Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life, Jason Goodwin [ink book reader .txt] 📗

tell us the truth. Trust is adifficult issue for survivors of sexual abuse because weexperienced the worst kind of betrayal.

First we must learn to trust ourselves. Wemust become men and women of our word.

Being trustworthy is a question of integrity.It feels good when we speak the truth. It feels good when we honorour commitments. We can be proud of ourselves and avoid anyfeelings of shame and guilt. Our honesty can become a powerfulsource of self-esteem. Even if we don’t have much in this world, wecan still have our word.

We must avoid making promises we can’t keep.It’s important to be aware of our personal limitations, ourproblems, and how much we can realistically do for others.Misunderstandings occur when we over-commit, promise more than wecan deliver on, or undertake more than we can accomplish.

We must treat others in the way we want to betreated. Others will learn over time that we can be trusted,because we do what we say.

Trust usually becomes an issue when we arefeeling vulnerable. Sometimes we feel vulnerable as children orwhen we’re in a relationship. We feel vulnerable when we aredependent on another person for our welfare.

In choosing whether or not to trust someone,we need to ask ourselves, “What is it that I am trusting them todo? What is it I am trusting them not to do?” Trusting someonemeans depending on that person to act in our best interests.

Trustworthy people have our welfare in mind.They want us to be safe, happy, and healthy.

We can only trust when we feel safe aboutbeing vulnerable. But how can we ever truly know who will be worthyof our trust? Can people produce documents that attest to theirhonesty? Is there some way we can screen out the untrustworthypeople in this world to avoid getting hurt?

Everyone wants our trust. Honest people wantit because they deserve it. Dishonest people want it so they canmanipulate us. How can we tell the difference?

The answer is we have to get to know themfirst. We have to watch them carefully and observe how they treatothers.

So how long should we observe a potentialfriend or lover before giving them our trust? A month? Two months?A year? Two years? Everyone is different. How can we be sure? Whatif they’re just good at concealing their motives?

Many of us react to the betrayal of sexualabuse by going to extremes. We trust everyone or we trust no one.We stop seeing people as unique individuals, and start believingthat they’re all the same.

“Those lousy women, they’re all lying,cheating backstabbers!” Or, “Men are pigs, and the world is theirtrough!”

We see people in black and white. They’re allgood or they’re all bad. We conclude that, “I have to trusteveryone in order to get my needs met,” or “I can’t trust anyonebecause they’re all out to get me.” We take an unmeasured,irrational approach to the issue.

Our beliefs about trust are often a productof our experiences. Is it any wonder that we, as survivors ofsexual abuse, are afraid that people will turn out to beuntrustworthy? We’ve experienced the worst humans are capable of.We’ve seen the lies and the hypocrisy.

But to give up on finding healthyrelationships with people of integrity is another form ofself-abuse. We deserve trustworthy people in our lives. We deserverelationships with strong foundations. We deserve to be treatedwith dignity and respect.

If we expect healthy relationships withtrustworthy people, we must first learn to be trustworthyourselves. We need to examine our own actions. Are we true to ourword? Do we make promises we can’t keep? What is our own recordwhen it comes to this question of trust?

Some survivors of sexual abuse strive to findthe perfect partner or friend who will be completely trustworthyall of the time. We feel insecure. We don’t ever want to be hurtagain. We don’t ever want to be lied to again. We wantrelationships that are completely safe. Relationships with peoplewho are completely trustworthy, when in fact, no such personexists.

While it may be impossible to find friends orlovers who are completely trustworthy, it is possible to findfriends and lovers who are mostly trustworthy. Everyone makemistakes. It is possible to forgive. It’s possible to allow foranother person’s faults and a certain degree of imperfection.

So where do we draw the line? I believe thatinfidelity is unacceptable. Physical, verbal, emotional, and sexualabuse is unacceptable. When people deceive us about the mostimportant things in life, their behavior is unacceptable.

Each person must determine where his/her ownboundaries lie. Trust is not a black and white issue. It is a shadeof gray. As survivors of sexual abuse, we don’t want to hear this.We want to feel completely safe, secure, and in control. We want tofind that perfect person who will make us feel safe, secure, and incontrol. But absolute safety and security are not to be found onplanet Earth, and the more we accept that fact, the more capable webecome of facing life’s challenges.

Deciding whether or not we will trust anotherperson is often a struggle between wanting to have our needs metand wanting to feel safe. It is critical that we find a healthybalance between these two competing needs.

At one extreme, we err on the side ofcaution, never taking a risk and never trusting anyone. When wemake this mistake, we can end up feeling isolated and alone. Weshut down and give in to our fear of betrayal. We give up on ourneed for love in an effort to feel safe.

At the other extreme, we err on the side ofrisk, trusting people we barely know, falling in love with peoplewe just met, and getting hurt over and over again. We give ourtrust too quickly. We ignore our safety in an effort to get thelove we need.

As I look back on my life, I realize that Ihave swung from one extreme to the other, never finding the middle.I threw myself into relationships too quickly and over-committedtoo rapidly. I trusted women within the first few months of arelationship, only to be rejected and betrayed. Then I would swingin the opposite direction, shut down completely, avoidrelationships altogether, and isolate myself because I felt soafraid of taking a risk.

Swinging from one extreme