Trust, relationships, & complex trauma
When living with complex trauma, trust, be that of Self, others, the universe, is a delicate and tenuous thing. When we grew up in households where our primary caregivers are abusive, neglectful, or both, we learn from a very young age that others cannot be trusted, and especially not the people we love and who say they love us. Our neural pathways grow knowing we can only rely on ourselves. Our nervous systems develop to only know hyper-vigilence.
As we become adults, the hyper-vigilence and distrust remains, but it doesn’t only apply to other people. We distrust ourselves. We distrust our body, our mind, our emotions. We distrust the world (often rightly so) and the Universe. We are anxious, depressed, constantly second guessing ourselves. Our hyper-vigilence has us seeking information, absolutes, signs, perpetually, and no matter how much information we gather, we still doubt, distrust.
This plays out in our adult relationships. Generally speaking, the more connected and emotionally intimate we become with a person, the more we doubt how they feel for us. Our brains and bodies learned at too young an age that people we are bonded to can’t be trusted, their feelings, moods, words, even actions, can’t be trusted. Sometimes as adults we seek validation from those we are close with, and sometimes we don’t. And even when we do ask a person to confirm their feelings for us, we are unlikely to believe them.
Trauma wreaks havoc in our relationships.
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