Trust No One

Remember that was one of the slogans from The X-Files? “Trust no one.”

Apparently, it’s one of my “Core Beliefs”. My Cognative Thinking Therapy Group is over now and the last two weeks was about “Core Beliefs”. My understanding is that these are the inner beliefs that we have that shape our lives and how we deal with ourselves, others, and the world. In fact, that is how they are broken down — beliefs about ourselves, beliefs about others, and beliefs about the world.

I’m still struggling with a lot of what the book Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think dealt with, especially with how to figure out your own “hot thoughts” and how to go on to write evidence that supports and doesn’t support those “hot thoughts” and then develop a “balanced thought” from that. Fortunately, I am still in private therapy and can still work with my shrink on that and I’m signing up for an extended therapy group to keep working on these things.

However, back to the whole “Core Belief” concept. The idea is that at the center of all of these “automatic thoughts” and “hot thoughts” and such are these “Core Beliefs” that are basically what we use to shape how we will deal with everything.

Last night, I worked with my shrink on my “Core Beliefs” about “Others”, something I had trouble doing in the workbook on my own.

We know that I’m paranoid. I joke about it all the time. But how paranoid am I? Does it stem from a “Core Belief?”

Apparently so. The fact is that my “Core Belief” about “Others” is that “Others” will always hurt you in the end. Many of the things I do, I do to keep that from happening — for example, by keeping my house a mess for so long, I have been purposely keeping people, even neighbors, from entering my space and therefore my life, because once they enter my space and my life, they begin judging me and they learn I’m not perfect and once they learn you aren’t perfect, you can never be perfect again. Bad things can happen once people enter your space, whether they do it on purpose or not.

And while I’ve suspected that this is something I’ve believed for some time, saying it outloud to someone else was strange and it made it real, like admitting you’re a food addict or that you have a drinking problem. I have a trust problem. I don’t trust other people. I expect them to hurt me and betray me. I look for it and I watch for it and I wait for it and I see it happening even when it isn’t. It’s my perception of the world.

So, now my “assignment” is to start a physical list somewhere of things that contradict this belief, of times when people don’t hurt me, don’t betray me, etc.

Coincidentally, I tried an experiment last week, were I confronted “the EvilGM” (who isn’t so evil, by the way) about some (mis)perceptions I was having about something since the big “blow up” a few months ago. I told her that I know I have problems seeing the world rather off and so I’m trying to approach things differently from now on and rather than assume things, I’m trying to approach the people involved and ask straight out to find out what’s true rather than let my perceptions fester, especially if I’m wrong. She was actually offended at first that I thought the things I did, but I think by the end of the conversation, she understood what I was trying to do and I told her that from now on rather than wait, I was going to come straight to her. So we’ll see how that goes.

The coincidental part is that I believed that she and N2 were purposely excluding me from things out of spite from the blow up and the way that things had happened since then and certain things had been said since then, they fed that perception and my “Core Belief”. It turns out that I was missing pieces of the Big Picture and if I had actually had those pieces I would have actually had a different perception of things.

So, you might say that I am learning from all of this. It’s just taking time.

tags: wellness, therapy, anxiety, depression

9 comments

1. on May 26, 2006 at 9:55 am

   Tamara said:

   Wow, that sounds like a very valuable process. My counselor is starting to feel less than helpful, as we’ve been seeing him for two years and it’s almost more like a social call than anything else. I wonder how I could find someone to help me work through that book. I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be very successful at it on my own.

   Thanks for sharing this. It means a lot to me to read this today.

2. on May 26, 2006 at 10:24 am

   n. mallory said:

   That’s how my old therapist got. You have to feel like you’re getting somewhere, otherwise it’s just a waste of your time, I think. I do think it’s a good book. I want to keep working at it because obviously the stuff in it works, but it’s just not “clicking” mentally with me. I can understand the examples, but I can’t seem to always apply it to my situations.

   The trick, the two group leaders said is to practice every day and I don’t. I should.

   I think it was very important for me to admit to myself and someone else out loud that I really don’t trust people, even my friends. Looking back, even my best friends have betrayed me and betrayed me big, so I can see where I would have developed that belief, but I guess now I need to find a balance. I need to be able to trust people enough to let them into my life without endangering myself to real threats.

3. on May 26, 2006 at 10:28 am

   Tamara said:

   I am not very good at practicing anything every day. I’ve finally gotten fairly routine with my workouts, but anything else — writing, practicing guitar, meditating, etc. — I still struggle to stick to.

   I hope you can find a balance. I had abandonment issues due to my birth father leaving when I was four and being very unreliable, including disappearing completely for years at a time and otherwise calling hours after he was due to pick me up to cancel our plans, etc. It has played out in strange ways, including my own abandonment of certain relationships with little warning. We are complex creatures.

4. on May 26, 2006 at 10:43 am

   n. mallory said:

   I’m having problems with that whole “daily routine” thing too. Having a puppy does not help as I imagine it’s like having a newborn in a sense. I seem to be always cleaning up some mess, picking up toys, washing towels from his crate, washing sheets from my bed, playing with the puppy, placating the abandoned cats… I don’t seem to have time to do the other 100 things that also need to be done around the house plus the things I want to do plus placate the depression.

   That was something the shrink and I discussed last night too. The last few days I’ve really just wanted to go home and go to bed and sleep. I don’t necessarily know if that’s the depression, but it probably is, but there’s no point in doing that because by the time I get settled in to bed, I’d have to come back downstairs to take out Pugly for a piddle and I can’t put my PJs on because I still have to take Pugly out for a poo-poo and I might as well get used to staying downstairs and doing things because Pugly wants attention. My shrink, of course, is thrilled with the puppy.

5. on May 26, 2006 at 10:47 am

   Tamara said:

   I know, there have been moments when I’ve regretted getting the kittens, because they’re so much higher maintenance and into everything than our older cat. I guess that’s a good indication of whether I should have a baby, something we have been trying to decide because I’m 38 now, but we just can’t seem to make up our minds. Which I suppose says something in and of itself.

   But the companionship is good for you, I’m sure. And it will get easier, I would think, as the Pug grows up.

   How is the place since you had the organizer person in? Our place is still in chaos, but can’t seem to motivate myself to do anything about it. Gah.

6. on May 26, 2006 at 10:54 am

   n. mallory said:

   Well, I’m glad I’ve been purging now that I have the puppy because it would have been so much worse. If I’m this stressed out over this mess… Oy.

   Really, I could probably get everything cleaned up this evening, except the laundry, if I set my mind to it and didn’t play on the computer or watch any of the Cold Case Files on A&E or doze on the sofa. I couldn’t have said that before.

   I like feeling like everything has a place where it belongs and I have just the right amount of stuff. Totally worth it. And it’ll be nice to come home to a clean apartment when I come back from England in July.

7. on May 26, 2006 at 10:58 am

   Tamara said:

   That will be so nice — one of my pet peeves about the current situation is that it gets so much worse when we’re preparing to travel, and then we have to come back to that mess at the end of our trip when we’re already in let-down mode. Ugh.

   I really need to get serious about organizing. And get the hub serious too. It’s so overwhelming, but I think if we team up and set aside even an hour a day on weekends, we should be able to make progress.

   Thanks for “chatting”

8. on May 26, 2006 at 12:04 pm

   n. mallory said:

   NP…and I think it does help if you have a “team” to do the organizing. Not only does it go faster but you can egg each other on — “do we really need this?” “when did we really use this last?” “are you ever really going to read this book again?”

9. on May 26, 2006 at 2:04 pm

   Tamara said:

   I agree wholeheartedly!

   Did you donate your books, sell them, or what? I’ve got a bunch of boxes ready to donate to the library, but I’m wondering if I should swing them by the used book store first. I could use the (meager) cash! And I still have way too many books. Probably need to purge again and I haven’t even gotten the previous round out of the house yet!

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