Chapter 5: Building Trust after Betrayal

“It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.” ~ David Levithan

For me, some of the biggest ruptures of trust are neglect, abandonment, or child abuse by a parent or adult responsible for that child.

Whether these are committed unknowingly due to best intentions, or knowingly due to the adult’s needs, the child’s trust is eventually broken. Trust fades when the child identifies that the adult is their source of fear and pain. The lack of trust in the adult is presented in many ways but often with the same roots. Either adults aren’t to be trusted, or the children themselves aren’t. More often the child internalises that it is themselves who cannot be trusted as they struggle to identify the flaws of the adult. As the traumatised child grows into an adult, there is a logical understanding of their childhood experiences and where the fault lies, but there is also an internalised emotional understanding that may differ from the logical one. The logical one is that it was the adult’s fault. The internalised emotional view is the fault of the child. What is to be understood in this blog post is that they can both exist.

Being in relationship with others - Attachment Theory

Attachment theory by John Bowlby suggests that a child will learn to attach to others insecurely as they self-identify through their own childhood relational experiences. If you have ever wondered what attachment style you have in relation to others there are many websites offering free self-questionnaires to identify what attachment you have. I relate different attachment styles to the level of trust we have of ourselves and the level of trust we have in others.

• I trust who I am and what I share with you - secure

• I don’t trust showing you my needs – avoidant

• I don’t trust you to respond to my needs – ambivalent/anxious

• I am terrified of your response to my needs – disorganised

Through years of therapy, as well as my history of successful and ruptured personal relationships, I realised I had an avoidant attachment style. I avoided sharing my needs and withdrew my trust in others.

My logical understanding of my childhood was that my parents both had their own difficulties which significantly affected the way I was raised and the experiences I went through. This meant that through my attachment towards other people, I didn’t trust them.

My emotional understanding and my core belief was that I was the one to blame for my experiences and so I didn’t trust myself. I believed that showing another my true self in relationship with them was showing them something wrong, rejectable, and punishable.

I learnt and reinforced my core principle that in my most vulnerable moments relational disconnection is safer than connection. I had to disconnect from my vulnerability, and those who were making me feel vulnerable, to be OK.

• Isolation was OK

• Separation was OK

• Distrust was OK

• Loneliness was OK

• Hurting others was OK

One of the components for healing is the formation and presence of an internalised healthy adult. The function of the healthy adult is to soothe the internal child that holds core beliefs of itself, and others based on significant childhood experiences. I will continue to expand on the role of a healthy adult and how to connect with that part of the self in a future post, but I felt there are two important points that need to be addressed before I do this.

• Firstly, if lacking trust both in self and other adults are symptoms of childhood trauma, then how does a survivor trust in the presence of their own internalised healthy adult?

• Secondly, if there are three insecure attachment styles that could form from childhood trauma how can the internalised healthy adult support the differing attachment styles?

Self-trust Through Being the Adult

For a survivor, trust is a risk. If anything, survivors place trust in their ability to survive a traumatic world. Constant reminders, negative reinforcement, overwhelming moments, and survival behavior places distrust as the core-belief than to be vulnerable and risk trust. With risk comes the first component of the healthy adult – choosing courage. Trust begins with courage.

Believing in the internalised adult requires the trust and courage to believe that trauma was your past and is not in your present or future. This beginning step requires the understanding that trauma was not your fault, and you are capable of its prevention. Being open and available to your own emotional validation and self-forgiveness brings with it resilience and compassion.

Where courage requires trust, and trust requires courage, step 2 is important: Start small.

I have previously given examples of small steps a person can take. The importance of starting small is to build a sense of character (the healthy internal adult) and provides momentum to its growth. Small, consistent challenges to a survivor’s instinctive thoughts and behaviour reduces the risk to trust and increases their trust in their healthy internalised adult. The third step is to learn what trust and security is.

In her book, ‘Braving the Wilderness’, Dr. Brené Brown inspired the use of the acronym BRAVING to guide trust both towards self and others. The individual components capture what builds and breaks trust. The acronym is as follows:

B – Boundaries

R – Reliability

A – Accountability

V – Vault (keeping hold of secrets)

I – Integrity

N – Non-judgement

G – Generosity (Think generously of others)

A measure of trust is individual but is steeped in principle. A childhood of trauma will inform you what trust is from the trust that was broken. If trust is not found in the above acronym, lean into what your sense of trust is. This may be found in such things as the people you can rely on, the repeated patterns in nature, and in the deity you connect with. Whatever is your source of trust - never let it go.

The Healthy Adult

‘Being the Adult’ comes from the phrase ‘be the adult you did not have in childhood’. The emphasis for a healthy adult is to model a healthy relational attachment. When I encourage others to find within them a healthy adult who models security, the challenge is difficult. I am saying to the avoidant, “you have needs”, to the ambivalent “your needs will be met”, and to the disorganised “your needs are safe”.

In childhood trauma, there might not have been a model for the consistent, safe, and present adult and therefore the first step is to experience what this looks like. It is important to have this modeled to a survivor to reconnect them back to themselves and form the identity of an internal healthy adult.

Therefore therapy, coaching and other forms of relational support is so important to help mend the attachment insecurities that exist. Being able to identify and model a healthy adult has such strong importance in the recovery from childhood trauma and what is required in a healthy relationship.

• Build trust in self and others

• Experience healthy boundaries

• Learn about healthy and unhealthy behaviour

• Safely express vulnerable feelings

• Build resilience

• Safely make mistakes

• Self-soothe from triggers

• Experience acceptance

• Redevelop your own identity

• Model relationships with these components to create your own safe and stable environment.

The process from an insecure to a secure attachment style is a lengthy process which may require development in some or all these components. This is aided when you know how and experience it in practice.

Jonathan