Trust and Healing
(Nimue)
One of the things that has become apparent to me over the winter is the significance of self-trust for mental health. Learning to trust myself has been a key part of my healing process. After many years of suffering mental/emotional anguish I’m now in a much better state. A lot of mental health advice centres on the idea that the sufferer’s wonky thinking is the problem and they could be fixed if only they thought about things differently. This has never worked for me, because my mental health issues have been caused by things that have happened. I didn’t need to change my thinking, I needed to not be continually hurt.
Not being able to trust myself was a major contributor to the considerable depression and anxiety I used to suffer with. I did not get there by myself. Not being taken seriously was a major factor. Flagging things that were harming me and not being believed or having that acted on made me mistrust myself. If you are regularly treated as though you make no sense, or want unreasonable things it really undermines self confidence.
My instincts are good. My reasoning is solid. My feelings and needs are not especially outrageous. I know what I need. When I’m allowed to have what I need to function, I function pretty damn well. It’s taken me a while to feel able to say all of this, but I have learned to trust myself and to trust that I really do know what’s best for me.
We’re all very susceptible to how the people around us treat us. Much of this relates to how we all handle difference. If someone is reacting differently to how you would, that doesn’t make them wrong, or a drama-llama. It doesn’t make you wrong, either. There are reasons why things impact differently on different people. For example, men are often unable to see why women find some situations threatening – because they are safe situations for men. People who have experienced trauma are often responding in a way that is totally proportional to their traumatic experiences, even if it doesn’t make much sense to anyone else.
There’s a lot that we can all do to avoid needlessly invalidating each other. Simply accepting that other people experience things differently is a really good thing to take on. Allowing people to talk about their difficulties is good, too. Shutting people down because what they say makes you uncomfortable adds to the problems I’m describing. It’s a very common experience for people who are struggling to be told to shut up by people who are fine and do not want to hear anything troubling. If you don’t have the resources to respond to someone else’s struggles there are plenty of ways of handling that kindly. In my experience it’s not under-resourced people who tend to be cruel in this way. It’s people who expect everything they encounter to revolve around them.
Kindness gets a lot done. Saying things like ‘I am sorry you are having a hard time’ can be a powerful, supportive move. “I don’t really understand what’s going on here but I recognise that you are struggling. If there’s anything I can do to help, please tell me,” is a gift to someone. “Shut up, you’re making me uncomfortable and I’m sick of how miserable you are,” is going to make things worse for the other person. “That can’t be true,” is incredibly destructive.
Never under-estimate the power of small acts of kindness. A warm word, or just hearing and witnessing can make a lot of odds. Treating people as valid is something that enables healing. Telling people they shouldn’t feel the way they do can actually make a person less able to trust themselves, and consequently, more unwell.
Mental health problems exist in contexts. Healing depends on having the space to heal.
