How to Heal Trust Issues or Manage Them If You Can’t Heal

If you are living a sedentary life, you have so much time getting mad at the people who betrayed you.

Written by Alexia Dominique Reyes

If someone stabbed you with a knife, which is metaphorically what betrayal is, will you heal if you get stabbed with another knife?

Spoiler alert: I haven’t healed my trust issues. However, I want to talk about how to heal trust issues because I have reached the point where I know it can be healed.

You see, if the pain is too fresh, you think you are hopeless. I’ve gone past that.

So, how to heal trust issues or manage them if you are not ready to trust again? I have some ideas:

Don’t be pressured to trust again. You can take slow steps.
If simply thinking about the people who betrayed you trigger the pain, cut them off.
Be productive so that you don’t have a lot of time to dwell on your pain.
Allow yourself to feel the pain, but know when you are just being dramatic.

Let’s begin.

When to Cut Off Family Relatives for Better Mental Health

How to Heal Trust Issues or Manage Them If You Can’t Heal

The reason why people develop trust issues varies, and there can be many reasons, which might come from different areas of their lives.

In my case, friends dumped me for someone more outgoing, I was taken advantage of at work several times, I met clients who never paid, and I was once in an abusive situationship.

If you do what is expected of a friend or a partner to a person who is not a friend or a partner, you may be in a situationship. Cleveland Clinic shares clearer signs you are in one.

As a result, I don’t get attached to friends and can cut them off, I became choosy when it comes to people I will work with, and my desire not to get married intensified (now, my problem is how I can have children without a man).

My father’s cheating didn’t have any negative impact on my perception of relationships, but it might be partly why I would rather be single. Subconsciously.

I also received sexual advances from creepy men growing up, especially in college when I was taking public transportation almost every day and walking alone at night. It might be why I am aloof around men.

And the list goes on.

I don’t know why you have trust issues, but I don’t need to know to understand what it does to you: There are things you can’t do because you are scared.

And it is okay to be scared. As I said in my post about overcoming fears: You don’t need to overcome all of your fears.

But of course, some fears can be overcome, and you may want to work on that if it leads to a better life.

You can take your time. It is not easy to heal trust issues, especially if they have gone too deep.

Now, let us talk about how to heal trust issues or manage them if you can’t heal.

1. Don’t be pressured to trust again. You can take slow steps.

I received a message on Behance that still makes me angry whenever I reread it: “Girl, learn to take risks. Having doubts and fears won’t open doors for you.”

She said that because I refused to work with her — or him, because I had a feeling that it was a dummy account, and the person behind it was someone who seemed to have so much anger for me.

A 2023 study revealed that people are more likely to behave toxically when they are anonymous because they can’t be held accountable for their actions. No one knows they did it, unless someone thoroughly investigates.

And it might be that someone who gave me the trust issues that were partly the reason why I refused the offer.

She was right, though. We should “learn to take risks” because we will not get to where we want to go if we are too scared to even take the first step.

But is it that easy? That if we take risks, the trust issues will magically disappear?

Is that really the solution? Forcing ourselves to face our fears when the wound is still open?

If someone stabbed you with a knife, which is metaphorically what betrayal is, will you heal if you get stabbed with another knife?

No. Things will get worse.

So, if there is an insensitive someone in your life who forces you to heal as quickly as now, don’t mind them. Or cut them off if they are unimportant.

2. If simply thinking about the people who betrayed you trigger the pain, cut them off.

Of course, like many of us, I forgive but I find it hard to forget. There are people from over 5 years ago I still think of and still get on my nerves.

Those people I would rather not talk to ever again, but I doubt they will want to talk to me again because of the guilt they feel about what they did.

I still get mad at some, and I think people in this category are in a better position than those who trigger my pain.

According to mindbodygreen, if you don’t want to be triggered, heal the triggers. Determine the origin, and then face it rather than avoid it even though it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Anger can be resolved by sincerely apologizing for what they did and doing things to fix the damages. But it is hard to even look at those who trigger the pain, so what more to talk with them?

Their message will not be read because once you see that they are the sender, it will automatically go to the trash.

If they try to call you, your phone will not ring because you have blocked their number. *toot toot toot*

If they ask you to meet somewhere so they can apologize properly in person, well, you will not even know because you’ve thrown their message into the trash bin.

If you do this, know that it is okay to ignore them even if you have forgiven them. I support you because I do this, too.

3. Be productive so that you don’t have a lot of time to dwell on your pain.

Sometimes, whenever I observe my surroundings, I wonder about the emotional state of those who seem happy.

Are they pretending to be happy? I don’t think so.

I am often alone, mostly at home, sometimes outside. And there was a time when I realized I am sad only at night when the world is quiet, and I am in bed.

If I am outside and have errands to run, or even when I am at home but the sun is shining brightly, I don’t even think about my pain.

I am, as a matter of fact, feeling happy and bubbly.

Maybe the sun really puts us in a good mood, or maybe socializing is really one of people’s needs to live healthily.

In the past, I rarely went out. I figured that may be the reason why it took me so long to heal. I needed to move more.

Now, I walk in the morning, work strictly from morning to afternoon (unless I’m really busy), avoid pulling an all-nighter, and embrace digital minimalism.

That kind of lifestyle allows me to be present and productive, and more knowledgeable, too.

I read lots of books on personal development, learn new languages and skills, produce more content, and then live in the present rather than the past and feel less sad.

If you are living a sedentary life, you have so much time getting mad at the people who betrayed you. That is bad for healing.

Being sedentary is comfortable, but it has negative health effects. Medical News Today shares the consequences of a sedentary lifestyle.

And your too much social media use is making the progress slower.

This is a good time to evaluate how you live your life. You don’t need to forget what they did, but you also must not forget what you need to do.

4. Allow yourself to feel the pain, but know when you are just being dramatic.

Feeling the pain is part of healing.

If you suppress it or pretend that it is not there, there will come a time when you need to face it whether you like it or not, and it may overcome you.

Despite that, it is important to know when your pain-dwelling moments have already become you enjoying drama.

You may not have the tendency to do this, but I do — and maybe others can relate.

Psychology Today says that being dramatic is a behavior that must be changed. Noted!

I am dramatic, and I have those moments where I pull out past hurts just so I can cry or be mad just because.

Actually, when I was a child, I cried over an imagined hurt because I was pretending to be an actress. My brothers know that.

I remember, one time, my mom heard me crying in the bathroom. She asked my brothers why I was crying, and then they said I was just acting.

Some pain takes so long to heal.

But some have already healed, and you bring it back for reasons such as wanting to be comforted or to continue being angry at someone for some reason.

Or maybe you are overly dramatic like me? Only you can answer that.