Frequently Asked Questions

 

12. How can I ever trust anyone again?

Please go back and review Question 11. For the two are related. One of the biggest losses, for victims who have experienced collusion following abuse, is the loss of community. That’s because the capacity for intimacy, based on trust, is diminished greatly.

Since victims, before abuse, often have a naïve or idealistic view of trust, your current trust level may not be as unhealthy as you consider it to be. Nor as unhealthy as many of your friends and acquaintances believe it to be. Remember that old friends and acquaintances are likely to judge you based on their own naivety and idealistic or magical thinking about other people. See the article Of Course You Trust for more insights.


This article, like all at www.takecourage.org is copyrighted by the author. Other writers, by copyright law, may use up to 300 words in other published works without asking permission, provided the author is given full credit. This also applies to the acronym "DIM Thinking," a term coined by Miller. You may download and/or distribute copies of any of these articles, for educational purposes, PROVIDED the pages are distributed without alteration, including this copyright statement.

www.takecourage.org by Dee Ann Miller, author of How Little We Knew: Collusion and Confusion with Sexual Misconduct and The Truth about Malarkey.