Trust? How?

birdsong87 wrote:if you ask me, they always have the power to hurt you. it's nothing that we give to others.
vulnerability can often even be a protection. because when you make yourself vulnerable people will know and feel that they are absolute jerks if they hurt you in that situation and it goes against many peoples view of themselves to hurt someone who made themself a target. its the weirdest thing, that I always get attacked the most and I am the one hiding behind the strongest masks and never showing vulnerability... Humans are weird like that. But my not looking vulnerable makes me the target that is more often chosen...

I think trust is possible when you know that you are not helpless. That you can set boundaries if the other one acts out. that you can say something, do something, stop it and leave. knowing that you are free and that being vulnerable is not the same as being young and helpless again. be a vulnerable adult who is fully oriented in the present. it is safe because ultimately, you are in control of yourself. not the other person.
you can communicate and expect to be treated with respect.
if something happens you take one blow, true. but then you can leave and take back your trust. its not like you will be in this forever.

maybe you can discuss it with the others. maybe not everyone needs to trust a person. we surely don't. And sometimes everyone feels safer if there is someone keeping a critical eye on the person some decided to trust. sometimes it is just that, observing someone really well, looking for signs of them not being who they say they are, that creates an unexpected sense of trust over time. Don't try to be someone you are not. but give people a chance.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:It's not an all-or-nothing thing. Trust has to be earned over time. You can't go through life just blindly trusting everyone. On the other hand, if someone hasn't done anything that makes you think they are untrustworthy, then they can have the benefit of the doubt, and you can be watching their actions to see if they continue to be trustworthy, and the longer that goes on, the more your trust will grow.

What you gain is a closer connection with that person and more of a sense of security. It takes a lot of energy to always be on guard.

birdsong87 wrote:might be an interesting topic for a conversation with your others, finding out what they think they gain from it and why it is important to them. you could also discuss what it costs you if you never trust anyone.

srhai wrote:Trust can be really complicated. People talk about trust in really broad strokes, but sometimes trust is just faith in one or two things. You trust a cashier to give you a correct total, and correct change. You trust the sun will rise, that the weather report is somewhat accurate.

Which means trust can be given out little by little. You can choose to trust a person with a single sentence. Coping with my recent treatment and discoveries about myself, I decided to trust my T. Does my entire system trust my T? No. But we talked about that. And I trusted her to hear that. And I trusted her to work with me, and I continue to trust her because I have never given her enough to hurt me badly with. I have trusted her with Just Enough.

Why do I trust her? What do I gain? Part of me is determined to work on my symptoms because we hit a breaking point with them affecting our life. So, part of me knows what I have to gain is relief. A better daily life. That's all I want to trust her with right now, too. I'm not giving my T any chances, I'm giving myself a chance. I'm giving myself a chance to try and work through this, by giving my T small amounts of trust at a time.

More personally, I trust my partner deeply. Very really, with my life. But I was afraid to tell them about having parts, alters. That was...much much harder than trusting my therapist to be nice to me while I dissociated in a room. I was trusting someone who shares the bed in which I sleep with a part of me that's defined by vulnerability. But I did it for me, because Star wanted to be seen, and because I have the factual knowledge that my partner has never betrayed me before. But you know, past betrayals by other people still hurt me now, so I wasn't 100% trusting. And that was okay. My partner handled it really well, and that vulnerability still stings, but I have parts of me that know it's okay. That I wasn't hurt. It keeps reminding me that nothing I feared happened, only the good.

Vulnerability is hard. For us, it hurts. It's a very real, almost physical pain, that came from a definitely real place. Trust is the knowledge that you personally can handle whatever comes next. So maybe try to dish it out piece by piece. One sentence, one intentional piece at a time. You never have to give your trust 100% to someone if you aren't ready. Because doing it all at once can hurt in very real ways. Your instincts that say vulnerability is dangerous probably come from a place where vulnerability literally did hurt you, you know? That's valid, and it's important to respect that. It's true that it's scary and can be hurtful. But if there is any desire in you to get to that place with someone, you might decide it's worth taking one step in that direction.

And remember, the goal is always to feel safe. Not for the other person to give you safety, but that by putting trust in them, you might find peace within yourself somewhere. Trust is about you, first. Nobody can take trust from you, or force it. Anyone who truly cares, will understand if you even put one single gesture of trust, and should be willing to wait until you are safe enough to give the rest.

NyxX wrote:We start to trust as we start to be able to predict a person, and find that the behaviour we are predicting is both accurate and acceptable behaviour to us. And we still don't trust anyone 100% not even Ozalces and he knows that and is OK with that. Because he knows he has flaws and isn't perfect and the things we don't trust him to do are valid. But we do trust him to not intentionally hurt us.

We get out of trusting someone we can relax with and not be constantly vigilant and we get someone we can share things with.

If your getting pressure from the others to trust him maybe you could think of something you do trust him to do and they would ease off the subject a bit for you. So I don't know maybe you can trust that he knows how to recognise each of you.

KawaiiKitty wrote:Maybe Im just dumb (which im not) but if someone is like asking you to trust them, that's a red flag to me.
Another one of us would probably give you different advice, but it's honestly just safer to always be on guard. Like, you can say to yourself that yeah ill kinda let this person in, but never give them the ability to destroy you.

We've been hurt too many times before, but yet some of the others still trust willy nilly. Especially the younger ones.

It's annoying.

If you don't put yourself at risk, you'll never be hurt. But maybe that's boring. I dont know.

SOHank wrote:

ItsJustUs wrote:

birdsong87 wrote:...but give people a chance.

Why? What do you gain?
Val

Trust = not alone =

There are exceptions to this, but it works for most people, in most places, most of the time.

It helps that he isn't a stranger other than to you, and he sounds like a good guy. I mean, he made pancakes with/for Lilly. What does he get out of that other than a smile.

And BTW, AJ doesn't trust me in everything. She knows that she needs to double check my suggestions for Sudoku, but is more confident about my crossword puzzle and binario suggestions. But she enjoys working on them with me as I catch things she misses and have a different knowledge set and perspective on crosswords. (I joke that I'm there to catch the easy things she misses while she works on the 3 dimensional chess side of the same sudoku puzzle. ) We do better together as a team than either of us could do alone.

NyxX wrote:I'm going to extrapolate based on what you and members of your system have said.

Other insiders or the husband are pressuring you to trust the husband. And you don't feel that it is wise or safe.


Ask them or him if they think it is OK to force someone to do something they don't feel safe doing. (The answer should be its not OK and they should be more aware of that then average because most people with the kind of relationship others in your system have with you husband should emphasis safe, sane and consensual.)and when they say no ask them why it is OK to force you to do something that you don't feel is safe.

Trust isn't something that can be forced. If it's not something your not familiar with it can be learnt. It can also be earned. But for any of that to happen you need to at least think it might be a good idea to learn to trust. And if your asking why would you want to trust someone your probably not there.

raptureblues wrote:i think what helped me to trust people like my partner and my therapist was establishing boundaries, and having my initial lack of trust respected and understood and not taken personally.

i do a lot of "tests" on other people where i gauge their reactions to certain things without revealing how its relevant to me so i can see how they react so i know if they're a safe person or not. eventually after they pass those tests for long enough, i feel like i can admit my fears and admit that i struggle with trust and then move on to establishing boundaries, stuff like "can you reassure me when i feel scared you're mad at me", "i can't always handle [xyz], is that okay?". eventually, if those boundaries have been consistently respected and upheld, i feel like that person is safe and i can be more vulnerable around them. i still have moments where i get paranoid and scared, and if in those moments it isn't taken personally and that person reassures me instead of getting mad that i don't trust them, i feel like i can trust that person.

that's how it's worked out with my partner especially. what i've gained through them is a truly safe person, someone who loves me and cares for me and isn't hurting me, who constantly communicates with me, is open with me, who understands why i am this way and tries not to take stuff personally. my partner understands that my fears and lack of trust and even my anger are all defense mechanisms. i'm associating my partner with a previous experience, not because they are in any way similar to people who've hurt me before, but because in a similar situation i have been hurt and had my trust broken, and i can't always believe that it won't happen again. but my partner understands that and doesn't take it personally, which is a relief.

trusting people is scary and hard work and it's not a linear thing either, but it's a very healing thing to be around someone who you truly feel safe around who you can trust, at least for me it's been a good thing in my life.