My answer is Yes, and No! Trusting people suddenly becomes so much harder, near impossible at times, it takes so much longer to build trust that it did before. But it is possible to build a relationship or friendship and to build on the foundations of trust, albeit very slowly at first, baby steps, I've talked about those a lot in this blog!
What is even harder than learning to trust others though, is learning to trust yourself again. When your head is telling you that all those bad decisions you made in the past caused the trauma you experienced, you suddenly find yourself questioning every decision you make, right down to the clothes you wear and the way you act. Everything becomes a shaky mess because you no can no longer trust the decisions you are making for yourself.
It doesn't help matters when you find yourself once again in a situation you have no control over, when you realise one night that you are in a dark room and the memories of how you got to be there are very fuzzy, when the last thing you remember is being a bit drunk and falling down some stairs in a club and twisting your ankle. When you suddenly realise that the reason you cannot move is because someone is on top of you but you're not sure who and that as that person jumps up and mutters that there's someone coming and you suddenly recognise the voice but by then he's gone, yet somehow you still cannot make your body move, in fact everything is so fuzzy and surreal it feels like your just dreaming instead.
It's only when you wake the following morning in that persons house, when you realise that they had sex with you, when you realise you have no idea if you even consented to this or if they actually used any protection, when you're sat there wondering if its actually rape if you can't remember what happened or if it was simply a drunken mistake?
I've since answered some of these questions myself although the protection one I'll probably never know the answer to despite stupidly never getting checked afterwards for even the morning after pill. I've also come to the conclusion that my drink was spiked that night, the few drinks I'd had alone could not cause the type of memory loss or inability to move that I'd experienced that night.
It's so easy to blame yourself for these things, I shouldn't have drank, I shouldn't have worn a skirt, the list could go on and on, but at some point in your life you have to understand that it's not your fault and you weren't to blame for what happened.
Luckily for me I met my husband shortly after that experience, unfortunately at the time I was in yet another destructive relationship where I was simply allowing myself to be used for sex, I mean, isn't that what a relationship is about anyway? My every experience had pointed to this already and I'd started to believe it.
Except Luca and I became friends for a few months whilst I was in this so called relationship, and as Luca and I got closer as friends and I started to feel something more for him, I realised I had to get out of the situation I was in already if I wanted anything to happen between us.
Luca and I took things slowly, I told him what had happened in the past, and up until that moment I'd never had anyone respect my decisions, if I said no, it meant no, and trust me when I tell you I tried that out more than once, not because I was scared, simply because I was testing the boundaries, I was testing him, I needed to know that he would listen to me and respect me, only then would I be able to trust him.
The trust came slowly, maybe that's why it became such a strong foundation, because it was built slowly, with love and care, it wasn't thrown together carelessly.
It was a lot longer before I was able to finally trust myself, I didn't realise that in order to make that step I needed to let go of the guilt and the blame that I was carrying with me, but I guess I'll have to leave that part of my story for another blog post!
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