How do I trust people coming from a background of abuse?

Last updated on: February 10, 2010 at 11:00 am by Natasha Helfer

How do I trust people coming from a background of abuse? 2010-02-10T11:00:00-05:00 Natasha Helfer

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Before I came to college, I moved 18 times in 17 years, and I’ve been physically/mentally/emotionally by my biological father and physically/sexually by my first step-father. I think that putting all of that together is making it hard for me to not be paranoid about the friends I’ve made at college, and it makes it really hard for me to trust people. I love them like sisters, and they rarely hurt me (and when they do, it is minor), but for some reason I feel so insecure and I know there’s no reason to. I feel like whenever I’m around, they must be thinking of how horrible I am and whenever I’m not around, they talk bad about me, and I feel like at any point they’ll betray me somehow or leave…it’s all unreasonable too. I’ve made some real, top-quality friends who I know would never hurt me on purpose, but I just don’t know how to trust people. I’m an LDS member looking for an LDS solution to something I have no idea how to fix. Thanks. B.

You certainly describe a lot of loss, instability and heartache in your growing up years. For this I am truly sorry. You did not deserve any of this. You are not alone in your story. There are many women, even LDS women, who share similar backgrounds. The repercussions from the type of abuse you describe can be felt throughout a lifetime.

It is perfectly normal for you to have built up the coping skills you describe. You learned early on that you needed to protect yourself from emotional pain and unstable, harmful relationships. Your sense of safety was compromised. Your developmental and emotional needs were not appropriately met. As a result, you have these underlying themes of caution, self-protection, and distrust at the foundation of how you approach the world. We develop coping mechanisms as a means to protect ourselves at the time of trauma. Although they work in the short term, they usually do not in the long term. As you describe, you are now “protecting” yourself from healthy relationships that you want to enjoy versus build a wall around.

It is also normal for you to be noticing these issues on a more regular basis at this time of your life. Developmentally speaking, the “leaving the nest” stage (usually late teens to early twenties) is a normal time for symptoms of our childhood to emerge. Going out on our own is stressful enough without the added complications of having to deal with unresolved childhood issues- and yet it is important to do so.

Research on attachment shows quite dramatically that the safety, connection and stability we receive in just the first three years of life can go on to affect the rest of our lives. Our brains become wired to expect certain outcomes due to previous ones. However, do not be discouraged by this knowledge. Your brain is an innovative and marvelous piece of equipment. Its capacity to reframe and learn new information is unparalleled. By understanding why you have the struggles you do and by doing cognitive/behavioral therapy work, you will be able to go from reacting to the world from a self-destructive stance to one where you can approach it with healthy patterns that allow you to have the types of experiences and relationships you want.

I highly recommend for you to seek out therapy with someone who is comfortable with a cognitive/behavioral approach. Seeing as how you are a student, you should be able to find low to no cost services within this setting. If you lack funds or financial support from your family, please approach your bishop to help you with this. Addressing these issues at this time of your life will have long-lasting effects on your immediate and long-term future (from friendships you’re able to develop to the type of person you might choose to marry, your own parenting skills, etc.).

The common denominator in your experiences with two abusive men is your mother. This means that your primary female role model failed in teaching you about healthy relationships and appropriate boundaries. This has nothing to do with whether or not your mother loves you or wants good things for you – she just, for whatever personal reasons of her own, was unable to resolve these issues in her own life. Therefore, you are at a statistical disadvantage in your learning curve. Even though you don’t like what you saw growing up, it’s what you know and it’s what you’re used to. The danger then is that you repeat the relational dynamics by being attracted to and eventually marrying a man who is abusive as well. Self-awareness and the type of therapy I mention above will help you become comfortable with other, healthier possibilities. You will also find therapy useful to you at different developmental stages of your life: now as a single adult, as you prepare for marriage, during the first years of marriage, as you have children, as children hit adolescence or leave the home, etc. Each of these stages will hit trigger spots for you that you are not able to anticipate at this time. So, I encourage you to look at therapy as a tool you use for prevention management rather than only in moments of crisis. This doesn’t mean you have to be in therapy every week for the rest of your life. Start out with weekly sessions and as you and your therapist see fit, move to once every 2 weeks, then once a month. You may take a break for several months or years. You should discuss with your therapist clues or “red flags” to look for so that when you notice them, you can start back up again without further ado.

I am so impressed that you reached out for help on this venue and I hope this is just the beginning of you prioritizing yourself and getting the help you need. Many women who have a history of sexual, physical and emotional abuse go on to have fulfilling and wonderful lives full of love, hope, friendship and overall health. They make the paramount and powerful move from victim to survivor. This is my wish for you and I have full confidence in your ability to seek this out for yourself. You have the powers of heaven behind you. I know your Father in Heaven is present and ever aware of you. I know He did not want these things to have happened to you. That is His ongoing pain – the price of giving His children agency knowing full well that many of His innocents will be at the mercy of agency used awry. If you feel betrayed or angry with Him because of this, He understands. His goal is your wholeness and happiness. May you join Him in that venture. Good luck and feel free to write in again at any time.

A book you might find useful is The Courage to Heal by Laura Davis. There is also a workbook that complements it well.

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