Why is it Hard For Me To Trust Others as a Survivor of Trauma?

Epistemic Trust

• Epistemic trust describes the willingness to accept new information from another person as trustworthy, generalizable, and relevant.

• It has been recently proposed that a pervasive failure to establish epistemic trust may underpin personality disorders.

• From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7451362/#:~:text=Epistemic%20trust%20(ET)%20describes%20the,trust%20may%20underpin%20personality%20disorders.

Trust & Mistrust

• The following information is from Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and the trust issues modules/worksheets. More information here.

• If you had prior experiences where you were blamed for negative events, you may develop negative beliefs about your ability to make decisions or judgments about situations or people, ultimately making you question yourself. The traumatic event(s) serves to confirm these beliefs.

• Developing trust is an important part of self-concept and serves as a way to protect ourselves.

Examples include:

• Believing you cannot trust or rely on your own perceptions or judgments

  • Believing you cannot trust or rely on others

  • Believing your feelings and thoughts do not matter and questioning your own experiences

• Believing others are out to get you/want something from you/want to take advantage of you

• Believing there is an ulterior or sinister motive from others who are nice, kind, and trustworthy

• People pleasing/fawning and asking others for their decisions/choices/options before considering your own

• And more

Common statements when someone is still stuck from traumatic experiences:

1. “I can’t make good decisions, so I let others make decisions for me”

2. “Because I am a poor judge of character, I can’t tell who can be trusted”

3. “If I make choices, then they never work out”

4. “I cannot trust my own judgement”

5. “I have bad judgement”

6. “I have perfect judgement, and I never make bad decisions”

7. “No one can be trusted”

8. “If I trust someone, they will hurt me”

9. “If I get close to someone, they will leave me”

10. “People with power or in authority will take advantage of you”

Common statements when traumatic experiences are processed and actively worked on:

1. “I can still trust my judgement even though it’s not perfect”

2. “Even if I misjudged this person or situation, I realize that I cannot always realistically predict what others will do or how a situation may turn out”

3. “No one has perfect judgement. I did the best I could in an unpredictable situation, and I can still trust my ability to make decisions even though it is not perfect”

4. “My bad decision did not cause the event to happen”

5. “I can trust some people”

6. “Although I find some people to be untrustworthy in some ways,

1. Trust Star worksheet: https://cpt2.musc.edu/resourcefiles/sample%20trust%20star%20-%20christine.pdf

Mistrust

• Difficulty trusting your partner

  • Mind reading

  • Assuming

  • Projection of your own thoughts/feelings onto your partner

  • Blaming and shaming

  • Sabotaging

  • And more

• Difficulty trusting yourself

  • Feeling torn

  • Feeling confused

  • Uncertainty around making decisions

  • People pleasing and fawning

  • Thinking of other people before yourself

  • Forfeiting your own needs

  • Seeking consistent external validation at the expense of validating yoruself

  • Sabotaging yourself

  • And more

Examples of how mistrust can show up in romantic relationships

• Mind reading and assuming

• Projection

• Issues with assertive boundaries

• Issues with healthy communication

• Anxious attachment

• Anxiety

• Panic and worry

• Fear of rejection

• Fear of abandonment

• And more

Common statements

• I feel like my partner is going to cheat on me

• I have this sense you’re going to break up with me

• Why are you with me?

• Are you angry at me? I feel like you’re angry at me

• And more

What Can I Do To Rebuild Trust?

• Learn who and what caused you to be mistrustful

  • What made it necessary for you to mistrust others and/or yourself?

  • How old were you when this happened?

  • Was this a one time event or multiple events?

  • What’s the worry/fear/concern if you did trust more people?

  • What’s the worry/fear/concern if you trusted yourself more?

• Define trust

  • How do you define trust?

  • Who is a trustworthy person?

  • What does a trustworthy person look like? Sound like?

  • What does a trustworthy person do? Or not do?

  • What does a trustworthy person say? Or not say?

• Redefine trust

  • What are some new definitions of trust that are more realistic based on the current moment and time in the present day?

  • How do you want to trust? Do you want to trust more? Why or why not?