How easily do you trust?

Do you trust people easily? Dumb question maybe?

Do you forgive someone who has violated your trust?

I sometimes say that when they wrote that line in the Bible about "oh ye of little faith" they had me in mind.

I don't let anyone get close enough to violate my trust.

It takes a while for me to trust others

I trust very few people. Very few.

I do not trust easily, but when I do, I trust people with a lot more than they bargained for. However, if you hurt me, trust is almost impossible to restore. I've not had one occasion of successful trust restoration yet.

I trust in strangers, I am paranoid about my parents, the people of my city, and about the gorverno of my country. : D

I trust easily, but once it's broken it can have severe effects on trying to 'make up' with that person again.

Short answer: I don't trust easily. Long answer: I have a bad habit of oversharing in the very beginning of a relationship, and once a bond's been established, that's when I start having major doubts. Gotta love when your abandonment fears make you push people away and you lose a lot of friendships as a result.

Forgiveness with me is wonky. Sometimes I'll accept someone who's violated my trust back into my life like nothing ever happened, other times I'm a passive aggressive grudge-holding machine. The anger hasn't been much of a problem lately but what I'd give to not suspect ulterior motives from literally anyone I speak to more than once.

I always feel in the back of my mind people have a hidden agenda.
But I’m starting to learn that probably what my mum feed me those ideas as a child,
Just notice the way she talks about other people.

Omg I do the same thing too. I overshare things with people I do not know of.
Then I kinda regret telling them that part and I kinda tell myself why!

I love this thread.

I seem to see a lot of similarities with other's experiences here. Trust seems to be a common issue for us.

Nowadays I don't trust anyone. However, I try really hard to give others benefit of the doubt and I try me hardest NOT to generalize about everyone despite all the evidence that human beings are untrustworthy.

Deep and honest introspection and self-reflection has taught me that even I am guilty of breaking trust from time to time. All humans are bound by the same human condition. Thing is, trust isn't always broken for malicious purposes. Sometimes it comes down to fear, survival and attempts to help. (As hard as this is to believe when we are repeatedly betrayed and experience broken trust by people who are in fact malicious and should have been trustworthy!)

I try to articulate WHY people like us (trauma survivors) seemingly give so much of our hearts to others and despite being hurt time and time again, we sometimes find ourselves stuck in a pattern of going back. Is that our fault? Is this merely a trauma bond? Do we just have a capacity of empathy so deep we hope that our abusers will stop betraying us if we show them the opposite reaction?

This doesn't work. I am sure most of us know this by now, which is why trust is such a deep-rooted issue. Even an abused dog will stop coming around if you abuse it long enough.

If we decide to go no contact and isolate from all humans, are we unhealthy or are we wise? Some mental health "professionals" say that isolation and loss of faith in humanity is a common product of trauma and that we are, "letting our abusers win if we choose to live in isolation for the rest of our lives..." Is this true? How can we say this when so many human beings in power are drawn to abuse those of us who are most vulnerable? Are "professionals" not aware of these social norms that are so disturbing yet so undeniably common? How many people get traumatized and seek out help somewhere else only to experience secondary traumas and betrayals? I believe the numbers would be equally if not more disturbing...

Most of my trauma happened in therapy at the hands of corrupt and unethical healthcare professionals. I know I need therapy to heal from trauma and I want to go back to heal. Yesterday, a "professional" on a distress line got mad at me and pointed his finger and said, "the only reason why you will not heal and get effective therapy is because you will bring with you a tainted level of distrust in the system..." (I felt like interjecting and explaining the reason why I have this issue in the first place; because I went into therapy thinking it was safe...) Then he said, "You will sabotage any chance of healing if you expect professionals will harm you." I then responded, "I can intellectualize that NOT all therapists are bad, but my body will react to the environment and everything in it whether I like it or not. If I put my heart on the table and get hurt again, it will end me. I can ignore all the red flags in the world and continue to go back but trauma is a physical brain injury. Those betrayals are deep-rooted and cannot be healed simply by forcing myself into an extremely vulnerable situation and hoping that the other person will not harm me. The issues are cultural and systemic. The problem is rooted in human nature. Expecting any different would be ridiculous and naive."

You could say the same thing about trust in humans outside of therapy. If we have been hurt and isolate, we are potentially missing out on positive experiences. On the flip side, we are also potentially missing out on negative experiences. For someone with trauma, a negative experience is ten-fold as painful as it will most likely result in a re-traumatization. Add up a whole stack of multi-traumas and when one is activated, the rest will be too... The risk is far too grave. How can anyone handle such things on their own let alone someone like us who very rarely has a solid support system... (Most of us are completely alone)

Stuck in a deep-dark hole... We deserve better! The darkness of being alone and without support... We should have been able to trust them... They betrayed us so profoundly it ruined our capacity to trust anyone else. Think about that. That is the WORST DAMAGE.

How do we learn to trust again when humans are so fallible and WILL eventually hurt and or betray us? No amount of intellectual insight or self-awareness can stop my physical trauma responses from occurring.

Also, on a side note: I am have been told that when we become healthy we remove toxic relationships from our lives. What happens if everyone is toxic and thus, we remove everyone from our life? Is that healthy?

As far as forgiveness goes, it all depends on how they react. If they show signs of empathy, genuine guilt and shame and apology, then I will in time forgive them. IF they are malicious and incapable of showing any remorse, then giving them time of day is setting myself up to be abused again and again which they will undoubtedly do.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

when I'm feeling okay, and stable, not very easily. I've been hurt too much in the past to just trust someone like that

if I'm having an episode, I tend to put my trust in someone without thinking, and then later regret what I told them or let them see.

I do trust too easily. It’s how I get into a lot of trouble, especially financially.

Of course, I wouldn’t be married still if I didn’t trust my husband, but that’s another story.

I don’t trust easily. I almost always regret when I share too much. My hubby is the only person in my life I’ve ever truly been able to trust. I wish things were different.

My caregiver tells me that I trust people too easily. I don’t. I do trust others quickly, but not easily.

I’m not great at forgiving those who violate my trust (although I take the circumstances of the violation into account).