Trust

Trust is something that is often taken for granted. Losing trust with someone is a grievous matter. Whether it's a family member or someone you work or go to school with, losing trust always has a huge impact on your life and how you'll be able to interact with people around you. If you lose trust with someone, try to remember that it's not your fault, don't blame yourself. Losing trust is pretty much always caused by the actions of the other person, whether or not the actions have been intentional.

It's unfortunate that it can really crush you if you lose trust with several people. Don't take this issue too lightly, even if you lose trust with a person you might not be very close to, it will still affect you and your mental health.

Trust with animals

It's not only humans who can lose trust, the same goes for animals. I feel somewhat contradicted about seeing a video about an animal slowly rebuilding their trust in humans again. On one hand, I love how someone with patience can help the animal regain its trust and be properly happy again, but on the other hand, I hate that there are people in this world who mistreat animals. I love animals more than almost anything, so I feel really strongly about this. It's super important to me that my cats trust me because I'm in charge of their well-being and mental health.

I recently met a kitten who was rescued when she was even smaller. No matter how much I wanted to run up to her and hold her, I kept my distance because I knew she doesn't yet trust strangers. I just adored her from afar. When she's ready, she'll hopefully come to meet me. There is no rush in matters of trust. Providing the kitten with a positive human interaction is far more important than if I got to pet her or not.

My brother has a cat who was extremely shy when she was younger. I always tried to keep enough distance from her and only go quickly say hello and let her sniff my hand if she wanted to. These days when we're visiting she will at some point come down from her usual sleeping shelf to beg for pets and attention. I love her, she's quite a character. I do always wave at her and say hello when we arrive. But she's so high up I wouldn't be able to reach her even if I wanted to. And I don't want to disturb her in her safe space. I can wait for her.

My previous cat Vilma was most likely stressed out by my step-father (maybe even my mother and little sister) when I lived with them. She at some point lost most fur on her belly and the bottom of her tail. Otherwise, she seemed normal. A vet thought it was allergies, but probably not because not long after she moved in with me and my fiancé, her missing fur started to grow back. She had the most adorable baby fur on her behind. :D She became much happier in other ways as well, I think she finally was really home. She could trust us in a way she could not trust my step-father.

The image on this blog is of Vilma and me back in the day, at some point after us moving to another city to live with my fiancé. She was sick, and she had been sedated at the vet during examinations. The vet told us she would sleep it off. But no. She would not remain still until I joined her. She would try to wobble around to come to us. So I spent the evening sleeping next to her on our couch. She had always been like this. After she was spayed, she would wobble around in the backseat until she found me (back then we didn't even have a carrier for our cat for some reason!). When she reached my lap, she would start resting. Even though I was only about 10 years old, she already felt like I was her own human and the one she could trust. She wasn't wrong about that, and the feeling was mutual.

Trust at the workplace or school

Trust in the workplace is very important. If you have a team member or a class member you lose trust with, working with that person easily becomes draining and difficult. Depending on your team, job description, and even your personality, you might end up getting exhausted if the problem is not paid attention to.

Even worse is if you cannot trust your supervisor or firm management. You might feel completely alone and scared, especially if not everyone has lost their trust. These kinds of issues need a safe place and open conversation. If you are dealing with this issue, try finding someone you can talk to. You could ask if that someone would be able and willing to come to support you when you bring up the lost trust. Any good leader will listen and will also want to improve things. Things can only start to properly improve if the issue is brought up.

Trust at home

The first time I remember realizing I cannot trust my father was around the age of seven. I know that in reality, losing trust happened even earlier, I just couldn't understand it back then. His actions throughout the years have only made things worse for me. I don't even know if he really understands what he has done and how I feel. There has never been any discussion about the events that made me lose trust in him, and there most likely never will be. And at this point thirty years later, I don't know if I would even be willing to have such conversations with him. The trust is just lost and I've learned to live with it.

This and other trust issues caused me to be very shy and scared as a child. I was convinced I didn't matter because of the way I was treated. It has taken me closer to twenty years to work on these issues and I must admit that I'm still a work in progress, most likely always will be.

When I first started dating my fiancé, I had a hard time trusting him with my most vulnerable issues. I'm happy to say that nowadays I've been able to tell him everything and I still can tell him everything. It's been really hard to grasp that I can actually rely on someone in my family like this with no accusations, blaming, or yelling. That the other person is just listening and often even understanding.

It's saddening to know that there are many people without a person they can really trust. Especially children having to grow up without a parent or any other adult they feel they can trust. I'm lucky I had a dear friend who I could tell pretty much anything while growing up, even if it took me years and years to understand that she is that trustworthy. If you know a child in a not-so-great household, reach out to them, you might end up being the one person they feel they can trust.

Starting to rebuild

The rebuilding of trust with someone is not a quick and easy process. It can take a lot of time and work, and it requires both parties. A deeper analysis of why the trust was lost might be necessary in order to ever be able to try to fix things. The person you no longer trust needs to be willing to communicate about the issue. Without communication, there cannot be proper closure and you're left alone to attempt to fix everything.

If they want to help rectify things, they should understand that it's a lot of work for you to try to trust them again. And this might not only take months, but it can take even years. It all comes down to the reasons the trust was lost and also to your history. If you have lost trust with other people in your past, you might either be able to work on the issues easier with experience, or it might take you even longer to trust again because you have been hurt in the past. There cannot be a deadline for improvement, it needs to happen naturally. You cannot rush the process.

I can also say that there is hope, lost trust can be regained. It's a satisfying feeling to suddenly realize that you can trust again.