Survivors as a rule do not trust others, and for good reason. Many people surviving family dysfunction have learned from their families not to trust . . . including their family members themselves. Some people also get brainwashed not trust themselves in the process because none of your caretakers any sense of confidence in you.
If you are not supposed to trust your family nor trust others, you are in a another paradox besides being stuck behind a wall of emotional isolation. . . . you are in a position of emotional abandonment where there is no one you can rely on to the degree of your need. Similarly to what I have observed in my previous posts, the Holiday Season can make things feel worse--the rest of the world seems happy during this time of year while you feel terrible because you are alone, you may not feel like you can trust anyone, and your family is no consolation to you.
We need other people
Our families never really meet all our needs. When your family is especially dysfunctional, they create some needs . . . or leave some needs unfulfilled.
I think that from culture to culture and society to society, people have needed relationships outside of their biological family to meet the emotional needs family cannot need. When you especially have a toxic, dysfunctional family, all the more it is likely you need friends . . . perhaps to be the surrogate family that your biological family cannot be.
However, if you cannot trust, you will be unlikely to make the friends that you need to help improve your experience of the holidays. Trust is a glue in relationships. If there is no trust then there is no relationship.
With a friend you trust, you have a good sense of what he or she is like. You have a good sense of what you can tell them. You can tell that a friend accepts you for who you are, even when you show your fear and vulnerability, and even some stupidity.
Considering the concept of trust
Trust is many things. I would like to define it as a act based on belief informed by knowledge. To get trust, someone has observed you over time and has enough information to satisfy their doubt--you are going to be worthy enough to handle something valuable or accept their vulnerability. A math-like formula that seems to fit is
When you meet someone, you are going to see how they act first. As crudely depicted by the below grid-like diagram, there are a series of boundaries that people have to cross to get increasing levels of trust.
The new people you meet now all start out as strangers. Some of them will demonstrate that they are good and trustworthy, and some will NOT.
Here is an example how this grid idea works. If someone looks appealing enough to talk to, they have crossed the first boundary. If they are nice enough in that first conversation of "small-talk" or social nice-ness, they get to graduate to the next level. If in the third conversation, they seem to be accepting of a little more serious conversation, they move on. The moment they mock you for a belief or view or a preference, a fear of spiders, or that you are going to see a psychotherapist or psychologist, you have learned that the degree of trust you can give stops right there.
The following triangle diagram suggests how we order the relationships in our life.
You and I only have so much energy and time to have relationships. We are not going to be able to be friends with everyone. The majority of people that we know are not going to get the same amount of trust towards the top. For example, I am not going to trust everyone I know to watch my children--in fact, I trust very few with my children--I do not have the time and energy to get to know whether everyone is trustworthy.
Furthermore, not everyone has the same interests and attractions. If I meet someone who is really big into mountain climbing and I am not, and all they do is climb mountains, we are not going to have much of a relationship. If you do not have much in common, you may continue to have a distant friendship or occasional conversation, but you are not likely to be close.
I find it liberating that I do not have to try and be friends with everyone. It is also liberating to see that there are different kinds of friends and I do not have to trust everyone the same.
Family relationships fit in this triangle too. The reality is that some people in families will burn bridges between each other, and then rebuild bridges, and the burn bridges again. Family members can move from one level of trustworthiness to another and then back again.
Trust is a great experiment
As noted above, good friends make tolerating the holidays more possible than being alone, but if you have been an isolationist, you are going to choose whether you are going to try the experiment of trust.
Trust is still very much an individual choice. I can tell you how it happens and how it is formed, but I cannot get you over the hump of inact. Either you will do it or you will not do it.
I assume that if you have been surviving for a long time, and not just at Christmas, it has satisficed that you have not trusted. People who have been surviving are sadly tolerant of the discomfort they feel in isolation. It is not really contentment, but it is a perceived amount of less pain than if you were getting hurt in the worst way imaginable by other people.
Beginning to trust is daunting and scary. Many people beginning to trust as adults think in black and white terms that we have to trust everyone all at once. With this mindset, those survivors show that they are ambivalent about changing and trying to trust and be more social. The good news is that we do not have to (nor should we) trust everyone to the same degree.
If this has hit home for you today, this season of Advent and the holidays is an opportunity for you to trust in many ways. I would like to think as a human being, your trust means something to you. Your trust is valuable because it is not coming cheaply, whoever gets your trust will hopefully have earned it.
As I consider the core of the Advent and Christmas Story, I find that we are called to trust someone who came to earth in the most humble of ways to live a sinless life, and give up that life for the whole world that whoever believes will not perish but have ever lasting life. When we believe, it does not matter how much education we have, how much money we make, how many bad things we have done, or even how old we are--the trust of anyone who has the ability to trust is valid and valuable--whether it is in a new friend or a savior.
If you are not supposed to trust your family nor trust others, you are in a another paradox besides being stuck behind a wall of emotional isolation. . . . you are in a position of emotional abandonment where there is no one you can rely on to the degree of your need. Similarly to what I have observed in my previous posts, the Holiday Season can make things feel worse--the rest of the world seems happy during this time of year while you feel terrible because you are alone, you may not feel like you can trust anyone, and your family is no consolation to you.
We need other people
Our families never really meet all our needs. When your family is especially dysfunctional, they create some needs . . . or leave some needs unfulfilled.
I think that from culture to culture and society to society, people have needed relationships outside of their biological family to meet the emotional needs family cannot need. When you especially have a toxic, dysfunctional family, all the more it is likely you need friends . . . perhaps to be the surrogate family that your biological family cannot be.
However, if you cannot trust, you will be unlikely to make the friends that you need to help improve your experience of the holidays. Trust is a glue in relationships. If there is no trust then there is no relationship.
With a friend you trust, you have a good sense of what he or she is like. You have a good sense of what you can tell them. You can tell that a friend accepts you for who you are, even when you show your fear and vulnerability, and even some stupidity.
Considering the concept of trust
Trust is many things. I would like to define it as a act based on belief informed by knowledge. To get trust, someone has observed you over time and has enough information to satisfy their doubt--you are going to be worthy enough to handle something valuable or accept their vulnerability. A math-like formula that seems to fit is
TIME + BEHAVIOR= TRUST
When you meet someone, you are going to see how they act first. As crudely depicted by the below grid-like diagram, there are a series of boundaries that people have to cross to get increasing levels of trust.
NO TRUST--------------------------------------------------------------------------------MOST TRUST A STRANGER------------------------------------------------------------------------------A BEST FRIEND
The people you have met outside of your family all started out as strangers to you. They have demonstrated how trustworthy or how untrustworthy they are by their words and actions. 
The new people you meet now all start out as strangers. Some of them will demonstrate that they are good and trustworthy, and some will NOT.
Here is an example how this grid idea works. If someone looks appealing enough to talk to, they have crossed the first boundary. If they are nice enough in that first conversation of "small-talk" or social nice-ness, they get to graduate to the next level. If in the third conversation, they seem to be accepting of a little more serious conversation, they move on. The moment they mock you for a belief or view or a preference, a fear of spiders, or that you are going to see a psychotherapist or psychologist, you have learned that the degree of trust you can give stops right there.
The following triangle diagram suggests how we order the relationships in our life.
You and I only have so much energy and time to have relationships. We are not going to be able to be friends with everyone. The majority of people that we know are not going to get the same amount of trust towards the top. For example, I am not going to trust everyone I know to watch my children--in fact, I trust very few with my children--I do not have the time and energy to get to know whether everyone is trustworthy.
Furthermore, not everyone has the same interests and attractions. If I meet someone who is really big into mountain climbing and I am not, and all they do is climb mountains, we are not going to have much of a relationship. If you do not have much in common, you may continue to have a distant friendship or occasional conversation, but you are not likely to be close.
I find it liberating that I do not have to try and be friends with everyone. It is also liberating to see that there are different kinds of friends and I do not have to trust everyone the same.
Family relationships fit in this triangle too. The reality is that some people in families will burn bridges between each other, and then rebuild bridges, and the burn bridges again. Family members can move from one level of trustworthiness to another and then back again.
Trust is a great experiment
As noted above, good friends make tolerating the holidays more possible than being alone, but if you have been an isolationist, you are going to choose whether you are going to try the experiment of trust.
Trust is still very much an individual choice. I can tell you how it happens and how it is formed, but I cannot get you over the hump of inact. Either you will do it or you will not do it.
I assume that if you have been surviving for a long time, and not just at Christmas, it has satisficed that you have not trusted. People who have been surviving are sadly tolerant of the discomfort they feel in isolation. It is not really contentment, but it is a perceived amount of less pain than if you were getting hurt in the worst way imaginable by other people.
Beginning to trust is daunting and scary. Many people beginning to trust as adults think in black and white terms that we have to trust everyone all at once. With this mindset, those survivors show that they are ambivalent about changing and trying to trust and be more social. The good news is that we do not have to (nor should we) trust everyone to the same degree.
If this has hit home for you today, this season of Advent and the holidays is an opportunity for you to trust in many ways. I would like to think as a human being, your trust means something to you. Your trust is valuable because it is not coming cheaply, whoever gets your trust will hopefully have earned it.
As I consider the core of the Advent and Christmas Story, I find that we are called to trust someone who came to earth in the most humble of ways to live a sinless life, and give up that life for the whole world that whoever believes will not perish but have ever lasting life. When we believe, it does not matter how much education we have, how much money we make, how many bad things we have done, or even how old we are--the trust of anyone who has the ability to trust is valid and valuable--whether it is in a new friend or a savior.
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