Slowly and carefully. There's been so many posts about this kind of thing lately, which is funny because it's been something I've been thinking so much about (or maybe I just notice the posts more because I'm thinking about it?). Sorry, I'm high on coffee and this is probably going to be a monster post, so bear with me...

I think it takes a lot of time and effort and trial and error, which can be tiring, scary and painful. There are gonna be times where you feel tired and hopeless and like the world is too scary. Then you just have to lick your wounds and tell yourself to hold on and that eventually you will feel like trying again.

Learning to trust and build healthier relationships is a process, it takes work, and I don't think I will ever see the end of it (one thing that has been helpful for me is beginning to see that this is a normal part of life for everybody...that you can be imperfect and working on it and still be inherently loveable--and that, actually, everyone is--and that other people can be imperfect and disappointing without it being life-threatening).

I think that it's more of a life journey or a process than a destination (that's been helpful for me...letting go of the idea that I'm some kind of fixer-upper project and that I need to wait on getting on with my life/career/romances until I'm some ideal of "healthy" and "normal" has actually made me a lot healthier and more normal).

Part of the problem with abuse is that it warps your ability to assess people for safety and trustworthiness and can make it hard for you to behave in ways that are self-protective and conducive to healthy relationships. Which just creates a big feedback loop where you have more and more experiences in your adult life that reinforce those beliefs about the goodness and safety of the world and other people.

It sounds like you tried therapy and maybe didn't find it that helpful? I am such a true believer but I really think that therapy has been so helpful and necessary to me in learning about trust. In Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman says over and over again that there's no healing without relationship (which is a fun paradox for people who have been hurt in relationship, and why it's really brave of survivors to stick it out in therapy or in relationships at all).

I have been really lucky to have found a great therapist (I say this now: there have been some times where I wanted to throw pillows at him) who understands interpersonal trauma and has stuck it out patiently and non-judgmentally while I shook, looked at the floor, ran out of his office, skipped appointments, refused perfectly good advice, made bad relationship decisions, told him I thought he was lying to me and generally been a help-rejecting pill. He has also supported me while I explored new behavior in relationships and branched out socially and done other things that further my healing process. It involved some risk-taking on my part just to show up and sit in his office sometimes, but on the whole it's been worth it and I'm glad I do it and I recommend people keep trying to find help that works.