Breaking Trust

Image courtesy of Stockvault.

It would be fair to say that I have issues with trusting people. The Internet puts these trust issues on meth, shovels coke up their nose, and throws them off an airplane. Everyone I meet is a potential abuser of trust, and my memory loves replaying when I’ve had it abused in the past. I think this is why I make it a habit of keeping people at just further than arm’s distance.

Lacking trust makes it difficult for me to respect people. I’ve seen people intentionally betray their own principles just to marginalize an entire group of people. How do I know they won’t turn on me if I stop belonging to their favorite group?

People talk about respect and trust like they’re entitled to it. For the longest time, this made me feel like I was weird or paranoid. I couldn’t fully wrap my mind around something simple: trust is earned. The reason why it’s hard for me to share my trust with people is that I don’t hand it out as easily as other people might. This isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s just something peculiar to me.

I still feel like I need to make adjustments to it, though. Depression is an isolating illness. Sometimes, I feel like I might not trust people because of that. But to be fair, I also get anxious when I have reason to mistrust someone. At these times, I feel nailed to two different walls.

Or maybe I just get disappointed in people too easily. I really don’t know, and I keep running circles in my head just like I’m doing here in this post.