Trust Issues—Addressing the Hidden Root of Mistrust
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This is part 1 in a three-part series on trust. Stay tuned for parts two and three! Part two covers common beliefs that keep us stuck in mistrust, and part three includes tangible steps for building a stronger sense of self-trust.
Trusting others can be so hard. Working to reshape your thoughts after trauma or disappointment can feel like pushing up against a stone. This common hurdle stops many of us from building fulfilling connections with others.
And it makes perfect sense! Some of the most impactful trauma we experience is perpetrated by other people, often those closest to us. Feeling wary of others in the face of such pain is natural. We often say in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) that trauma is a “normal reaction to an abnormal event.” Yet it leaves those impacted feeling like something’s wrong with them.
Whether you struggle to trust others due to trauma, a general feeling that the world is stacked against you (more on this below — see “a systemic lens”), or difficult relationships from the past, you are not alone! Starting to trust others again can feel scary. Partially because putting your trust in others means letting go of some aspect of control. Trusting others requires making yourself vulnerable. And the most important step in learning to trust others is often the most neglected: trusting yourself.
Healthy Mistrust
In trauma work, the following truth arises without fail: a lack of trust in others often reflects a lack of trust in yourself.
Before going further, it’s crucial to distinguish between healthy mistrust of someone else, and harmful mistrust of oneself. If someone has proven to be untrustworthy through repeated actions (or sometimes one big, egregious action) it’s so important to believe yourself that you need boundaries to stay safe. To trust that gut feeling that says an emphatic “No.”
Those boundaries may include sharing less, estranging from the person emotionally or physically, or taking legal action. Sometimes you get an intuitive feeling that something is wrong, and you need to exit a situation quickly. Listening to your body’s signals can be a sign of strong, healthy self-trust. Deep down, you know better than anyone else what you need in order to stay safe. Trusting yourself allows you to listen to your gut and prevent situations that cause you to betray yourself and your needs. Mindful presence—being willing and able to notice body sensations and check in with yourself—and actually practicing acting based on your intuition (versus your fears) all help build self-trust.
You Must Be This Tall to Ride
When it comes to building relationships with others, I often think about the theme park signs that say “must be at least this tall to ride.” When deciding whether to enter into a relationship (romantic, friendship, or otherwise), we pass a similar sign. In relationships, accepting that you’re going to be hurt sometimes is the cost of entry. It’s the lowest common denominator. So before entering a relationship, whether you acknowledge it or not, you have to walk by a sign that says “must be at least this willing to get hurt.”
Following trauma, many either:
breeze right past that inconvenient sign, excited at the prospect of something new to replace the pain, or
run for the hills because being hurt at all feels equivalent to being hurt as badly you were in the past.
Either way, it’s often a lack of trust in your own ability to handle the natural bumps and bruises of relationships that gets in the way. And without the bumps and bruises, you miss out on all the beautiful aspects of closeness:
feeling connected to others, and therefore more connected to yourself
a sense of community and support
being seen and creating emotional intimacy
physical intimacy (both sexual and non-sexual), and so much more!
If that list has you thinking the juice might just be worth the squeeze, keep reading to learn how to recognize the signs of self-mistrust.
How self-mistrust Shows Up
How can you recognize it when a lack of self-trust is getting in the way? Step one is building awareness. Try taking an inventory of your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, behaviors, and urges.
Thoughts
One of the biggest signs of self-mistrust is a general feeling that you’re holding yourself back. If you have a lot of thoughts such as, “I can’t do that because…” about relationships (including friendships, talking to a stranger, familial ties, partnerships…etc) you may be getting stuck in self-mistrust. Thoughts that, “If I get close, XYZ will happen,” and XYZ is always negative or the worst case scenario.
Be gentle with yourself if this is you! Thoughts like these reflect deep pain. It makes sense that you’re having a hard time.
Physical sensations
Self-mistrust might also manifest physically, like a bracing or nagging feeling in your chest when you want to connect, as if someone or something is yanking the reins. Or a pit in your stomach when you start to get close to someone. Take a moment to check in physically and see what arises for you.
If it’s hard to connect with your body, or you don’t feel anything, this is super common. Pause and try to imagine yourself taking a chance — maybe texting someone you want to hang out with, or sharing something vulnerable you’ve wanted to say. Envision yourself taking this action in as much detail as possible, and see what comes up physically. Take note of the sensations you feel.
Emotions
Feeling lonely and isolated is a common result of self-mistrust. You may also feel out of alignment in your relationships, like a general sense of unbalance or dissatisfaction. You have people in your life you care about, but it feels like everyone is at arm’s length. It’s hard to feel like they really understand you, or you them. Anxiety and shame are also likely to arise when you struggle with getting closer to others. If you sense a strong aversion to closeness, emotions like fear or panic may also come up. Try to be gentle with these big feelings.
Behaviors
When it comes to behaviors, you may notice yourself avoiding closeness with others. Obvious examples of avoidance include staying home, not meeting other people, and isolating from those you care about. For many of us the behaviors are more subtle.
For instance, you may be fine socializing within relationships where the rules are clear (ie: ordering food at a restaurant, talking to a professor about an assignment at school, or workplace relationships with hierarchies and role clarity). Yet when the roles are less clear, or you care about the other person on a deeper level, you notice discomfort or have the urge to avoid these types of interactions.
Another form of avoidance is obsession or putting someone on a pedestal. This seems counterintuitive, but crushing super hard and wanting to spend a lot of time with someone you don’t know well often requires sidestepping important conversations and setting healthy boundaries for all involved, interfering with the ability to develop sustained trust over time. This is different than the fun feelings of new love and leads to behaviors that make you very vulnerable very quickly. For example, if you struggle with trusting yourself, you may find yourself avoiding responsibility and therefore giving all the power to the other person in a relationship.
If either of the above dynamics sound familiar, consider looking deeper into attachment styles to learn about how you get close to others and where that behavior comes from (try Polysecure by Jessica Fern or Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller).
After taking inventory of each of the factors above, what stands out to you? Do you notice any patterns or themes emerging around trusting yourself and others?
A Systemic lens
Trauma is often tied to harmful systems in addition to individuals. Even if your trauma isn’t interpersonal, or you haven’t experienced anything you consider ‘traumatic,’ you’ve likely been harmed by systems and people in authority. For example, experiencing significant loss following a hurricane is not considered relational trauma. Yet we can easily connect the impact of natural disasters to systemic factors: the neighborhood you can afford to live in, how likely it is to flood, whether or not you own your home or have insurance, the state of your roof, whether your elected representatives recognize and are working to mitigate climate change, and so much more. Systemic harm undercuts our trust in others, because human beings are at the heart of the systems that hurt us most.
In addition, trauma perpetrated by one individual against another (ex: assault), can almost always be traced back to some form of systemic oppression (for the perpetrator, survivor, or both). People who experience vulnerability are wise to keep their hard-won suspicion close — it’s a survival skill!
The goal of this series is not to place the burden on individuals to heal the harms larger systems have perpetrated. Nor is the goal to ask them to suddenly trust systems that haven’t earned that trust. My goal in writing this is to empower individuals to recognize patterns occurring in themselves and be curious and gentle with themselves as they begin to build a sturdier sense of self they can trust in challenging situations that are bound to occur.
Healing Together
While the focus of most of this post is on the individual, bringing advocacy and community into your healing can be so empowering. You don’t have to do this work alone! Another common saying in trauma work is ‘we are not harmed in isolation, and we don’t heal in isolation’ (although you can make significant gains on your own if that is your choice!). Connecting with local advocacy groups, support groups, and nonprofits, participating in creating safety in your community, and contacting lawmakers to amplify your voice are just a few examples of ways collective action can help you heal and build self-trust.
Building better self trust
Stay tuned — this post got long fast, so I decided to break it into multiple parts. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts outlining:
Common covert thoughts that convey self-mistrust (even thoughts about others!)
Tangible steps you can take to build better self-trust
