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Trust issues

Discussion in 'General Support and Advice' started by DRex, Mar 28, 2016.

  1. DRex

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    I've just realized that I have serious trust issues with people. Like, more than most people ever have.

    I was thinking of letting my girlfriend borrow a Game Boy Advance from me along with my copy of Pokémon Leaf Green because she'd been interested in getting back into the games, but ended up getting worried about "what if somehow due to some issue I've never anticipated, we break up, she leaves and never speaks to me again, and I never get it back? If I don't, replacing something that's been discontinued for that long will be very hard if not impossible." Indeed, I actually feel better about dropping lots of money on a second version of something to give permanently to other people just so I don't have to worry about them refusing to give it back.

    This goes even for close friends and as mentioned, partners, and it's more than that. Like, if I don't hear from someone for a while or they are late arriving to somewhere where I'm waiting for them, I tend to get really worried that they're never coming and that they don't want to see me ever again. I wonder if I've done something to offend them or hurt them. I even look at people I've known for a long time and am really close with and feel like I need to ask if everything is OK; otherwise maybe just pretending to still like me in order to avoid offending me by telling me how they really feel and what a horrible person I am.

    Having to trust someone else with anything that entails even the most minor risk to myself fills me with dread and I constantly worry about "what if this person betrays me?" even if I have known said person for years and have been really close. This can't possibly be normal, though I may have some idea why I might feel this way. Every now and then, I have found that people (usually coworkers) that I've apparently been on good terms with have actually been complaining about me behind my back while presenting a positive appearance otherwise, and I never hear about it until I'm confronted by my boss over them. Employers have done that to me directly as well. Like, there have been several times where I've made some minor mistakes, apologized, and told they weren't a big deal and I should forget about them, only to be confronted months later and given a list of "you did all of these bad things; we're disciplining you as a result; these are serious problems." Like, they were keeping lists of things and preparing to hit me with them behind my back the entire time while otherwise pretending nothing was wrong.

    So I don't know. On the one hand, it seems there were things I should have been paying closer attention to. On the other hand, I'm starting to be overly paranoid and suspicious of friends and family when I really shouldn't be. I don't know how I should react anymore. When should I be on my guard, and when does it go from being properly sensitive to being irrationally paranoid? How do I distinguish between the two, and how do I get over this problem?
     
  2. Euler

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    How long have you been having trust issues like this?
     
  3. Systems

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    If this is a big problem for you, it might help to see a therapist, at least temporarily. As far as I know, trust issues stem from a history of trauma (which can be as mundane as criticism- trauma isn't always dramatic).

    You could try making a list of reasons to trust someone, and reasons not to trust them, and see how they stack up. You'll probably find them trustworthy. When you're feeling suspicious of someone, try to think of those reasons to trust them. If they're strangers, though, I'd go with my gut feeling.
     
  4. Invidia

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    I have them too, it's really hard... don't really know what to say, but... as Systems said, talk therapy could work.

    x
     
  5. DRex

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    The first time I can remember was in high school. I noticed that other people had friends that always remembered their birthdays and threw big parties for them without them having to do anything. A common question at school was "Did you go to (name)'s party last night?" Nobody remembered my birthday, on the other hand, regardless of whether I reminded them, and nobody ever spontaneously threw me a party without me having to actively do anything, except my family. I would plan my own and invite people, usually around 10 or so, but only 2-3 at most would ever show up, and in one case nobody did. Everyone, even my best friends, had excuses like "I had to work" or "I had too much homework," etc., but this never seemed to happen to anyone else.

    Another time, I invited some 10 people to an event going on over a weekend, starting a month in advance. Yet none of them came, saying that they didn't have money or had really busy schedules. I figured this was typical, but once I was there, I found a friend of mine had gotten someone else to come with, so I asked how he had done it. The response? "I just asked him a few days ago if he was doing anything, he said now, I invited him, he came."

    That was when it hit me that it wasn't typical. Other people can get their friends to go to parties or do things without having to get frustrated by busy schedules or what not. Their friends made the time because it was important; mine apparently did not. I started to think that these excuses were really just excuses, and that my friends really didn't want to do any of this because they didn't like it. They just didn't want to offend me, so they were pretending they couldn't spare the time to keep me from realizing it.

    At least, that's what I thought back then. I know I'm not supposed to mistrust people like that, but considering how my experience didn't line up with anyone else's and the stuff with coworkers pretending to be OK with me while complaining about me behind me back later on, I feel like I can't trust anyone anymore. I have no way of telling whether someone actually likes me or is actually just pretending to still like me to be polite. I even asked my best friend once (after he had missed times where we were supposed to hang out and been late arriving a lot) "What do you think of me, really?" He was startled by the question, looked really confused, and asked in the most awkward manner what I meant, and I quickly dropped the subject because I didn't want to be confrontational. And yet I couldn't help wondering if he was deliberately trying to avoid me and only showed up because he couldn't come up with a convenient excuse not to.

    And more recently, things haven't been getting better. If anything, it's worse. I learned once again that coworkers I thought had no problems with me had been making complaints about me to my boss behind my back, about things they had never confronted me about (even when I talked to them after the incidents they reported to the boss, they said everything was fine and there was no problem, before then reporting to the boss), which started triggering these issues again. At the same time, my girlfriend and I planned to get together later this week. We texted each other on Saturday about our schedules, but that was the last I heard from her since then. After she was silent for two days, I texted her and asked what her days off were. No response. Last night and this morning I sent a message about life in general and about my schedule, asking her if she was available Friday evening. she hasn't responded to that either, and now I'm starting to get paranoid again over whether I've done something to offend her and she's not speaking to me as a result, and is too afraid of offending me to say why. I know she has a really busy and irregular schedule and this has happened before, but I can't help but wonder.

    Really, I should stop being paranoid about things like this, but I've been betrayed just often enough that I feel I can never let my guard down around anyone again, and I don't know how to tell whether I should be trusting or suspicious in any given situation.

    Also, I have never had a productive experience with a therapist. The ones who I went to over my anxiety issues were no help, except in getting me medications that did help. And the one I saw three times over gender identity issues I was working through didn't do much either; she mostly just took my confusion over "I've had thoughts and fantasies about being female, but I never had a real problem with the way I was living my life and I wind up missing my old self when I try to live differently" and responded with "You can be a woman without giving that up;" like, she assumed I was trans and reluctant to accept it, when it's most likely that I have a very active imagination and was confusing fantasy and reality. I have mostly been working that one out without her help now for the better, but after putting 300 dollars down the drain on someone who couldn't really help me, I don't want to waste more money on someone else who most likely can't help me either.
     
    #5 DRex, Mar 30, 2016
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2016
  6. Monraffe

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    You have an over sensitive response to the prospect of rejection. What you sense as a lack of trust is actually a "reject them first" response to the fear that you are about to be rejected. This is sometimes called the self-sabotaging phenomenon. It's about fear of abandonment, not lact of trust.

    The cause of this can be difficult to unravel. You may have had a tramatic separation experience at a very young age and it has just stayed with you. Or you might suffer from the lack of object consistency.

    Most people can form a relatively complete image in their mind of their loved ones and friends. This image gives them the sensation that they are always around, even after they part company. This is called object consistency. But if you are unable to do this, it becomes much easier to imagine that you will be abandoned when you become separated from them. There is also a correlation between this problem and with OCD sometimes.
     
  7. Euler

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    Do you feel you are socially awkward or do you have any reason to believe that people feel you are behaving in socially unusual ways? The way how people seem to be avoiding to confront you directly hints this.