((muffy)))) ty for taking time to add your thoughts, i know you are not feeling well right now and you still take time to come and care for us... sending ((hugs))))

The one thing that stuck out here to me is trust.

this got me thinking about trust.. what we trust, who we trust, how trust is eroded, how trust is built, and how important trust truly is to each of us, in our cyber or real life community.... i'll try to keep it short this time lol...

for me, i spent a long time (after the abuse) trying to recapture that feeling of trust and safety, thought maybe it was me and if i could just learn the thing i needed to learn from my abuser then the abuse would stop and like magically the abuser and i would make friends and all would be well with the world again, only it didnt happen that way..

it took some time for me to understand that my abuser had much deeper issues than i could hope to help on my own, that he/she would not soon overcome his/her own misunderstandings, and that at that point in time and under those circumstances, i was not equipped to manage the situation...

stepping back from those relationships i was able to give myself some room to reason, question and examine the dynamics involved.. that one of my abusers was also a member of my family did not make it any easier to step back physically and so i withdrew emotionally....

even while i tried to heal, i still experienced flashbacks of the original abuse that kept me spiralling back to the same original feelings, making it very difficult to build new and healthier relationships, to rebuild trust, and in a lot of ways i found myself re-creating those original circumstances without realizing that i was doing it... i think a lot of you will know where im coming from on this..

looking back now i think one mistake i made early on was in trying to re-build trust by turning to others for help, someone who would fill the gaps, fix the pain.... not to say there are not such caring people around, but finding them in the big pool of people that is a community is really a challenge, and for me, i didnt really trust the sincerity of T's at that time...

i think now i understand this issue of trust a little differently... considering that finding trust-able people is so hard, i might have done myself more good by trusting trust-able ideas first...

for example... i can trust that a stove flame is hot and it will burn me... i can trust that if i stick my tongue on a frozen light pole, my tongue will stick to it and i will be in a lot of pain.... i can trust that exercise is good for my health and when i think about it, i can trust a long list of things that have been researched and proven to improve health and a long list of things exists that will not improve my health... these ideas of health/non health are not related to putting my feelings of safety and security into the hands of other people, who i cannot really trust because we are all human, with ups, downs and sideways moods.... and thats ok, life is a process....

trusting what i believe is good and healthy is one way that i discover for myself how to live longer, laugh more, get more enjoyment out of living...

other people might be attracted to the same things as i am and over time, trust with individuals builds... its seed is in sharing common healthy beliefs and the trick here is in overcoming our fears... why should we fear something we believe is good and healthy such as eating whole grains and oats for example.. we can do ourselves the most good by choosing our own good health first, good, healthy friends will follow because dont we all want to live long and healthy lives?

healthy beliefs are stronger than our unhealthy fears...