Learning to feel trust

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about trust lately. It is only recently that I have been able to admit to myself that I have a hard time trusting people, and that I particularly don't trust women or women who are in positions of power over me. I think the reason it took me so long to realize I don't trust people is because I feel a disconnect between my intellectual understanding of trust and the actual feeling of trusting someone. I learned not to trust BPDm at a young age, and then her abuse caused me not to have any trust in myself, so what does trust even feel like? I have friends in my life today whom I think I trust. I think I trust my significant other. But I don't feel the trust. My body is always just a little bit tense around everyone, always just a little bit vigilant. I have found calm and some measure of peace in the home I share with my significant other, but I still can't reconcile that calm and peace with Trust. So I'm wondering, what does trusting someone feel like for you guys? Does it register in your body as any particular sensation? Does it come out in your tone of voice, your gestures, your touch?

[gentlestguardian]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about trust lately. It is only recently that I have been able to admit to myself that I have a hard time trusting people, and that I particularly don't trust women or women who are in positions of power over me. I think the reason it took me so long to realize I don't trust people is because I feel a disconnect between my intellectual understanding of trust and the actual feeling of trusting someone. I learned not to trust BPDm at a young age, and then her abuse caused me not to have any trust in myself, so what does trust even feel like? I have friends in my life today whom I think I trust. I think I trust my significant other. But I don't feel the trust. My body is always just a little bit tense around everyone, always just a little bit vigilant. I have found calm and some measure of peace in the home I share with my significant other, but I still can't reconcile that calm and peace with Trust. So I'm wondering, what does trusting someone feel like for you guys? Does it register in your body as any particular sensation? Does it come out in your tone of voice, your gestures, your touch?

[aubin]

This is a difficult question. I struggle with issues of trust similar to yours.

My body is always just a little bit tense around everyone, always just a little bit vigilant.

Yep. This is me, exactly. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that it's possible to be completely relaxed around people all the time. I experience it sometimes but not consistently, though I experience it much more than I used to.

I notice that when I am feeling more trust, that I also feel more confident -- not necessarily in control, but less caring about control. I feel a certain ease with myself and with others. My voice is fuller and deeper when I'm relaxed -- this characteristic my T and a couple of friends have pointed out to me. And I think that relaxed state is a trusting state for me.

[russian]

I too, find it hard to trust people on an intimate emotional level, I had no problem in Army or Fire brigade, but can never trust completely on those inner emotions. Find it hard to trust women having a BPD mother but wonderful deceased father. I have a fantastic understanding wife and trust her but not 100%   

[Trollvaaken]

I really can't say trust is something I don't understand. Or maybe it is? My mum always told me to never have kids and to never trust a man, which resulted in me being disgusted by my female body (only slowly starting to reconcile with it) and also I was sexist towards heterosexual men for a really long time because I thought that they wanted all the power in a relationship. I am not longer sexist towards men though thanks to a patient boyfriend and realising that people are individuals first and foremost.