Epiphany: Trust

[violetcheetah]

[Apologies for those of you who are driven insane by second-person references; I didn't set out to write it that way, it just kinda happened.]

I don't trust people. I also, simultaneously, trust completely. Every kindness you give to me, every tiny act of caring, I grab hungrily, sure that it's sincere. At the same moment, I am searching for

Comments

[harrock]

Interesting point about the term "cognitive dissonance". I am one who bandies that about a lot, generally to describe when someone seems to operate with two mutually exclusive ideas at once, and doesn't seem to notice or care about it. To overgeneralize, you're describing the horror of actually noticing it and having to deal. Perhaps I speak the truth when I tell people "If you actually held both of those alleged facts in your head at the same time, it would explode." :)

It seems like an epiphany is not certain to help, but it's probably a precondition for improvement. I find that being mindful of negative instincts as they're going off is really useful for blocking them; I'd like to say "I see that it's bad as it's happening, so I stop", but I think the reality is something more like "I get distracted by analysis, which slows everything down, and blunts the instinct".

[vettecat]

That seems like a useful realization. Has your jacket turned up in the meantime?