The Role Of Trust: What Is It?

[Abstract]

I have big trust issues too.
I am with Bronte on this in that I think we don't worry about others so much when we trust in our own power and judgment.

Some people ARE untrustworthy and thats really important to remember (as if we would forget!). I don't know about others but I have ended up in many horrible situations because I would zone out thought or judgment and spend my energy distrusting my instincts.

However, I do think that we can choose to start attempting to trust and that life without trust is hollow.
I also believe we often put a filter on the world around us and only absorb what we look for.
For example: If we want to believe we are "bad" we will find "confirmation" all around us.
People on the whole are not perfect but are well meaning (I say this with my mind and not my heart).

My aim is to use my intuition first. To stay switched on and aware and to trust my instincts. After I aim to attempt to choose to trust in small increasing amounts and only as the person earns it. I aim to attempt to not be looking for a problem and to rather just stay aware.

Absolute continents away from that presently of course! I can't even speak about non trauma stuff in T. I am almost always at least a bit dissociated and out of contact with my insctincts and feelings. I also think the rare person does exist who is totally convincing and yet entirely and hideously untrustworthy.

But it is still a vague aim I have as I don't want to cut myself off from the world forever.

I hope I am not way off topic for you, Junebug!

 

[Tinyflame]

Dear Abstract, no!, in fact you likely have hit the nail on the head, in so far as you said (paraphrasing) sometimes ptsd interferes with (our) gut reaction or our perception, or our thinking (self-fulfilling prophesies), or even through dissociation, (all) really good points.

The odd thing is, I really don't have any lasting-animosity towards those who really haven't been trustworthy or even have been harmful, nor do I judge it (though I would hope to not have to relive it!)

I guess what I do not understand, is where 'ptsd begins and ends': to be able to discriminate what perhaps I should understand is what others really 'need' or 'prefer' or 'want' (if they don't communicate it), vs what are my own (negative) assumptions or thoughts or self-fulfilling prophesies. I have so little tolerance for my own needs that it just causes me regret to express them. I don't have too many regrets in particular that I haven't tried to make amends for, but I have regret in general in regards to that.

That's what it is- it just occurred to me- I don't know how to discriminate when trusting someone else is harmful or helpful to either them or me.

 

[The Albatross]

I don't remember the rule about links. But REBT is Rathional Emotive Behavior Therapy and I can say that I've been able to get some improvement with Ellis's techniques on my thinking. It's something I bumped into when my former T said I had "low frustration tolerance". I did a check around and found some free ebooks. I won't put up the hotlink, but here's where I found the material (cut and paste and I hope I'm not breaking any rules):

www.rebtnetwork.org/whatis.html

Crap... I keep trying to make it a cut and paste, but it keeps puttin up the hotlink. I hope I didn't screw up, but I really wanted to share something that is helping me.

 

[The Albatross]

I guess I should add, that REBT doesn't have anything to do with the traumas. What it has done though, is help me to manage the triggers and self harming thinking that I was/am inflicting on myself. It seems to help bring me out of the loop of reliving the trauma, and give me a foot hold in the present and how to move forward without retraumatizing myself.

 

[Tinyflame]

Thank you for the help Albatross, -you are very kind.

 

[TEL]

No worries... It's not 12 step work though. It's REBT techniques (Albert Ellis)

What is REBT?

 

[TEL]

Oops, hey Albatross, please disregard my last question...read through the thread and see you already explained what REBT is....

 

[Tinyflame]

I came across this, " You trust the one with whom you are so brutally and painfully honest.”
Perhaps trust is the dove-tailing of the presence of that possibilty along with one's own capability to do that, feeling able or reasonably safe to do so or choose to do so. (-?):unsure:

Not important but would explain to me why sometimes a) one chooses not to
or b) one 'can't'.

 

[Ted Moen]

I think trust and forgiveness and esteem are bound together and the real issues are self-trust and self-forgiveness and self-esteem. In surviving hostile situations and living out the ptsd symptoms that followed, I came to not trust my own behavior and to think I was a pretty terrible person for doing some of the things I did. Understanding ptsd as involving a normal person caught in an abnormal situation and doing what they needed to do to survive helped a lot and opened me up to working on self-esteem. The general approach is the notion that normally I wouldn't do anything wrong (intentionally) and learning to forgive the much younger me that did what he felt he needed to do at the time to survive and was left living out ptsd symptoms with no real understanding or support in recovering from the trauma. I even put the phrase "I would'nt do anything wrong" on my cell phone screen so I would see it several times daily.

I think we normally expect/trust other people to be consistant in their behavior. My problem with trusting other people lies more in my emotional needs and developing expectations than the other person. I was always hoping to find that supportive person that would make my world right again. It took me a long time to accept I was the person that had to do that by learning to manage my ptsd symptoms and learning to get my current needs met in my current situation.

So I trust normal people to be normal people. And I trust that I can interact with them in an appropriate way and get my current needs (positive relationships and appropriate shared activities) met, even though I may have to do that while experiencing feelings which are uncomfortable and which normal people have no basis to understand.

For example, golf is an appropriate activity for me and I enjoy playing golf, but one of my ptsd symptoms is hypervigilance. I used to sit on ambushes listening for footsteps on moist grass. So when I am playing golf and the hypervigilance mood passes through, I become extremely sensitive to the slightest noise. There is a rule in golf that you remain quiet when others are hitting. So I would hear someone moving their foot and build it into extreme rudeness in my mind and tell them off, the result being no one to play golf with and me dwelling on what is wrong with me. Now I have learned to recognize the ptsd mood passing, and have learned to self-talk my way through playing with the mood without getting upset with those I am playing with at the moment.

Ted

 

[Tinyflame]

I think trust and forgiveness and esteem are bound together and the real issues are self-trust and self-forgiveness and self-esteem. In surviving hostile situations and living out the ptsd symptoms that followed, I came to not trust my own behavior and to think I was a pretty terrible person for doing some of the things I did. Understanding ptsd as involving a normal person caught in an abnormal situation and doing what they needed to do to survive helped a lot and opened me up to working on self-esteem. The general approach is the notion that normally I wouldn't do anything wrong (intentionally) and learning to forgive the much younger me that did what he felt he needed to do at the time to survive and was left living out ptsd symptoms with no real understanding or support in recovering from the trauma.

I think we normally expect/trust other people to be consistant in their behavior. My problem with trusting other people lies more in my emotional needs and developing expectations than the other person.

Thank you Ted, I agree, and lived the same form of initial experience exactly as you describe. I have tried to look back with some degree of understanding if not empathy.

Although I trust my own behaviour, I do not trust my own perceptions, or 'right' to 'anticipate' a need being met.
I believe, in trying to understand trust, that it is wrong and unfair and I am wrong to have expectations that at their core are based more on my own inability to tolerate or process the uncertainty of trust or asking for help etc, - as you said all within the framework of "experiencing feelings which are [horribly] uncomfortable and which normal people have no basis to understand". Even if it is not useful for much at least I can recognize and put the onus on where it is due (myself).

Congratulations, re: the golf, that's quite an accomplishment :) :tup:

 

[Tinyflame]

I just realized something today- a 'lightbulb' if you will:

I think 'trust' between people who do not know each other is something one must 'assess' through their cognition, facts and their instinct or intuition ('gut' feeling).

But I was thinking of how 'scrambled' my brain gets in terms of memory (and forgetting 'memories'), how specifically I can physically 'know' someone and out of context and my mind distracted (by intrusive thoughts, memories, FB's, dissociation, triggers etc etc etc, even physical pain, or the 'rollercoaster of emotions'), I cannot 'remember' or identify what I need to (eg. them!- 'Who is this person??" :confused:) Similarly, I have been in a position (past experience) where the most trustworthy person I could imagine became untrustworty- but that of course can happen, especially when addictions or other factors etc are involved, especially if they 'require' a lot of 'untruths', to hide them: to borrow a phrase from Al Anon 'I love someone who is not trustworthy'.

But it occurred to me today, 'years' are not the same as 'days' or 'minutes': as obvious as that is, I have been living as though they were. For those I have known long, or well, -I know what words have been spoken, what actions have occurred, etc. And if they weren't good or trustworthy ones, well I wouldn't have them in my life now. (As long as I remember. Or most specifically- I'm not recalling anything).

Without being aware of it, I have been treating every thought or question of my own (second-guessing) or interaction as an isolated moment in time, without a 'history' and virtually without much of a 'present', either (because/ and oftentimes I'm not wholly-'present'). I think this is where some of the (my*) problem lays (and it is my problem). But it explains a lot.

 

[May1321]

Hi Junebug.

Amazing in life how you can be dealing with something and every time you open a book or page something in regards to that catches your attention as your post has done for me today.

I've been struggling with the 'trust' of others recently too and where do I draw the line. I realize that tho the person I love is a sufferer, and the person that I "let" create the most wounds in the past was also a sufferer, that I do not like the person I am when I lose my trust.

I am not perfect either and there are some things I am working on admitting to myself but since - and I believe you've mentioned this to me - I live in the present, I cannot expect my sufferer to do the same. I do not know why he lies, or what the actual truth is, or why he is afraid to tell it. I can't help but ask, 'is this part of his way of dealing with his trauma, protecting himself, protecting me, or is he just evil?' I don't know and after my past, I don't want to dive in deeper to knowing. I choose to draw the line at he is being dishonest and this is one behavior I do not accept. I realize that it is not healthy for me (my gutt reactions go crazy) therefore I can not be healthy for him.

I'm almost finished reading The Mastery of Love. It is helpful. I can only control what I can control. I choose to be truthful and learn to love myself for who I am and not expect anything from anyone else to fulfill my soul. The people I love, I can love and not totally trust them... but it does dampen how much I choose to put into that relationship. Some are just better off walking away from.

So, I guess. Trust for me... is I will continue trusting everyone till (heaven forbid) they give me a reason not to. More than likely, however, if I put too much energy into that person, I will eventually be disappointed. Everyone has their own fears and "Parasites" (as this book explains), but I think it is truly up to us to do the best we know how to do for ourselves and know where to draw the line with whoever it is that we trust. If the dishonesty is something you think you can work through, then of course, we have to stand and say simply "I will not tolerate it" and don't. It is then up to them to decide also if they want to work through it. If it is something we cannot tolerate, then we again simply say, "I do not accept dishonesty in my relationships." and then it is up to us to be the stronger, and walk away.

Don't know if that makes any sense but I wish you the very best.