Can't trust people anymore

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@TopDeck wrote:

To put a long story short, I put my complete trust in a group of friends I knew for years and they all wiped me.

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I'm sorry to hear this, @TopDeck . I can understand you'd have trouble trusting people.

I'm sorry about your fears too, and the panic attacks. I can hear you're feeling really depressed and discouraged...do you have any professional support? Like meds, a psychologist /psychiatrist, a trusted GP?

Sending good wishes...

I'm in the same situation, @TopDeck. I have no advice to offer. I'm just finding my way through a betrayal of trust and similar friendship breakdowns too. The more trustworthy people in the real world seem, the more suspicious I am of them. It seems there's always someone ready to take advantage of our vulnerability. And paying for services is the only way I can get social interaction.

I just wish I knew what to do, too. Just take a step back and give it time to let the dust settle, I guess.

Take care and sending best wishes. I hope today is a good one for you.

hi @TopDeck I can relate with trust issues but unfortunetly my biggest trust issues have come from some family, its so hard when those closest to you are the ones that hurt you or misunderstand and leave you in a situation of having to make it on your own,I do hope you find at least one person you can turn to for support and trust but as others have said on the post maybe wait for the dust to settle unfortunetly these things do take time

Thanks so much for bringing up this topic. What lonely times we live in. Having you peeps around does build some comfort. I've also had a couple of tough runs of it.

I know that none of us have the answers but maybe if we put our pieces together we might come up with something that'll answer good enough.

My pieces of the answer, lately, look like this:

- Broadening or not pre-loading expectations. i.e; allowing for the possibility of people surprising me and at the same time allowing for the possibility of people being, at times woefully, predictable.

- Instead of tyring to be everything to everyone. I'm taking more time to positively enforce when someone says or does something meaningful. Allowing for growth as a group as opposed to within a group.

- Interaction outside of the thralls of commercialism. @TopDeck , that observation about the client relationship as a stop-gap for a true village feeling, really challenged me. Made me desperate for some sort of non-exploitative human interaction. Probably why I'm here right now. Not many people "working angles" over here. Most of us are here simply to be with each other and belong. Why can't the world be more like that? I dunno? Maybe it can. Maybe it is. Maybe it just has to seed and grow in place like this.

(maybe I just want to be optimistic sometimes without being viewed as a troublemaker, for that matter. Whoah! Where did that come from. Oh dear, my poor ego keeps growing and shrinking these days.)

P.S. @TopDeck - as for "they can do better".......forget it. Remember - you're as good and desirable as a life companion as the next person. Will we ever find a life companion? Who knows. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

As for not fitting in to society - me too!! Never have, except when young when I took a subordinate role. It made them feel comfortable to have someone to look down on and 'tolerate', because that made them feel important.

Do you think we could be expecting too much from the goodness of people or is it reasonable to expect to be respected? Valued? Wanted as a fellow traveller?

Take care.

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@Historylover wrote:

Do you think we could be expecting too much from the goodness of people or is it reasonable to expect to be respected? Valued? Wanted as a fellow traveller?

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We live in a narcissistic society where the average person is too enveloped in themselves. We've been fed this through social media; you have to love yourself and prioritize yourself before anyone else. That is narcissism and it's that bad that the rate of narcissism in college students in America is actually on par with its obesity rate. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly acceptable to take care of yourself but when you start this line of thinking you empathize with people less and less. It's one of many reasons why mental illness is so rampant. Ultimately it's leading people to feel more and more alone.

Personally, I hate modern (esp. Australian) society. There is no value placed on the important things - the things I value anyway.

This will be way beyond the import of your post, @TopDeck - but it seems to me that everyone thinks that progress is the same as change. That is, that if you discard old values, old ways of doing things, you are making progress because that is change - and apparently, we all have to adapt to change.

Stay well. Sending best wishes.