A Question of Trust
We are able to do what we do because of a particularly fundamental trait that we look for in the people that we target; trust. We look for those who place particular reliance on trust and then we abuse that trust. Most people operate on a basis of trust. If they did not, the world would grind to a halt. Trust lubricates so many transactions between people whether those transactions are social, financial or emotional. When somebody tells you,
“I like your shirt it suits you.”
You trust them to be telling you the truth. If you did not do so, you would stop and cross examine them as to why they like it in order to evaluate whether you believe their comment to be a true one or not. You trust the company from which you make a purchase to deliver when they say they will and that the product will be fit for purpose. You trust your colleagues to do their jobs effectively so you can also fulfil your obligations.
You trust the police to maintain law and order, if you did not, there would be anarchy and rife vigilantism. It is axiomatic that there has to be trust otherwise everything would be slowed down or stopped as people evaluated, analysed, questioned and verified. Trust is evident everywhere and there is no greater trust than that which is expected in an intimate relationship.
People trust their partner to have their best interests at heart, to trust them not to do something to hurt them, to trust them to be faithful and loving. We know that in order for you to love in the way that you do, that deep and unconditional love, there must be trust. You approach your relationships with this trust held out in front of you, a symbol of good intent. You presume that everyone else that you will engage with will also adopt a similarly trusting stance. You expect them to reciprocate this trust. You trust that they will trust.
You are not a cynic. You do not operate in the realm of suspicion and mistrust. To do so would be admitting defeat and would tarnish the ideal of love that you are committed to. You accept much at face-value. That is not to label you as naïve, that would be unduly harsh, for as I have mentioned, many people operate on the basis of trust and so they must. You apply this trust to your dealings with those that you fall in love, led to believe by us that this trust will be reciprocated, that it will not be breached, betrayed or damaged.
You are a truth seeker. You apply honesty in all your dealings and the taint of lies and dishonesty offends you considerably. The stench of our deceit, the rank odour of our mendacity is great but the perfumed veil we cast over such dark and dangerous deceptions is such that the malodorous warning never nears you. You are conned into believing that we tell you the truth when we first encounter you.
We behave with such conviction, the air of confidence we exude, seemingly unquestionable and unimpeachable. We look you in the eye, those unseen mirrors reflecting back at you your earnest trust so that you see what you require. You look upon supposed honesty, apparent openness and this maintains your sense of trust.
By trusting you believe that you will get the truth. That our love will be true, that our intentions are truthful, that our fidelity is real and we govern our interactions with you under the mantle of truth. You trust that all of this will happen because we make you think you can trust us.
We will reference those who have let us down, those who have betrayed us and in so doing we hold up our own reliance upon trust in order to receive your trust. See how we have trusted others and they let us down? We have always trusted beforehand and so you can be assured that we want to gain your trust and you shall have ours. It is all carefully orchestrated to channel one of the fundamental tenets by which you abide.
When we gain that trust and we do so easily, you enable us to take this valuable commodity and apply our own veneer to it, reinforcing it and demonstrating to you just how much we value it. As a fellow disciple in trust this enables us to conduct ourselves in a way which ensures we are above suspicion. When we meet with a member of the opposite sex and explain she or he is just a friend and it is a friendly drink you have no reason to think otherwise. You trust us. When we tell you that we are working late. You trust us. When we borrow money from you. You trust us. When we tell you that we are using the contraceptive pill. You trust us. When we tell you that we love you and have never loved anybody like this before – you trust us.
Trust equals the truth. We then abuse your trust by carrying out our treacherous acts. We court other partners and shatter your trust. As you sit at home watching television thinking we are working hard for our future we are philandering and sliding our tendrils around a fresh prospect.
When you are making that dinner for us both, looking forward to an evening together, I am showering in a hotel as I seek to wash away the scent of the person I have just coupled with. When you check your bank balance and consider what you will do with the return on the investment that I talked about so you lent me the money, your hard-earned money is being used to impress someone else so that they fall into my clutches. We take this very thing that is of such central importance to you and we abuse it. We disrespect and we trade it just like a commodity.
When you eventually realise your trust has been shattered and this has happened repeatedly. When you finally wake up and join the dots. When you see the flagrant breaches of your trust, when the evidence is irrefutable and painful, we may well have gone. Not only have we abused your trust but we have left without explanation or reason, leaving you to deal with the aftermath alone as we move on to the next target and begin gaining their trust.
Like any confidence trickster it is necessary for us to gain trust before we are able to abuse it. Not only do we hurt you repeatedly through these actions we do so to such an extent, with so many people and with so many people aware of it, other than you until the last moment. This wide-ranging and wholesale desecration of trust, this tarnishing and defacing of the truth leaves you broken and unable to face the totality of the truth. You cannot comprehend that you have been conned so extensively and so often.
You cannot bear the sensation that arises from having been made to look so foolish. You held your trust up as something to be proud of and now you are left to rue your reliance on this as you hear the repeated comments of “Told you so”, “Didn’t you notice?” and “You are too trusting.” You equate trust with the truth. Our abuse of your trust causes you to not want to accept the truth of what we have done.
21 thoughts on “A Question of Trust”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
It will take time as to who I will be able to trust and who I will let get close to me. I have had too many narcissists, be it either family, friends, and ‘romantic’ partners/spouse (note ‘romantic’ is in quotes!) take me for a ride with all of their abuse, machinations and so on. I am fed up with being an afterthought, if I am even a thought at all (which I know I am not). I am fed up with being the last option and being overlooked while the narcissists are out trolling for whatever suits their fancy. I don’t think I will ever feel the same about the phrase ‘you can trust me’ for a long time, if ever again. Trust needs to be earned, not burned.
I think there is the trust that you give within an established relationship and the trust you give to enter into the relationship to begin with. The fear seems to creep in more with people as regards to starting a new relationship. Making sure you don’t get involved with another narcissist.
We’re empaths. We have a natural advantage in that we are actually excellent judges of character. Tough to beat on that score. No one removed that skill. It’s still there. I rule out very readily and I don’t question myself or make apologies for doing so. The problem is not who we rule out, it’s the fact that we are predisposed to rule a narcissist in.
We have to lower the chances of new acquaintances being narcissists. Stay off online dating sites and any form of self help site or blog. Be aware that a gym, or a library is a hunting ground. If you are there and an unknown takes an interest then assume he is suspect and raise your guard. If you continue with the interaction check the red flags, make sure you know exactly what those signs are. Utilise future protection, utilise a narc detector a few months in then you can relax.
Be selective on Facebook. An unknown friend request that isn’t a friend of a friend is suspect. They are going off your photos and your profile. Lock personal images down, double check it’s secure. Don’t add without thinking and questioning why some unknown has friend requested.
Yes we draw narcissists to us but there are only so many narcissists in any one place at any one time. We became ensnared because we didn’t know what narcissism was and we didn’t know we were targets. Now we do know so we amend accordingly. Trust is earned over time, it’s a gift, don’t hand it over readily.
HG I know there are in depth details that come into play also. But in basic terms .
HG does the thrill, control of breaking an empaths trust start at a very young age with not doing what’s expected by ones mother or parent. Does it start around the age of 9 for a narc . Does it build from there .
Yes but the knowledge of what is actually happening varies of course.
Mollyb5, maybe the “thrill” as you put it, starts from when the baby is born, in the case of a narcissist mother yet the ‘damage’ is not visible until the child is older and when that child is “showing negative” behaviours towards others (in the ‘eyes’ of ‘conditioned’ society, etc). Bordering on ‘Munchhausen by Proxy’ but it is not. The “negative” behaviours can be visible earlier as I recall an incident from when I was around 4 or 5 years old and I didn’t want to go to nursery as a result of whatever happened….. all I can recall is the fact I was crying and screaming at not wanting to go there….. it was a building in the middle of some woods…. that is my earliest memory of being afraid – for whatever reason……
Asp Emp , From reading HGs shared knowledge and many other readings ..this actual time period in a child’s development is very important , from what I have read and learned here. There are important emotional developments around this age. Thats not saying all the other times aren’t important.
Asp Emp … it’s around the time period called the “ age of reason” for a child around 7 – 9 before adolescence . It’s when a child starts develop an eternal right or wrong .
Yes, I was referring to earlier ‘damage’ before the child starts to learn / process the inflictions upon them yet not understand why or what it is until much later in life.
This is hard to hear, first hope and now trust. It makes sense, trust takes time to build. But then there has to be a point where it’s safe to have some, otherwise there can never be true intimacy. Just going to keep studying, maybe the path to safely trusting someone is here somewhere.
A Victor I feel the same. It takes years to build a relationship to trust someone and in a blink of an eye it is completely gone.
Hi Eternity, that’s if we’re involved with narcissists. I don’t think normals or empaths will break our trust, at least not frequently, repeatedly and with no emotional empathy about it. So…we have possibilities!
When you say “then there has to be a point where it’s safe to have some, otherwise there can never be true intimacy” – such a profound yet true point to make – it is a matter of trusting the person enough to be able to open up and be your true self with them. I believe that is possible when you find the ‘right’ person to do this with.
“maybe the path to safely trusting someone is here somewhere” = HG.
We are trusting enough to be able to use KTN site to share our deepest thoughts & feelings (maybe, somewhat, to a point, holding back a bit) – yet the space is here to be able to share. It all contributes to HG’s Legacy.
Even knowing that everything put online is forever out there should anyone want it, there is no true anonymity, I share here because of the ‘anonymity’ only. I don’t feel the same safety everywhere online even though I use pseudonyms. A few other blogs are okay.
Yes, I know what you mean. KTN is the only blog I signed up to & use, Fakebook – I don’t use my other accounts but have them.
A Victor, I think trust is incredibly complex and I have different levels of trust for different people even for empaths.
Firstly, I trust my husband more than I trust myself!
I trust a friend and colleague at work not to steal from me. But I don’t trust her to not flirt with my husband.
I trust one of my male pleutonic friends not to hit on my husband or to steal from me. But I may not trust him to be 100% dependable.
I trust a female cerebral N at work to not flirt with my husband but I don’t trust her in any other way.
As a child ans young adult I wanted to be able to trust people implicitly and 100% in the way I thought I could be trusted. But I now realise it’s not just others who can’t be trusted. I can’t be trusted in many ways either, especially not with chocolate. But I can be trusted in numerous other ways.
Alexssmith, Ah yes, you are correct. I was thinking of the general trajectory within a romantic relationship when I write my comment. But even then, we all fail each other on occasion. Thank you for your thoughts, I appreciate them.
Hey, Alexissmith! You just said this again recently, on another thread, and I again was struck by it!! Thank you for repeating it, obviously it takes some of us (me) more than once! 🙂
“Our abuse of your trust”
Those words alone. I am so done.
This is how I feel too.
Me too, not everyone is worth trusting and we unfortunately learn the hard and long way.