Trusting Anyone After Child Abuse

This is tough one for me.  I've struggled with it all my life.  I trust animals completely and they completely trust me.  However, when it comes to humans, its a different story.

Trusting anyone after child abuse feels like asking a rock to turn into a stick.  It isn't easy no way you slice it or dice it or think about it.  I think it gets better with time, but I know I still feel like I have one eye turned around looking for monsters in potentially every human.

Trusting is difficult.  It requires that I become vulnerable with others and let them inside of my very guarded personal boundaries.  People love to act one way, but their actions and words don't always match.  Some are masters at disguise and some you can see through very easy.

Child Abuse Makes You Less Trusting.

Child abuse makes you less trusting and accepting of others.  Child abuse leads you to believe other people are not as they appear.

For me, I think I'm always looking for ways people don't add up.  In my mind, I'm constantly checking to see if today is different than yesterday in what they say and do.  I'm looking for inconsistencies and awarding or taking points away on my mental checklist for others.  It is my way of trying to control my vulnerability.

Even for the people that I let in very close to me, I'm guarded.  I'm very guarded.  After all, the people close to me while growing up that I should have been able to trust, hurt me so badly.  They hurt me in many ways for most of my life.  It makes trusting anyone, even the good guys, a very difficult task.

To be touched by someone I am intimate with is like a moment where I cringe that they may hurt me.  My body longs for the touch, but it is still afraid of what was done to it.  I struggle with it to this day.  I've made considerable progress, but healthy touch becomes confusing to me.

I constantly feel like I have to watch what I say and do around everyone.  In my mind, if I don't do the right thing, they will abuse me like when I was a child or they will give me the silent treatment.  They will not want anything to do with me.   Yet, I know that is not true with those close to me, but my mind doesn't believe.  My mind knows what it experiences and it struggles to reconcile that with moments of today.

Trusting anyone after child abuse is not easy.  In some ways, this is probably good, but at times it gets in the way of the good side of life.  It crowds out the good guys.  It is probably one of the main reasons I went into massage school because I had to learn how to allow others to touch me.  It was not an easy thing to do.

The following blog post is one that I wrote about not feeling safe.  Click the following image to read "Never Felt Safe Growing Up".

(click here)

If you've been through child abuse, is it easy for you to trust others?  How have you learned to trust again?  Please feel free to reply through the comments below.  It would be great to hear from others on this topic.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Take The First Step

I found the following picture posted to Dr. Wayne Dyer's Facebook page and just had to share this.  The picture depicts this concept so well.  If you look closely, you will notice the words "You don't have to see the whole staircase - just take the first step".  How more perfectly could this thought be stated.

Taking the first step is the key to finding your way through anything in life.  When life gets difficult and it is hard to know where to turn, you just have to take a step.  Sometimes that first step is the hardest because we are not sure if it is the correct one, or what will be the outcome, but if we just take the step we will find out.  It will give us the opportunity to find out if it is the step we need to take or it will teach us something more than we currently know.

Don't worry about identifying everything about the step so that you will be certain if it is the right one or not.  Trust your heart, your intuition and your body to help guide you.  Once you feel it in you, then take the step.  Don't delay!  Don't wait for another moment to come along urging you to take the step.  Just take the first step.

Trust That Which You Know

An inspirational thought for your day

Trust That Which You Know

Trust that which already is unfolding for you. Trust that which you already know in your heart and your mind. The impressions, visions, thoughts, feelings, emotions are already in your possession and your consciousness.







Blog Post & Images (c) 3/17/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com

Step Of Trust Into Faith

Life has its synchronized moments where everything comes together at the right time, in the right place, and with the right people. When something that has been virtually impossible unfolds in a manner of seconds without any effort, this is a direct reminder of synchronicity.

For the past year or more, I have been trying to make something happen that I feel called to do. it seemed like every door had not just been shut in my face but slammed shut. Nothing was working and my income was not there. I felt pressured by people in my professional life when things were not happening. Most of all, I was just existing in life, not only financially but in life as a whole. I tried hard not to give up.

Finally after my moment of screaming out that I could not take this anymore, I vowed to the universe that no matter what my fears were, I would take a step of trust into faith that my path would illuminate before me. I knew that would be difficult for me but I also knew that if I was on the journey that I thought I was, all things would be there for me when I needed them.

This moment led to new things in my life and further self discovery. I took steps to learn something I was not normally open to previously. Through that learning moment, several new possibilities are unfolding. There was no way I could have seen or touched these possibilities.

And then, last night, the one thing I had give up on finally worked out in a matter of seconds. Of course, it is coming together in a different way than I imagined but again I will take a step of trust into faith that all things will work out as planned. For all we can do is show up, offer our evolving self and let the unknowns of the universe bring it all together.



Blog Post & Images (c) 2/28/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
http://www.donshetterly.com