How to know if you can trust your own feelings?

[all4peace]

notright--I think your process is really amazing! What you describe of your process, and the detail you give in describing it, I would very much trust your process.

For the record, until recently most of the core relationships in my life have not been true, honest, trustworthy. They have created a massive level of anxiety and dissonance. My parents and ILs are not people who are able to say what they mean, or mean what they say. When I have tested boundaries with my friends for the first time in my 40s, and they responded with empathy and understanding, it literally made me cry every time from the sheer beauty and surprise of it. And it also helped me slowly build a new "normal".

I'm thankful you're trusting your feelings, and I think you're being wise. It is a lot of hard work. But when we finally get those deep and meaningful friendships because of all that work on learning who is safe to trust....it is so worth it.

[bloomie]

Like you said, behaviour is the criteria we can use to decide if the feeling is a response to the present or not. And I ask myself – do I treat people I like this way? Do other people, I feel comfortable with treat me this way? Since the answer is no in this case, I have decided that in this particular case, I will trust my feelings.

Sadly it is a lot of work and not the easy default like for some lucky folks. We can flounder and have to sift through so much smoke and mirrors thanks to our past.

notrightinthehead: it is a lot of work to sift through all of this and yet, here we are doing it! And I have to believe that there will come a time when it is a more cohesive and natural process for all of us.

Trustworthy, respectful people don't take advantage of us and speak harshly of us or to us or ransack our lives even when, in our vulnerabilities, we may have allowed it in the misguided name of "love" and "family" and "community". 

[all4peace]

I found this great article on the topic!

Use This 4 Step Technique to Decide if You Can Trust Your Feelings or Not
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/childhood-neglect/2019/08/use-this-4-step-technique-to-decide-if-you-can-trust-your-feelings-or-not/

[Wardog]

"I found this great article on the topic! "

This was an excellent article, very helpful.  I started "poking around" on the website, and instantly  recognized myself  in thee symptoms.  Thank you for posting this!

[all4peace]

Jonice Webb, the article author, has 2 good books on Childhood Emotional Neglect,  Running on Empty and Running on Empty No More

[notrightinthehead]

This is an excellent article. Thanks for posting the link All4peace. It encourages us to take our feelings seriously, feel them, name them, look at them from a detached angle, look for them in our past, judge their intensity.  All this activity will result in greater self awareness and give us time to decide wisely if to act on the feelings - or not.

[Summer Sun]

Norright, this is something I have wrestled with too.  Many good points have been raised already.  Given I have dropped the rope with an UNPD relative for this very reason of feeling unwelcome, I thought I'd share my experience.

If I conveyed to my relative that I felt unwelcome, I would hear something along the lines of I'm sorry you feel that way and a variation of why I should not.  I'd be Informed that I was too sensitive, or some other serving up of my inadequacy.  All intended  to doubt my own perception and to succumb control of my bad thinking to the UNPD.

I learned from my T to trust my intuition, but as well, he taught me about congruency - does one actions match their words?  Does saying you are welcome make it so?  No.  Do the behaviours and actions support what they are saying?  A warm embrace?  Engaging in conversation.  Making one comfortable, actions that feel considerate.

Anyone can have a bad day or be preoccupied.  Questions may reveal if this is the case.  is everything OK?  You seem distracted?  What I look for is the overall pattern of behaviour.  With me.  And, with others.  If the person is consistently withholding, indifferent, cool, lukewarm, non-responsive with me.  i have absorbed this behaviour in my relatives home and yet when the GC phoned while there, my goodness, night and day behaviours.  A gushing of excitement, engagement, lovey-doves you get the picture.  I put the effort in to visit in person, across six states and treated indifferently, and someone five states over phones and gets the goods for dialing a number.  The point is, for me, I could see the UNPD is capable of demonstrating warmth, care and attention.  It was simply being withheld from me.  Favouritism is a PD trait, and this particular UNPD likes to use it, and push-pull, intermittent reinforcement and invalidation tactics to keep one competing for position or a place. 

While my wounds from my upbringing and codependent traits can colour and cloud issues, in any event, I have had a lifetime and gut-full of we'll call them unwelcoming behaviours.  I now choose to not expose myself.  If others treat us they way they want to be treated, well I can be unwelcoming by closing the relational door and focusing or those relationships that feel safe, warm and welcoming to me. 

You got this in any event.

Summer Sun

[Pinky]

I go back and forth on this. I think my gut tells me right away to be careful of someone and I go against those feelings. I have been taught to not trust my gut and I currently am told with my husband that what I see such as visual cues from body language isn't accurate nor is what I feel.  I am a believer in actions speak louder than words. I'm trying to work on trusting my intuition and what I believe. It's been accurate the majority of the time after I get to know the person.

[StayWithMe]

I try to put myself in position in which I don't need to trust the person.  For example, in going out, I and a couple of friends agree that we don't buy someone else's ticket.  if they want to join me, they can buy their own ticket and meet me there.

I am careful about what I say and who that person is capable repeating it to.

For other situations like sharing an apartment, taking a trip or more involved situations would have to be looked upon on a case by case basis.

I see stuff online.  When someone contacts me directly with an offer, I still make the payment go through the platform even though that costs me the platform's commissions.  But I still want that third party protection.