lizardlady, you raised good issues.

Right now, for me, I'm thinking of it as an opportunity to learn to listen to and trust my Inner Teacher more, with the company of other well-meaning people in a safe and inviting environment. Also as a way to encourage others to trust their own inner teacher if that's something they want to do.

I can state my view of trust in this situation using negatives -- I don't "not trust" anyone here. Everyone has been very nice and supportive. If someone inadvertently said something I took the wrong way, I feel it would be easy to let it go. That would be something I'd want to work on if it bothered me. If someone was in a grumpy mood and said some critical things because they felt annoyed, I think it would be easy to let that go, too. If it bothered me a lot, I'd work on that within myself.

I like the various participants. I feel no distrust. Will levels of trust increase? No idea. For me, feeling no active distrust of any of the participants or the environment here feels like a good place to start.

I'm probably a little bit like you, lizardlady. I would not describe myself as a trusting person. But I don't expect anyone here to act out, act mean, steal my account information, attack me, etc etc. If anything like that did happen, I'd deal with it at the time. But so far, in my time at Psych Central, people have behaved well most of the time and those few times when people did get upset ... well, they were upset. That's something I can forgive as long as people settle back down again. If it bothers me a lot, that's something for me to work on within myself.

The Principle and Practices of the Circles of Trust provide a structure that reinforces and amplifies the guidelines of Psych Central as a place to offer support and information to people with mental health concerns. I see it as very compatible. Because we all come here with various levels of emotional intensity or symptoms or home environments we may all have moments when fail to live up to the Principles and Practices. We're all human. So far I'm feeling no distrust. So I feel okay about it.