How do you learn to trust if you've never really trusted anyone (who didn't later completely betray that trust). Or if you grew up with the message "everyone wants to hurt you...trust no one." Or if every time you let down your guard just a little bit you get blasted. Or if every time you try to express your opinion or feelings you get ignored or treated like you're stupid/overreacting etc....I haven't been given any evidence to really trust people and so very very few people have any remote idea who I really am. My only outward appearance of identity comes from being a musician/performer. That's the only way I'm perceived by most people...kind of like an object without feelings because my feelings are apparently stupid to other people. Or they don't make sense. Or they're too extreme.

I don't mind having a different persona as a musician, but I want to be a real person too. Although, I think it's too late.

A couple of examples of my mistrust (they're both men, but I don't really trust either gender...I just have a worse track record with men. In other words, I'm not trying to be sexist):

One: I was starting to hang out with this guy...we weren't dating and I don't know if he was interested in that or not, but I mentioned my physical problems to him one day and how weak I feel and how much pain I'm in sometimes and even though he gave no indication of anything except understanding, I became terrified that he would use this knowledge to know I was practically defenseless and he would take advantage of me. I'm afraid to be around him now...or at least really really cautious.

Two: I was at a big block party (I guess you could call it that) this summer and I didn't have pockets, so I had my wallet in the waistband of my skirt. It felt really secure there, but I realize that this was stupid on my part. Anyway, there was a band performing on one of the streets and I was dancing with this random guy. Later on I realized that my wallet was missing and all I could think was HE stole my wallet. But what really happened was that I just dropped it and it was found and returned to me by the police that were there for security (this was a very very big block party), so everything worked out...but what does it say about a person if they're first thought was "HE stole it! That's why he was dancing with me...to steal my wallet!"