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Living with trust issues is never easy. Even if you’re working on them by using tools like therapy, mediation, or journaling, they don’t simply disappear overnight. Trust issues can be the result of one massive event that stuck with you, they can be the result of a long period of your life where “everyday” events shifted your thinking, or they can even be something your parents passed down to you. Wherever they come from, they leave you in a state of not just struggling to trust others, but even struggling to trust yourself.
When you get that tingling sensation that “something’s up,” that feeling that leaves you feeling unsafe. If you have trust issues, it’s hard to know where it’s coming from. Is something really going on? Has somebody actually wronged you? Or lied to you? Or are you seeing things a certain way because of your trust issues?
The awareness of trust issues can almost be more tormenting than the trust issues themselves. Always acting on the sensation when trust issues are triggered can lead to a lot of conflict. Always ignoring the sensation, however, for fear of trusting yourself, can also come with its problems. We spoke with Licensed Clinical Marriage & Family Therapist Jordan A. Madison about how to handle it when your trust issues are triggered.
Source: Duane Lyken, D’Anthony Photography / Duane Lyken of D’Anthony Photography
What can trigger trust issues
We asked Madison what sorts of events to be aware of if you have trust issues that can be triggering. She said some examples include, “People not doing what they say they will,” “Hearing someone talk negatively about someone else that they are supposedly close to,” and “Finding out that what someone has told you was not true.” Madison says “These circumstances can happen in any type of relationship, platonic or not.”
