Why is self-trust hard for trauma survivors?

You’ve heard it all over the internet: you need to trust yourself. 

But what the hell does that even mean? 

Why do trauma survivors tend to struggle so much with self-trust? 

The short answer is, many of us struggle with self-trust because of what we were told about ourselves and how we were treated— often by the most important people in our lives. 

When we’re kids, we are wired to take seriously the messages we receive about ourselves— especially from our parents, our teachers, and our clergy. 

In the best of all possible worlds, we receive messages that are supportive and realistic: that we are imperfect, but worthy; that we are works in progress, and that’s the good news; that mistakes and missteps don’t represent fundamental flaws in our human value. 

We didn’t, actually, require “perfect” parenting, or perfect caretaking, or perfect teaching, or perfect spiritual guidance. 

We did, however, require parenting, caretaking, teaching, and spiritual guidance that really saw us; that realistically supported us; and that consistently affirmed that we didn’t have to be perfect to be worthy. 

Many trauma survivors read that paragraph and kind of sardonically laughed out loud. Because that’s really not what was we got, was it? 

There are many reasons why our parents, teachers, and/or clergy didn’t give us that realistic, supportive psychoemotional base we needed to develop stable self-esteem and self-trust. And none of those reasons had anything to do with us. 

But, many of us came to believe that if we didn’t get what we needed from the people whose job it was to protect and love us, it must have been our fault. 

We must not have been “lovable” enough.” 

We must not have figured out how to “make” them love or support us. 

We look at other kids who got the unconditional support and love, and we figure, they must have had or known something that we didn’t. 

They had something we didn’t, all right: a different set of adults and other circumstances in their lives. 

But obviously, when we were kids— and now, as the adult survivors those kids grew up to be— we didn’t know what we didn’t know about how the world and relationships and emotions and attachment work. 

All of which is to say: how were were supposed to learn to trust ourselves, when it was an open question whether we were worthy of love, attention, protection, or trust? 

We learn how to treat ourselves based on the modeling of the people around us. If we didn’t have people around us who loved, respected, and trusted us, how we were supposed to know what any of that even looked like? 

We’re not born knowing how to trust ourselves. We need to learn it, and when we’re kids, we learn through modeling. 

Self trust is important in trauma recovery because, at its core, our recovery hinges on our relationship with ourselves. 

I believe the essence of trauma recovery is making the inside of our head and heart a safe place for us (including our hurt, scared, confused inner child) to be. 

We need self-trust in trauma recovery for a very specific reason: that internal safety only comes if and when we can rust ourselves to not attack ourselves. 

To not shame ourselves. 

To not hurt ourselves. 

To not starve ourselves. 

To not, in other words, do our bullies’ and abusers’ dirty work for them. To not carry forth the abuse and neglect we suffered back then into current time and by our own hand. 

We need to learn to trust trust ourselves— to risk trusting ourselves— because self-trust is a building block of internal safety, and, eventually, self-love. 

 If you’ve read this far into the blog, I don’t mind telling you a secret: I think trauma recovery is, in the end, entirely about love. It’s about reclaiming the love that should have been our birthright: realistic, sustainable, actionable self-love. 

As John Lennon once sang, “love is the answer— and you know that for sure.” 

Yes, self-trust is hard. But it’s buildable, it’s figure-outable— one day at at time.