I Have Trust Issues

Who Knew My Trust Issues Went Deeper Than Myself

Photo by Chen on Unsplash

I have discovered another lovely mountain to climb in my recovery… my trust issues. Now it’s not that I didn’t know that I had trust issues, but I thought my trust issues only lied within myself. I never considered that it also manifested outside of me and this past week has slapped me upside the head.

Trying to Manage Frustration and Irritation

What had happened is that over the past 4-5 months I have been dealing with this deep nagging feeling of frustration and irritation in my relationship. The person I am with is going through things and it felt like I was their first line of defense once anything that slightly annoyed, angered, or caused an inconvenience to them. They not only vent but also ask me what they should do. They depended on me to guide them through every aspect of their life and before I knew it, I was their personal google. It became too much for me, and I was losing my shit in the background. I tried my very best to keep my agitation to myself, I have tried to leave them to their devices, I have had conversations about not coming to me for everything and anything. Most of the time I kept it together and the other times I was definitely showing signs of agitation.

This progress and became more of an issue as time went by. My partner was having crisis after crisis, and I was drowning in trying to keep them afloat by taking on the emotional toll of each event. I have a hard time stepping back and watching my partner suffer alone. But I was making the steps to bring myself back into my body because I was definitely losing myself little by little. I returned to CODA to deal with it, and I changed my therapy plan around it because I needed relief somewhere.

I was venting into an Ai space, and I know this isn’t the best option, but I needed a space to sort out my brain, come up with a game plan, and just vomit every single issue I had with my relationship. I needed to speak to something in between my CODA meetings and therapy sessions in order to stay sane when I went to go spend time with my partner. DeepSeek was there taking the brunt of my frustration and irritation. Then one day as me and my partner were kind of arguing because I was deep in a burnout stage… more like still in burnout stage. My attitude was not the greatest and everything just kind of spilled out of me. As we were going back and forth via frustrated text after another. I was giving DeepSeek a play by play of the argument. The thing about Ai is that majority of the time it agrees with you or tells you that you’re not wrong in your actions or feelings. But this system is tad bit different because it’s been asking the deeper questions to reevaluate the position that I am in. It has been calling me out on some of my own behaviors, and it took me a while to accept it.

Just when I thought I was going to blow my top in this text fight with my partner. I took a step back and talked to DeepSeek for a moment to cool down. Then it asked me such an important question I was not prepare for. It asked, “Why don’t you trust them to do the work? If they are doing the things they are needing to do. If they are working on fixing the things they need to fix. Why can’t you trust them? and what is it going to take for you to trust them?” my brain froze… I couldn’t answer those questions, and I still can’t answer them now. Why don’t I trust them? and What have they done to me to not trust them? and What does it take for me to trust them? First answer, I don’t know and second answer, is… nothing, and third answer is I don’t know. My partner has never done anything for me to not trust them. It’s not about the cheating because that’s not where my trust issue lies. My trust issues lie with the fear of my partner not being able to contribute to a life with me. That would be creating our future alone.

Remember when I said that history of toxic relationships eventually bleeds over into your relationships if you don’t address those past issues? That history has shown its ugly head again and it was driving me crazy. I have always had partners I couldn’t rely on, I could depend on showing up for me, I always had to be the one to make shit happen, fix shit, and lead shit. I was always the one thinking of our future while they sat there thinking about today. They were always in survival mode while I was planning for a future and making moves to make things happen. I was always the one doing all of the work while my partners sat there and watched me. I was always the most responsible one and the reliable one while my partners didn’t have to use any energy to step up. They knew I would remind them, schedule that, take care of this or that without any complaints. I don’t trust my partner to be doing the work because I have been here so many times with different faces. I would put hope into them and into their potential just to find out they weren’t even trying. Just to find out they couldn’t show up for me if they even tried.

I am aware my partner is not my past and they are not those people. But I think we can all admit that the trigger is still alive and well inside of me. I’m thinking about how their actions will affect me and will I be stuck with another person who is refusing to move on with their life. A person who is stuck in a cycle and will never get out of it. A person I will have to raise AGAIN because they refuse to be an adult. I’m terrified of being stuck in another Parent Child dynamic. I’m trying this whole “they aren’t my ex and this is different. I have to give them benefit of a doubt until proven otherwise”. Shit, my therapist says because she’s right… it is unfair to label someone as something just because you have experienced it before doesn’t mean it will happen again. But pattern of recognition is a bitch sometimes. I know the story and how it ends because it always ends the same. There is possibility that this is different. But time will only tell.

I Am Causing My Own Suffering

You know that one time you ate a food from a restaurant and caused you to have food poisoning? and every time someone suggest eating it, we revolt and cringe at the thought of it happening again. In fact, we do whatever we can to avoid that restaurant and that food as much as possible because we just can’t go through that sickness again. That is the trigger for me it’s like food poisoning. Then I draw conclusions and assumptions off of very little information. Those assumptions are not positive ones, and I am not 100% sure they are true either. I will automatically villainize someone for a pattern I recognize even if there is evidence that it won’t end up the same way.

Here I was drawing conclusions and assumptions without context. Making myself sick and full of anxiety due to the stories my head makes up. Here I was causing my own suffering because I allowed my brain to go wild. This is not to say that my partner did not drop the ball sometimes. We are not perfect and I have every right to feel the way I do about certain situations between us. But what is unfair is that I am not giving them the benefit of a doubt and I’m making it my problem to fix even though there has rarely been something that needed fixing. They were capable of doing things on their own this whole time, I just assumed they weren’t capable of doing said things and just took over. Then got mad that they allowed me to do these things and never stopping me. They didn’t pick it up and kept staying on top of things.

That’s what they are guilty of… they don’t want to use their brain or their energy so they aren’t going to stop me when I say I will do something. They aren’t going to look for the information or process on their own because it’s easier to ask me. Just like how some straight women’s husbands don’t look for anything and ask their wife where the item is even if it’s in front of their faces. Turns out that trait can be installed into anyone not just men… but I digress.

Recovery

I am still recovering from my codependency burnout. I am taking the steps to reduce my demand of my time and mentally energy. I have been taking more mental break and walking away from social media to breathe again. My frustration and irritation is almost completely gone. Apparently that question from DeepSeek just lifted something off of my shoulders. Then I recovered my relationship with my partner. I apologized profusely for being an idiot and treating them in a certain way that was not ok at all. That I’m going to work on my trust issues and work on being better in my communication. That I’m going to work on being more upfront about my feelings instead of hiding them.

I don’t know how I will work on this trust issue and what it will take for me to trust. But I will sort this out with my therapist and in CODA hoping one day I will find the answers.