In Me I Trust

      We had a wonderful Prosumer meeting on self-responsibility and hopefully you attended one of the discussions. I learned as we were discussing that many of us, who want to be responsible, have been conditioned to not trust what our heads say. From the beginning of my treatment, I was told not to trust my thoughts; not to trust my instincts and not to trust my impulses. I was told my head did not work like “normal” people. I needed to always assume that what my head was telling me was not correct. 

      With that type of conditioning, how can a person start to believe in themselves and to trust their perceptions? How does a person begin to take responsibility of their life when this message goes against everything we have been told? How does a person find recovery without first learning to trust themselves?

       We could have spent a whole other Prosumer meeting just talking about trust. As I explored this within myself, I realized trust came hard for me. So conditioned to not trusting myself, I doubted everything I did. I doubted everything I thought. I doubted even everything I heard. I had no confidence in me or my thought process. Some people took advantage of this and stole from me saying I had said one thing when I hadn’t and then said, “Well you know with your illness, you just don’t remember.”

     Years later I asked them about this, and they admitted they had taken advantage of me because they could. I feel like there are many of us who are victims of people who take advantage of our self doubt. I told the person that besides stealing from me, they set me back further from finding recovery because it made me question my reality and thought there was something wrong with me. 

      I slowly began to trust myself by checking things out with other people. Did you hear that? Did that sound odd to you? I was thinking _____, what do you think? All of these helped me to begin trusting my instincts and my thought processes. I did discover that when explaining something, I often start in the middle. So often you will hear me ask, “Did that make sense?” just to ensure that I am being clear. 

      I think of one of the times when I really realized trust was an issue was during a really busy time and I was supposed to be at the Capitol to testify. As I left for the Capitol and was sitting in Austin traffic, I had the thought, “Did I lock my door?’ As I thought about it more, I thought, “Did I even close my door?” For the life of me, I could not remember. I thought about my door being open and people coming in and taking all my stuff and began breathing more heavily. I had to know. I got out of the traffic and headed home to check my door. I got back to my apartment and the door was closed and it was locked. I unlocked it and threw away some trash and got back in my car to get to the Capitol. I hadn’t even gotten out of the parking lot when I had the thought again, “Did I lock the door? Did I close the door this time?” I had to turn around to go check. 

      For a period of about six months, this plagued me. I doubted myself every time I left my apartment. Because of this doubt, I was distracted from doing my work. I was distracted driving. Anna helped me to start doing something different. When I closed and locked the door, then I knocked on it. That worked sometimes, but doubt still crept in. So, then I took to calling her whenever I would leave saying “The door is closed and locked”. That helped a lot and eventually I could just text her that message. Eventually, I began to trust myself again and no longer need to do these actions. This did show me how easily we can fall into not trusting ourselves or our actions. Even today if I think, “Did I____?” I know I can slip back down that path of not trusting me or my head. If you do not have an Anna, text or call yourself. This just gives your head confirmation of the actions you took.

      Trusting yourself is not easy and if you have been in the system a while, this can be even more difficult. I know there are people who will read this and say, “Yeah but when I am thinking I am done with life, I truly am not thinking well and should not trust my thoughts.” That is a valid argument. However, consider if you trusted yourself to make it though whatever is happening to you that would have you think that you are done with life, then you would not have your head going back to an old coping strategy which, as maladaptive as it may be, helped you survive. Because we don’t trust ourselves to survive again, we bring back those old ways of thinking. Consider, it is not that your head is not thinking well, it could be that you don’t trust yourselves to have the resilience to get through what is happening in the moment. 

      Ok, Janet, but what about when my head is saying things like people are following me or some of the other really weird things, I think? Truly you are not saying I am thinking right in those instances. If I am having those weird thoughts or realize this might not be the way other people would interpret what I am experiencing, then I would seek out a trusted person who I could bounce those thoughts around with. Trusting yourself to take care of you even when you are concerned, I believe, would have you not go off the rails. We all have weird thoughts and only when we get caught in doubting ourselves can those thoughts take over and send our life spiraling out of control. Trust yourself and when you have a doubt, check it out. Do some reality checking with a trusted person. Trust yourself to be the person you were born to be. Trust in your ability to make life better for other people, for the community and for the world. For when we trust in us, we develop that sense of being worthy of respect and living with integrity. Trust is the basis for all those things people in recovery strive for. Developing that sense of trust will have you begin a journey of discovery. You may find life going better than you ever thought possible. So today, say “In me, I trust!” then have your life align with this philosophy. Your life will thank you.