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How to Continue Trusting Friends If You Were Betrayed Once?
Written by Alex Bobrova, 11c

  All people are different. Some of us retain/preserve childish naivety and openness for the whole life, some remain wary in communication, and there can also be ones who prefer not to trust anyone. Of course, everybody wants to save their inner world and that`s right. But don`t shut yourself from everyone, especially if you have gone through betrayal. It might seem hard to learn to trust people again, but if you want to feel wanted and loved again, you must step over yourself. To begin with let`s try to understand what trust means. Trust is a positive relationship between people, that allows us to stay sure in someone`s honesty, decency, integrity and loyalty. Trust can be blind or reasonable. Reasonable trust does not occur at once, for example, in such cases, when you are just like somebody and want to trust him, it matures slowly. Such trust must be earned by one’s actions, one’s devotion for a certain time and sometimes by sacrifices. Reasonable trust is the kind of trust you must bring up in yourself to have healthy relationship.

However, the reason for our trust or mistrust of others lies in self-doubt and past. A person believes that their new friends can be mean to him that they can betray and deceive him. It turns out that he considers himself worthy of not a good, but a bad attitude to himself. Especially, anxiety like this can escalate, if you were betrayed by somebody with whom you had been in close relationship for a very long time interval. Betrayal is not a joke. I think many people have experienced this one way or another throughout their lives. But we can never be ready for this, right? And in this sense, it is similar to death. But it is worth saying that there is something positive in this - that you were betrayed. This not only tests your resilience, but often opens up the opportunity to start all over again.

So here are some tips how to begin to trust your friends again. Firstly, examine your interlocutor. When you communicate with any person, it is extremely important to understand who is in front of you. Therefore, when you are starting or continuing communication, pay attention not only to your own feelings, but also to the behavior of the person who is nearby. Secondly, remember about your lucky experience. Agree, in most cases our actions are based on previous experiences and lessons learned in life. Pleasant memories will set you on a positive wave, so you may stop seeing traitors and villains in everyone. Another very useful tip is to stop playing the role of victim. Misery won`t help you to let bad memories and traumas out, conversely it will only make things worse. In addition, move aside prejudices and stereotypes, allowing a new friend to prove himself from the best side. At the same time, do not forget that everyone has a “bad” side, even you`re not ideal. The last but not the least, don`t let emotions take control of you. Since the experienced negative emotions will not disappear, but will firmly settle in your baggage of life experience, then doubts and distrust will most likely appear when you meet new people. And just at the moment when the inner voice begins to whisper that you are being deceived, stop and think: who is managing the situation now - you yourself or past grievances?

To say that I have problems with trust is softly said. Betrayal usually creeps out of nowhere and turns your life inside out. I always say to myself that the most important kind of love is self-love. And like relationships with other people, it is also based on trust. After all, the worst is to lose confidence and self-confidence. I had this a few years ago. Trust is a wonderful thing. The proof is that I miss it. And when the time comes, I will find it again. I do not always make the right decisions, but always out of pure motives. Unfortunately, I cannot say so about those people who surrounded me in the past. Fortunately, today I found real friends. I want to trust them, even if my traumatic past gets in the way all the time. I will work on myself and maybe one day I can rely on my friends again, who knows? To end this text I want to give thanks to everyone who helped me during past three years. Zhenya, Liza (that one who is Beelzebub) and Liza, and Sonja you`ve made me who I am now. I won`t forget that.