How do we learn to trust someone new? I have this weird pattern of trusting people right away and taking everything they say at face value....right up until I don't. I don't know how it came about that I have this strange relationship with trust. Why am I so willing to trust people, but then as soon as I think I can't....just like the snap of your fingers, that trust is gone. It's not a slow fade from trust to slight distrust and finally realizing that I no longer trust the person, it's a slap in the face from warm sunshine and trust into distrustful darkness.
Part of me feels like the problem must be with the other person. I mean, if they could seem so genuine that I believed them and trusted them that they must have believed it themselves. They must have thought they were telling the truth. They were fully "in the moment" with me. Therefore, they must not have just been lying to me. If they can't trust themselves enough to be fully honest how can I possibly trust them? Makes sense. And, it makes me completely rational and faultless! I like it!
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Again, I'm left wondering.....Old or New?
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Wonder what their stream of consciousness is telling them? How are they rationalizing the confusion? Because, that's what we're really talking about here, right? It's more likely that neither thing the person said was a lie, but rather that both were equally true. This is a less clear cut solution and one that has multiple possible endings. As J so eloquently put it, the other person has to eventually choose a truth to believe, but so do you. It's not all on them to figure out...I have to figure out my shit too. Fuck.
Can I trust that people are telling me the truth and not just what I want to hear? Especially when that truth changes over time? When the fluctuation of that truth is like the swinging of a pendulum? I really REALLY want to...but how?
Iola
ReplyDeleteThat is really hard. In my case, there are things that I have believed to be the truth for so long that they feel like the truth. It has only been lately and with theropy that I am starting to realize it was something that i let my brain make up to make me feel better. Now I am starting a lot of statements with "As I remember it". And as time passes, I am remembering the truth. Sometimes it really hurts but I feel it is necessary to continue the growth I have started. There are people that I need to say sorry to but unfortunately most of them have passed away. I hope in their hearts they knew that I did not mean to hurt anyone. I love you.
I'm having that same experience with the past. There are things that I remember believing so strongly and now I think about exactly how I knew them to be true and realize that the source wasn't necessarily as trustworthy as I originally thought. So, now I'm questioning everything from my past and I'm not sure what is true and what isn't. I don't know what I can believe.
ReplyDeleteSo, now I'm trying this new way of thinking about things and people. Maybe more than one thing can be true. Maybe you really believed what you said at the time and so that was truth for you? And, maybe Aunt Shirley really believed what she said and really meant well at the time too? People change and so maybe truths do too?