Who Not To Trust, part 2

In yesterday's post, we discussed an article that talks about developing your "Trust Meter" so that you learn who to put full trust in - and who NOT TO.

I think we need to watch out for the opposite side of the coin as well: If someone has shown us love and been kind when we didn't deserve it, we shouldn't let our Aspie tendency toward paranoia convince us that this person won't continue to do so.

Many of us have been so hurt by most people that we scarcely trust anyone and are genuinely shocked when someone truly does something nice for us out of the kindness of their heart.

It is certainly a valid form of protection not to trust people when 99% of people have always meant you harm, but we shouldn't cut off the 1% that loves us, cares about us, and only wants whats best for us.

But sometimes that 1% does something that upsets us or hurts us, and we instantly put them in the "mean people" category with the 99% who have hurt us in the past. But we shouldn't do that at first- we should let them know what they've done to offend us and find out their perspective. Usually they didn't mean to hurt us. Sometimes they thought we'd actually appreciate what they did. Sometimes they just weren't thinking. And, sometimes, they were just having a bad, selfish day. Everybody has a bad, selfish day at least once in their lives.

Sometimes they are telling us what we need to hear but don't WANT to hear, only it's really for our own good.

By working with them to resolve the issue, we can continue to trust them, and not cut them off from bringing future joy into our life.