I was wondering if you have any advice for learning to trust again. I'm really struggling to trust anyone with anything.
I know my distrust is irrational. I don't know how to get past it.
I actually just wrote about this in a chapter I was working on. There isn't an easy answer, but this might be helpful.
A lot of us grew up with warped definitions of love and loyalty. When you’re raised in chaos, mistreatment can start to look like connection. It’s easy to confuse fear with passion, control with care, or silence with safety.
So let’s clear something up. Trust isn’t any of these things.
Trust isn’t blind obedience. If someone says, “If you really trusted me, you’d do what I say,” that’s not trust. That’s control. Real trust doesn’t require you to shut down your own voice.
Trust isn’t pretending you’re not hurt. Stuffing your feelings just to “keep the peace” isn’t trust. It’s fear of rocking the boat. In a healthy relationship, you can bring your hurt into the open without being punished for it.
Trust isn’t self-abandonment. Growing up, you might have been taught that love means draining yourself dry and that if you really cared, you’d always push past your limits. But exhausting yourself to prove love isn’t trust. It’s survival.
Trust isn’t perfection. People will mess up. You’ll mess up. That doesn’t mean the relationship is doomed. Trust isn’t about never making mistakes. It’s about knowing repair is possible and how you and the other person handle mistakes.
Naming what trust isn’t matters, because when we’re used to dysfunction, the unhealthy can feel familiar, and familiar can feel safe. The goal isn’t to shame yourself for falling into those patterns. It’s to notice when they show up, so you can step toward something better.
Relearning Trust in Safe Ways
Trust isn’t an all-or-nothing switch. You don’t wake up one day suddenly ready to bare your whole soul. Healing means rebuilding it in steps. And sometimes tiny ones.
Here are a few safe ways to practice:
Start small. Trust doesn’t have to begin with the scariest thing. Share something low-stakes first like your favourite song, or a worry about your day and notice how the other person responds. Safe people earn their way into the deeper layers over time.
Listen to your body but check the context. Your nervous system reacts quickly, sometimes too quickly, especially when you’ve lived through trauma. Feeling anxious or tense doesn’t always mean someone is unsafe; it might mean your body is remembering old patterns. Pay attention to those signals, but pair them with reflection: Is this person actually doing something harmful, or am I reacting to a fear from the past? Your body’s cues matter, but so does giving yourself time to sort out what’s real in the present.
Test for repair, not perfection. A healthy person won’t always get it right, but they’ll try to make it right. If you share something vulnerable and it doesn’t land well, pay attention to how they respond when you tell them. Do they dismiss it, or do they lean in and adjust?
Practice boundaries while building trust. Letting people in doesn’t mean flinging the doors wide open with no locks. Boundaries help you feel safe enough to stay open. You can say, “I’m not ready to talk about that yet,” and still be building intimacy.
Lean on self-trust as your foundation. Trusting others begins with trusting yourself to notice red flags, set limits, and walk away if needed. When you know you won’t abandon yourself, trusting others doesn’t feel like free-falling. It can feel like a choice instead.
Relearning trust is about pacing yourself. You don’t have to hand someone your whole heart to practice connection. You just have to give them one small piece and see what they do with it.
Trust after BPD and trauma is not about flipping a switch. It’s not about pretending you’re fearless, or convincing yourself to trust everyone equally. It’s about practicing discernment. It is about learning who has earned your trust, who hasn’t, and reminding yourself that your needs matter in that process.
You may always have moments where the fear whispers, They’re going to leave. You can’t rely on them. This will end in betrayal. That voice doesn’t mean you’re doomed to isolation. It means you’re learning to notice it, breathe through it, and choose what to do next.
Rebuilding trust is not about blind faith. It’s about slow faith. Small steps. Testing, noticing, reflecting. It’s about reminding yourself that you are allowed to be cautious, and you are allowed to want closeness anyway.
Because trust doesn’t erase the scars of the past. But it makes space for a different kind of future. One where connection doesn’t have to mean catastrophe.
