Trust
coppertarantula asked some questions on his journal.
What is trust? Can it be given, or does it have to be earned? What happens to trust when it has been broken, can it be earned back? Can you trust a person in some ways and not others?
It's a good question to explore. I've not had much sleep lately, so this is the rambling of a Tired!Alli, but here are my initial thoughts:
I believe that you can both give trust or make people earn it - it depends on what kind of person that you are and what kind of trust it is.
Trust is like skin. You cover it around those who may hurt you, strangers and dangerous people. With friends, you can relax a little and show them who you really are, bare yourself to them as if to say, "This is a gift that I give you, or a boon that you have earned. I feel safe enough around you to expose myself to injury, but I know that you wouldn't do that to me. We can disarm around each other, and be comfortable letting down our guard."
Breaking trust, to me, is a lot like receiving an epidermal injury. I think that you don't so much earn trust back, it is more like the trust heals over time, depending on the severity of the wound. Sometimes it results in a permanent scar, other times it's just a shallow scrape that heals quickly. There's nothing you can do to speed the healing, but you can impede it by treating the "wound" incorrectly. Trust that's repeatedly abused can result in an "emotional callous." And sometimes you don't know how deep the wound is until it starts healing.
Some people are so scared of having their trust broken that they cover it all the time, which protects them from getting cut from anyone. BUT when they actually let someone inside that protective covering and get hurt anyway, it is even more painful, like having that gift thrown in your face.
I think that you can trust people differently. Just as you would show some people just your hands feet and face, and others you would feel comfortable going completely naked, and some you would walk with but wouldn't ever touch them, so too you can trust people different amounts, or with different aspects of yourself.
-A.
What is trust? Can it be given, or does it have to be earned? What happens to trust when it has been broken, can it be earned back? Can you trust a person in some ways and not others?
It's a good question to explore. I've not had much sleep lately, so this is the rambling of a Tired!Alli, but here are my initial thoughts:
I believe that you can both give trust or make people earn it - it depends on what kind of person that you are and what kind of trust it is.
Trust is like skin. You cover it around those who may hurt you, strangers and dangerous people. With friends, you can relax a little and show them who you really are, bare yourself to them as if to say, "This is a gift that I give you, or a boon that you have earned. I feel safe enough around you to expose myself to injury, but I know that you wouldn't do that to me. We can disarm around each other, and be comfortable letting down our guard."
Breaking trust, to me, is a lot like receiving an epidermal injury. I think that you don't so much earn trust back, it is more like the trust heals over time, depending on the severity of the wound. Sometimes it results in a permanent scar, other times it's just a shallow scrape that heals quickly. There's nothing you can do to speed the healing, but you can impede it by treating the "wound" incorrectly. Trust that's repeatedly abused can result in an "emotional callous." And sometimes you don't know how deep the wound is until it starts healing.
Some people are so scared of having their trust broken that they cover it all the time, which protects them from getting cut from anyone. BUT when they actually let someone inside that protective covering and get hurt anyway, it is even more painful, like having that gift thrown in your face.
I think that you can trust people differently. Just as you would show some people just your hands feet and face, and others you would feel comfortable going completely naked, and some you would walk with but wouldn't ever touch them, so too you can trust people different amounts, or with different aspects of yourself.
-A.