Trusting Yourself

One of the hardest parts of surviving trauma
is learning to trust what you see in others,
and in yourself.

When your early lessons were a strange mix of
love, violence, and neglect,
everything starts to blur.

You grow up questioning your instincts
instead of following them.

Is the stranger pouring out their life story
telling me the truth, or
fabricating every detail
down to the nitty gritty.

I don’t know.

Are your eyes kind or indifferent
when they look at me.

I really can’t tell.

It makes every new relationship
an act of blind faith.

If you’re a survivor too,
you know the exhaustion of
starting over,
trusting,
leaping,
falling.

So I’m keeping to myself these days.
My heart is aching and restless,
but too sore to be wandering around
making connections.

Instead, I’ve been tinkering with my compass,
because I desperately want to be able to tell:
are you my friend or foe?

Maybe, if I heal in all the broken places,
I won’t have to ask the question anymore…

I’m not entirely sure.
But I do know this:

To love well, we need to trust.
And for some of us,
that trust begins not with others,
but with ourselves.

Maybe trust starts small—
a moment of stillness
when you stop explaining yourself,
and just breathe.
No pretending.
No performing.
Just the quiet knowing
that you really do
belong to yourself.

Writing Prompt:

How has trauma shaped the way you read other people? What would it look like to rebuild trust in your own perceptions?