Ok, i have been working on trust for a long time now. It was a surprise to me that i have as much trouble as i do and that i wasn't able to just out-think the mistrust. What trust IS has escaped me. i dont know what it is i am trying to build exactly.

how do you define trust?

is it believing what he says? Does trust with a T simply equate to believing him?

[tulips30]

I'm right there with you Fluf. Having the same feelings and asking the same questions. If you figure this out, I'd love to hear it.

tulips

[ECHOES]

Good question.

I don't know the answer.

I've been with T since February and we still talk about it because I still have such a hard time with it.

I don't know if I can define it. It's a feeling, for me; it can be there one session and then it dissipates. I am working on seeing what happens when it dissipates, what that process is for me. I think I don't trust.. trust.

[Kiya]

those are good questions. i never did trust my other t's. i think that right now i am in with the new one - i am not in a position where ....
what am i saying....
um.. i don't need it? or maybe it depends on what kind of trust you want. like trust them to not hurt you. trust them to tell you the truth, trust them to guide you.
my current t tells me often that she has no needs of me. There is nothing i need to do or fulfill or become... she's here to mirror me and help me find what i want. so i don't need to trust her in those ways - it leaves it open. she's not going to hurt me. and i don't need her to guide me. so maybe i don't need to trust her ....
this is complicated.
i don't know if i "trusted her more" if i would divulge more of my life to her? the neat thing about her is that she looks at my *life* as a puzzle or riddle... not *me* as a puzzle. so some of the strain is removed for me to be the "perfect therapy patient/client" or other mind construents i may come up with. It is a very different relationship with her than i have had with other t's. i am not attached to her.

[wanttoheal]

My T has said that trust is something that comes with time and consistency. When someone does something consistently, then we know that that person will do that, or not do that, as the case may be. That is a form of trust.

I used to be afraid every time I went to therapy that my T was going to haul off and smack me every time I walked in the door. Over time, I discovered that she would never raise a hand to me. Now I can walk into her office with more confidence and I trust that she won't do that to me. I do now believe she won't hit me because she's shown me that she won't through time.

Because of that trust, I am now learning what safe means.

(I don't know if I got it exactly right for the word, but that's what I got out of it.)

Good luck as you figure things out. It's a hard concept when a person's trust has been violated over and over. I hope you are able to find the answers with your T.

[MissCharlotte]

Hmmmm

To me, trusting T means being able to share my innermost feelings and thoughts with him without fear of reprisal. It means that I can just be in his presence. It means that I know he will not hurt me. It means that I can listen to his thoughts and ideas without dismissing them forthright just because I didn't generate them myself. It means I respect his boundaries and he respects mine and that I can allow him to just be as well. Oh, the list goes on and on.

Can I do all these things? Not consistently. The meaning of trust for me is an ever-changing definition and a work-in-progress. It's not static.

[Perna]

Trust is what I am able to do when I'm with another rather than what that other person says or does. If I can take risks, be more myself than I normally would be, then I do so because I trust the other person to accept who I am and "help" me be more myself. It's knowing there is someone "with" you to confront your scary places, there's someone there in an emotional way with the cool, wet washcloth to wipe your face and the wastebasket when you're throwing up :-) Trust is your "second" in the duel with yourself, someone who holds your valuable stuff for you while you get down and dirty.

I remember the very first time I realized that I trusted T. I was going through a phase in which I was constantly getting angry at him. He told me that if I wanted to I could call him voicemail and say, "Look-- I don't want you to listen to this, but I have to get some stuff out ot my system--" and then I could totally curse him out. He promised he wouldn't listen to it. He said we could do whatever I wanted-- he would delete it, we could listen to it together in session, whatever. And all of a sudden it occurred to me that I really trusted that he wouldn't listen to the message if I told him not to.

I am not going to pretend that I trust he won't ever leave me. That just goes along with my abandonment stuff. But I believe that's a separate issue.

As a person, as a T, I trust him.

hmmm... is there a difference between belief and trust?

i believe my T when he says he will do A or B. i believe him about a lot of things.. i dunno...

see, i believe he won't run screaming from the room, or my fav, that he hasn't bitten me yet. i believe those... but i don't seem to feel them all the time. i still feel like he may respond to me in a way which might hurt terribly, so i hold back. So i believe he would never laugh at me or criticize me... but i don't know that i'll get what i do need... so where does that put trust?

i want to trust him... but i worry a lot about whether he can do what i feel i need, because of his own beliefs and approach. This is the next big hurdle for us i think. we are talking about it in a vague way... i haven't been able to tell him exactly because i am afraid he'll tell me i need a different sort of T.

[Kiya]

maybe that puts the trust on you. i think (from reading all these) that that is true for me to. I trust now that she is stable and consistant (which i love about her because none of my others have been) and i trust her thought processes and the results they come up with.

but i don't trust myself to tell her my life. that it is too dirty, too inhumane, too embarrassing to say everything about me. i can't still know her if she knows all that about me. her knowing it would make me un-good. if i can keep the charade going long enough maybe i can "pass" for "healed" without having my make myself real in what happened and how it has left me.

[sunrise]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
MzJelloFluff said:
how do you define trust? is it believing what he says? Does trust with a T simply equate to believing him?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
For me, believing my T comes after trust has been established. It is an effect of trust, not what makes up trust. Trust to me is being able to share my innermost self with my T. I give him my trust when I share. He shows he is worthy of my trust by how he accepts me and what I share, even things that I have never told anyone, that are embarrassing and shameful to me, deeply painful, and soul wrenching. When he reacts with acceptance and caring and understanding, I know that between us there is trust.

Because of this deep trust that we have established, I really sit up and take notice when he tells me something, even if it is not what I want to hear. Because of our trust, I believe him. I know he has years of experience working with clients and their problems, has only my best interests at heart, and would never lie to me or lead me astray. But I also know he is human, not always 100% attuned to me, not infallible, but yet very open to my telling him when he is not "right on the money." But his intentions are always good and borne of a desire to heal and help.

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i haven't been able to tell him exactly because i am afraid he'll tell me i need a different sort of T

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">It sounds like you are starting to talk about this with him, and it will only help. It will be good to get clarity on what he can provide. No person is perfect and this extends to therapists. While one therapist may have many of the qualities you want, if he doesn't have one or two, is it enough to seek another T? Can you make the most of the relationship with this T and use it for all it is worth and get almost all of your needs met? Or is your relationship and this T lacking a truly critical piece that you cannot continue without?

[dinosaurs]

I think I would define trust as feeling safe in your vulnerability with your t. This then encompases a whole range of things, like believing things he says, believing he has your best interests in mind, feeling safe enough to share things, etc. But I think it really boils down to feeling safe being vulnerable.

[pachyderm]

I DON'T trust my therapist. He does things that remind me of my mother. Then I have to work very hard to figure out whether he is my mother or not.

What kinds of "things" does my therapist do that remind me of my mother? Well, he tries to manage his own anxieties (as I see it) by doing things such as contra-dicting me -- and (again as I see it) he does these things without knowing that he is doing them. For instance, I think I must be almost continually broadcasting anxiety or near-panic. When I say something anxiety-filled, he almost always immediately says something to contra-dict what I have just said. If I say that it scares me sometimes to come on Psych Central, he will immediately try to tell me that my fears are irrational. I already know that! After he tells me, I am still as afraid as I was before. I perceive that he has not heard me, but instead has tried to repudiate what I just said, I presume in order to relieve his OWN anxiety. He tells me that he is arranging his behavior to show that he is a safe person. That actually makes me MORE afraid. He does not want to let ME discover for MYSELF that he is safe; he wants to MAKE me believe it. He wants to STOP me expressing anxiety. He does not do things that let ME decide that I don't NEED to feel anxious.

My mother used to tell us things were OK too. They were not. Her saying so was often a prelude to (another) immediate attack. Do you remember Mao's "Let a thousand flowers bloom"? What happened to the flowers that took him at his word and started to bloom? They got their heads cut off.

Of course, my mother had a different means of discharging her anxiety than my therapist. She would often assault us verbally or physically, usually both. At other times she would just contradict anything we tried to tell her, as though anything we said that wasn't what she wanted us to say was a massive threat to her. Although my therapist has not hit me (yet), and probably won't, I am still reacting to his attempts (as I now see them) to control his own anxieties by contra-dicting me when I say something "wrong." And I get confused and frightened: is he going to do the same thing to me as my mother did?

And if my therapist is NOT going to hit me, is he reliable enough as a help if he does things that he does not see? What if I panic (and I certainly can do that) and he does not know enough to know how to handle that? What kind of danger can I get into when I panic and he panics?

So what should I do? Try to find another therapist who is more aware of what she is doing than my therapist is of what he is doing? Are such therapists easy to find? Is it even possible to find one? My evaluation is that there are very, very few people who really are aware of why they do things the way they do. Especially when they are confronted with anxiety-broadcasting people like me.

Should I try to tell my present therapist that he is doing something that he doesn't realize, and that it massively disturbs me -- so much so that it takes me days sometimes to recover from it? What will happen if I tell him? Will he just deny it? I know my mother could never stand any contra-diction or advice from any of us children. It would drive her into an immediate rage. Most people have a hard time receiving criticism of any kind, since in our society it is seen as, and often is, an attack.

Is there any way for me to make use of my present therapy situation even if I DON'T trust my therapist? Can I learn enough from it to make advances without totally freaking out in the process? For now it is a mighty close thing.

The person I am most coming to trust most these days is MYSELF. Or rather, my instincts, perceptions of reality, the insights I find myself developing. But I also realize I am NOT a very trustworthy source, either.

[sunrise]

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pachyderm said:
If I say that it scares me sometimes to come on Psych Central, he will immediately try to tell me that my fears are irrational. I already know that!

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Wow, that is so totally not helpful! Do you ever point out your perception of what he is doing? I would find it hard to trust someone who encouraged me to share but then rejected what I said to him.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Should I try to tell my present therapist that he is doing something that he doesn't realize, and that it massively disturbs me -- so much so that it takes me days sometimes to recover from it? What will happen if I tell him? Will he just deny it?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Yes, you should tell him. You can use the concrete example above, of how he rejects your fears when you try to share. He cannot deny that it happens, when you use specific examples. My T says it helps him to help me better when I tell him what is not working in our therapy. He is not defensive or critical. I think, on the whole, T's like to get feedback from their clients so they can do a better job. Maybe your T will react better than you fear? I think it's worth a try!

[pachyderm]

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sunrise said:Yes, you should tell him. You can use the concrete example above, of how he rejects your fears when you try to share. He cannot deny that it happens, when you use specific examples. My T says it helps him to help me better when I tell him what is not working in our therapy. He is not defensive or critical. I think, on the whole, T's like to get feedback from their clients so they can do a better job. Maybe your T will react better than you fear? I think it's worth a try!

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Thanks, sunrise, for replying. You seem to be the only one who read my post. Or maybe people read it but did not want to reply. Where are all the Wise Ones who always have something to say, to tell you what to do, without really understanding the stakes?

Sorry for the tone of this post. I am really feeling frightened this morning. I wonder if ANYONE really wants to know what happened to me.

I have recently read a couple of books which illustrate what happens to people who have terrible experiences and then no one wants to hear them and everyone (it seems) denies the reality of their experiences. Namely, "Soul Murder" by Morton Schatzman, and "Female Sexual Abuse of Children" edited by Michelle Elliott. No one should read these books who needs desperately to believe in "authority."

for me.... first there is a "wanting to trust".... trusting.. "trust"...

and I set my T's up... all of them.. each and everyone of them... and see if they lie... yepper... is easy.. very easy to do this... BUT you must be ready to deal with the consequences of finding out if they indeed do lie... and I think most people... really aren't ready to find that out for sure...

also... my T... comes from a background.. where he understands.. the extreme importance of not lying.. of trust..

he expects the same from me... he needs to be able to trust me... he places high importantance on this... ie... my alters.. if they promise not to hurt themselves... they must mean it.....

i did that too... test T.. i "read" people's feelings so very well through minute body language, so subtle i barely realize how it is i'm reading them... but i generally know what someone is feeling.. so i ask him. He has not lied even when he was frustrated with me. i test him a lot of ways, sometimes i dont mean too.