who they are.

And then I must make a choice, them or me.

When I wrote that I heard an internal voice say, "Can't you keep them in your life knowing they aren't 100% trustworthy?"

I suppose I could, but why would I want to except for selfish reasons; it's time to move beyond selfish reasons and trust myself to be all I can.

Thanks for those internal conversations your post prompted.

xx
SuzA

SuzA66:
You always post such great topics and then are so easy to explain what is happening to you internally - these are both wonderful gifts and I hope you are aware that you trigger a lot of contemplation from others - or at least from me!
You have made me think back on some of the basic things that we, as survivors often have difficulty with.....things that most children and adults have little issue with, due to our trauma we struggle. But, struggle brings strength - we build our "emotional muscles" that way. In my experience, 100% trustworthy people are very difficult to locate or perhaps I just have a hard time seeing them - so often I have to take a "walk of faith" when I meet others - sort of "innocent until proven guilty" approach; but as most survivors, I think would agree, this is against our defense mech's - we often assume "guilty until they prove themselves innocent" in order to protect ourselves. I do wonder how many wonderful people I have by-passed in my life due to being unable to trust them, or because something they inadvertently said threw the red flags into the air and I took off. Now I see that this could have been traumatic for them (not that I am so worthy of such emotion) but they may have needed to trust ME and I let them down.
So, I really look at others differently now - this was a hard step for me, but I realized that when I was 8 years old I survived at the hands of a psychopath who was hell bent on destroying me, body and soul. I can live through the pain of some betrayal now without having to react as if it is the end of the world. We are
Thanks again for post - you have helped me grow a lot on this board!
All my best-
Refuse2quit

Trust is so complicated when you have been abused. It has taken me years to figure out that it comes down to trusting yourself. It is so hard to do and so hard to learn cause it goes against all that we have learned. It is something that I still struggle with. I have learned to trust that little voice inside of myself but it has taken me years to do. I have to say I din't do it alone. People always say you need to learn to love yourself first but I always sad how can I do that if I don't know what love is and no one ever taught me. Therapist used to tell me you still had to do it for yourself. I found out that isn't really how it works. I found a group of people who loved me enough until I was able to love myself. Why I believe this is because if you think about it if a baby doesn't have love affection and attention then they die and that has been proven. I believe that happens to adults also. It has beentrue for me and I learned to love myself and trust myself because others loved me without conditions. Don't get me wrong these kind of people are very hard to find but I know it is possible and that is what I see here when people support each other. Thanks for sharing with us and giving us the chance to care about you and support you.

Refuse2quit,

When you wrote about looking back and wondered how many wonderful people you have by-passed in your life for lack of trust I found myself wondering the same thing.

And my look-back made me sad. I don't know if any of those people were needing my trust because my wall was too thick to know.

I saw a woman who was much too aloof to approach. A woman whose internal life was wall-to-wall fear; so much so that she could not tell there was any other way to be.

You know, like living in a black box and believing that's all there was for light had never entered.

I would like to meet some of those people now knowing they would find a different person.

I feel both sad and glad. Sad for the loss, glad for the healing.

Thanks for your post Refuse2quit. I hear you.

xx
SuzA

You usually seem to SuzA! I have often felt the loss of others in my life, due to either my inability to trust or perhaps trying too hard due to feeling so alone. But somehow we seem to have learned and made the changes we needed to make.
Interestingly, just a few years ago, we used to teach kids "stranger danger" - but they found that this instilled an inability for children to trust anyone they did not know. So now as social workers we are to instill "appropriate awareness and caution of unknown people". Odd how even modern society seems unable to decide what is acceptable as far as trust goes.
But at least we learned. There are people who never realize that they don't trust - they just think that their interactions, or lack of such, is appropriate.
Again, your posts always make me think, and I like that.
Thanks for the thought provoking topics.
All my best!
Refuse2quit

drangonflylady,

I, too, have read the research that found that infants require touch and attention in order to stay alive.

However, I would not necessarily draw that same parallel to adults/survivors. Infants are at the total mercy of their care-takers; they cannot seek out different people or different environments or talk with others.

Adult survivors, on the other hand can move about in the world; they can read, talk, observe, discover what works for them and learn how to love...themselves and others.

Is it easier when we find a group of people who will love us unconditionally? Absolutely. But, it is not the only way. I had to learn to love myself--without a group of people who loved me unconditionally.

And while there were many people along the way to help me--like therapists, workshop leaders, authors, etc.-- there was never at any time a "...group of people who loved me enough until I was able to love myself."

Certainly, count yourself as fortunate but, please, do not suggest that we cannot learn to love ourselves even though we may not know what love is and/or no one ever taught us--afterall, we are no longer infants.

If you are saying we cannot learn to love in a vacuum, I agree. But we can learn to love our-self for love is available for teaching/learning to the seekers.

And if that love comes first from a group or from ourself this just says that love can be learned from groups or we can learn to love ourself...one step at a time.

xx
SuzA

Refuse2quit:

"Appropriate awareness", sounds good, though I'm not really sure how that translates in teaching children; but what does "caution of unknown people" mean? I don't know what the stats are, but aren't most predators known to their victim?

Thanks for educating me.

xx
SuzA

Suz,

I want to go back to my prior answer, copy it, and save it and see how I change over time.... lately I have been flying through the mucky fog with no solid land in sight and remembering your words of wisdom at my journal entry....

I think trust is so complicated when we have inner selves. We have to trust our inner selves. Our inner selves have to trust the outer persona. Trusting self. .... when we have inner selves .... this is the work I am doing now.

I feel the meaning of trust in this new context for me (us) is about accepting the divergent beliefs and emotions within the body carrying my many-faceted self on Planet Earth.

and trust may be about acknowledging where we are on the path by allowing our emotions to be our truths instead of our ideas about how we should be .... the outer persona shows the world the face everyone expects to see. We don't make anyone uncomfortable. But when we trust ourself, we let the emotion have space to be even if not consistent with outer reality.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we can't trust if we don't feel our feelings in a safe space. Long ramble for a short point. .... about right for me!
:-)

thanks Suz