Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    You might want to read a book called "Struggle for Intimcy" by Judith
    Woilitz (sp?).  It discusses many aspects of what you relate (ie trust,
    intimacy, etc.).
    
    

    Perhaps a good starting point is figuring out (write it down!) what
    sex/intimacy means to you.

    I think that you need therapy. I suspect that your trust issue
    existed before the assault; otherwise you would have worked through
    most of the the post-traumatic stress disorder by now. The assault
    probably unearthed something that was already in existence. It might
    make it easier if you saw a woman therapist. The Digital EAP service
    would be a good place to get a referral.
    
    Eileen
    

Look at Topic 99 in Womannotes (RAINBO::WOMANNOTES-V2) on "Side Effects of
Rape"
							--Doug

>What happens
>though, is this:  we like each other, they come on interested, I come on
>interested, we start getting 'intimate' and I close up and run.  I'm
>incapable of letting someone get too close.  

         You sound a lot like me.  I've had an equally terrifying
         experience that left me unable to trust.  I've always thought
         I was strong enough to deal with this experience, but
         sometimes it overwhelms me.   Every time I get close to
         someone, I WANT to trust them, I TRY to trust them, but my
	 sub-conscious won't let me.

	 
         When I become interested in a man, one of two things happens: 

         1)  He innocently does something that plays on that lack of
         trust in the back of my mind.  I blow it out of proportion
         (usually its something innocent that my twisted mind
         perceives the wrong way) and scare the guy half out of his
         wits by being angry and/or crying.  Its something I can't
         even control most of the time.  The distrust just overwhelms
         me, and I almost become a different person.  I've scared away
	 two very important men in my life this way in the past year.

	 2)  Things go along GREAT....we start to get close, we get
	 comfortable, he mentions commitment and I RUN!  Not only do I
	 run, but I can't explain to him WHY I'm running.  Why I don't
	 want the commitment.  I just get sooooo scared, and I think
	 of any reason possible to end the relationship, when, in
	 fact, its exactly what I want.  Most of the time I don't even
	 make it to this stage because I'm too scared to...perhaps my
	 sub-conscious takes the "easy way out" even tho I DO want
	 something to develop?


	 What I've found out from my experience is that you CAN'T
	 convince most people that it is not them, but *you* that is the
	 problem.  That you just need a little understanding during
	 the "problem times" as opposed to them getting defensive and
	 pulling away, or just letting you go when you run.

         Someday, perhaps, there will be a man that puts up with me
         thru both of these stages.  Until then, like you, I don't
         know what to do....but continue losing the people that could
         be something important to me if I just gave them the chance. 

	 kath
	 

    
    Dear Kathy and mystery woman:
    
    You can't wait for a "man that puts up with you".
    You'll wait until you die.
    
    Mystery woman, you're definitely on the road to recovery.  (yes, no
    harm starting therapy as Eileen said, but you need to know you're
    ALREADY recovering)
    
    The fact that you were able to write down your assault experience and your
    pattern of distrust, is how I know you're on the right track.
    
    A useful challenge to you:  next time you're in a relationship with
    a man, and you feel like running away again, would you be willing to
    tell him the whole story, just like you stated it in .0 here ?
    
    Then, after telling him your story, could you sit there, tell him you
    feel like running way, and then instead of running, just take a long deep
    breath in and out, then look at him and wait...
    
    /Eric

    When you trust, and your trust is betrayed, it becomes very 
    hard to trust *again*. It's a very scary thing to give
    someone the power to hurt you like 'that other one' did.
    
    Dana (who also has a hard time trusting, but it's only
    been two years)

    Perhaps the first thing is to be sure you trust yourself.  If you
    don't feel you can trust yourself, how could you expect to trust
    others?  I've had a long term battering relationship in my past,
    and I wasn't sure I could feel trusting again.  One thing I did
    was to get into therapy and work out my problems. A second was to
    begin to reprogram my own mind with self made tapes, and a third
    was to stop every time I felt the "old" feelings and tell myself
    that this is now and that was then and the past doesn't count any
    more.  I made myself go through the discomfort of "trusting" (or
    whatever the problem was), then congratulated myself when I did
    it.  After awhile, situations began to feel more comfortable, and
    I permitted myself to go on with my life.
    
    If I can help further, please send mail.
    
    Lotsa Hugs and Support,
    Barb

Dear basenoter, 

If you look around, every person you see, male and female alike, has
probably been --at one time or another-- a victim of misplaced
trust. Being male (and, I suppose, lucky), I have never been through
an experience similar to yours; yet, just like everybody else, I do
have my own bitter memories and think I can easily relate to your
situation. 

What I have to say will probably not sit well with other members of
this wonderful, positive, supportive notefile. It's based on my past
experiences, which through the years have made me something of a
cynic. 

My scientific conclusion is that 99.975% (I may be a couple of
percentage points off) of the people are not worthy of my trust
(your own personal mileage may vary, of course). Problem is, it's
difficult to pinpoint the 0.025% portion of the population that are
trustworthy for me (which may --or may not-- coincide with the
0.025% of the people that are trustworthy for you). 

Now, the easiest thing to do, is to trust no one, ever! But that's
no good either. It would simply leave us totally dysfunctional;
mentally, socially and emotionally.  So, the solution --I think-- is
to be careful; to trust SOME people, SOME of the time. This is not a
sure fire solution either, as I have found, since even those very
few I have ended up trusting, very carefully, sometimes turned out
to be a bitter disappointment. To put it bluntly, I have been burned
just as often than I have been warmed. 

But, even when trusting someone backfires, as it's bound to do some
of the time, I grin and bear it, wipe off my bloody nose, then forge
on. Personally, I think it's worth it, due to the good friends I
managed to collect along the way, people I still trust and plan to
continue to.

So, I believe the question in your base note should be restated.
It's not how to start trusting again. You don't want to do that;
it's the other way around, you want to retain that healthy distrust.

The question really is how to prevent your healthy distrust from
screwing up your life. It's how to apportion your trust --just
little enough and just seldom enough-- so that you can pinpoint
those very, very few that are truly worthy of it (and you).

The same goes for the noter that runs for dear life when
"threatened" by impeding commitment. I suspect your impulse for self
preservation is good for you. But, try controlling the urge just
enough to stop you from running away. You'll still be safe, but if
you stick around just long enough, you will eventually see the
trustworthy people/person/guy emerge. 

I wish you both the best. 

-- Ron 

    What a sad thing is not trust our fellow beings....We do live in
    a society and we are part of that society.  Common sense warn us
    when there is danger, so we have to develop that sense to be able to
    avoid being hurt and avoid to hurt others.  What a wonderful world
    would it be if we all try a little harder...
    Hung on there and trust the future...it'll be much better than the
    present.

    	Re .0-           
    
    	Seems both situations you described abandoned your personal
    right and need to trust, even though one of them may be termed as
    "an accident". To Trust is a healthy need of human beings, fully
    legitimate and 100% OK. We gets messed up when this need to trust 
    is abandoned via a personal trauma of some kind.
    
    	You can learn to trust again, because trust is regenerative.
    A little trust generates the ability for a lot of trust, in due
    time of course. It's an experiential thing and as such, it really
    needs some activity and participation on your part to grow.
    
    	Perhaps by starting small, with an innocuous situation, you
    can first learn to trust again outside the scope of a "interpersonal 
    relationship". The idea is to someday extend this newfound sense
    of trust to that space. 
    
    	For example, join an after-work softball team. You'll learn
    to trust that the other players are going to even show up for the
    practices and games. After some time, you may even begin to trust that 
    certain individuals on your team are going to give it their "best shot" 
    during the games. I mean, as long as you do too!           
    
    	Of course, these observations are ideally made under something
    called positive expectancy. An earlier reply described "negative"
    expectancy, citing that it was warranted from experience. I believe
    the connection between the two goes *both* ways somehow. I think 
    expectancy is the key between one's perception of the glass being half 
    empty or it being half full. It can make the actual outcome happen
    in the way that it does, which is quite a powerful thing.
    
    	I mean, imagine if your routinely couldnt trust *anyone*! You'd
    be spending half your time just "counting your change" after every
    personal encounter with another, over your fear and worry of getting
    ripped off somehow. Whatta life...
    
    	Having positive expectancy is connected with having a positive
    self esteem, I believe. Someone who thinks down on and poorly of
    themselves almost certainly will correspondingly think "the worst"
    is going to happen, if they bother to participate in life. This
    one thing can disable any chance you may have at building your sense
    of trust back again. I think you can understand how it works now,
    and what you can do should you choose to. Good Luck, let us know
    how you're doing!
    
    	Joe Jas