How Abuse and Mistreatment Can Lead to Not Being Able to Trust

    How Abuse and Mistreatment Can Lead to Not Being Able to Trust

      Have you ever found yourself having a hard time trusting people? As a result of how my grandparents treated me, the bullying I went through in school, teachers making me feel like there is something wrong with me, and also getting that from parents, I have learned not to trust. I had also lived in fear of others, and I never talked about my feelings and was afraid to reveal who I was as a person because I was afraid people would hate me. I could not be myself. I felt that if I revealed who I was, people would make fun of me, or think there was something wrong with me. I was never accepted for who I was until I came to know Jesus Christ, and people in my first church has accepted me for who I was. People welcomed me, and prayed for me. I was very sensitive, and people were understanding. When I was 27, I just started to share some deep secrets to a group leader, and he prayed for me and accepted me as a friend. There were some who gossiped and I was hurt by that. I ended up leaving that church, because I felt God leading me to another church, which was a small church, where I met my wife. I dated her and shared many deep things with her, and she still accepted me for who I was and she became not only my wife, but my best friend. I find myself today that if someone betrays me in any way, I can never open up to that person again, and it takes me a long time to build trust with people.

      My maternal grandpa died on May 1,2011. I had an emotional moment about 14 months after he died, and my mother says "Why are you not over that yet?", that one statement caused me to close up, and I felt that she would feel that there was something wrong with my feelings, so I feel I can never share my feelings with her again because of that. Someone else who knew I had family struggles after sharing my story on the internet has listened to me, and then told my parents things that were twisted, and I talked to him, and forgave him, but I feel I could never trust him again because of that, because it made my struggles worse. Some people can look at that as a mistake and talk it through, but I have a hard time trusting once I have been betrayed. It takes me a long time - possible years to get to a point of trusting someone to share deep things with. Once I have found that trust, that person ends up meaning the world to me. Once that trust is broken, I can be at peace with that person, but I would never trust that person to share things with again.

      The only One I know I can trust completely is God, because God is always faithful, and never fails. God is righteous and never sins. God does not betray anyone, and He is the ultimate healer. Mankind can fail, and break trust. Mankind can betray. Mankind does sin, and there is no one, including myself that can be trusted completely 100% of the time, because all of us has failed. I find the only true confidant I can have is God.

      There are many people who have families who they can share things with and be understood and loved. If abuse was in the family, they may downplay that and make you feel like there is something wrong with you because of your feelings - especially in regard to that, and then they doubt the rest of your feelings. In cases like that, or even when parents sin, they do not want to accept how their sins have affected you, so they downplay your feelings, which leads to lack of trust in family, so we seek others who we can confide in. When others have mistreated us, we learn not to talk about our feelings and bottle things up inside, which leads to carrying many pains. That has happened to me. I am now learning to be able to release my feelings, but I often feel intimidated by doing that, wondering if someone is going to think there is something wrong with me, so it becomes difficult.

      We find that our lack of trust makes it difficult to make friends, we find that there may be people we do things with, but we only share superficial things with them, but never anything personal. We find it impossible to have relationships with others, because we are afraid of what they might think if they knew us for who we were. We find ourselves having to carry every burden with no release and no one to talk to about it, so we continue to carry it. We find that we have no one we can share with, and we end up being alone, because we cannot trust anyone. The only One who has broke that lack of trust I had was God, and those who I went to church with and currently go to church with, I have been more free to trust and feel accepted.

      Many of you may have had these things happen to you. Remember, you can always come to God, He will heal you, and God will deal with those who have betrayed you. You can always trust God. God is faithful and will never fail you. If you are struggling with that, I want to pray for you.

Rodney Calmes