Trusting too much - A result of narcissistic abuse

[Music] hi everyone this is Athena from Courage coaching thank you so much for joining me today in today's video I wanted to talk about childhood trauma and how this affects us in our adult lives how we relate to other people because of our childhood trauma and how we can sometimes find ourselves in really tricky situations where we are actually a lot more vulnerable able than people that didn't have childhood trauma if you have suffered abuse in your childhood so your parents were not able to meet your needs they neglected you they abused you they weren't able to be a good parent they weren't able to Unconditionally Love you then this means that you will have certain emotional wounds you'll have certain difficulties in regulating your emotions because your parents weren't able to help you do this also it might have been that you grew up an environment where you didn't feel safe where you didn't feel like you could trust your parents where you constantly saw really dodgy Behavior you constantly saw your parents doing really bad things and with this you carried a lot of Shame a lot of guilts a lot of fear and when you are in an unsafe environment it makes it very hard for you to then feel normal when you're an adult right you don't know how to uh be around people you don't know whether you can trust people or sometimes because you were so emotionally starved in your childhood because you may have felt really isolated growing up or really lonely growing up you may actually trust people too much one result of childhood trauma and abuse is that some individuals find it extremely hard to trust other adults and other individuals actually trust people too much much and that is going to be the focus of today's video trusting too much being much more vulnerable to being revictimized in adulthood because of this need to trust others too much now trusting others too much like I said is a result of childhood trauma and this tends to happen especially when the trauma you have suffered in childhood is related to narcissistic abuse it may have been that one of your parents was like this and the other parent was an enabler of this Behavior it may have been that both parents were narcissistic but either way if you didn't have a safe parent growing up then this makes the trauma a lot worse and you will most definitely be living with complex post-traumatic stress disorder otherwise known as cptsd now if you were unlucky enough to grow up with people that you couldn't really trust and that you couldn't openly be your authentic self and you couldn't openly express your emotions you will find it really hard to trust in adulthood or because you had such severe emotional neglect and you didn't have any safe people to be around and because you felt so lonely as a child you'll have this kind of gaping emotional hole where you have been starved of this love and affection in your childhood and you are Desperately Seeking this now as an adult and this desperate seeking of love and attention is what makes you want to put your trust in other people this is what makes you want to see the kindness of people so when you are in a situation where you've just met somebody and you aren't seeing any red flags you may get really excited you may be like oh this person's really nice they're not doing anything strange and this might be something that is really really helpful for you and the fact that this person seems so lovely gives you hope it makes you think that you know what maybe I have a new friend maybe I can trust this person maybe I can really be myself with this person they've said some things that I think means that they are safe but the problem is when you have suffered childhood neglect and Trauma you are not so good at paying attention to red flags because what other people may see as a red flag you might think is normal because you were in an environment that had dysfunction and when you've been in an environment that's had dysfunction function you are more likely to fall for Predators you are more likely to trust people that aren't to be trusted you want to trust people too soon because you deeply want to connect with another person you're hungrier than most healthy people for love and attention you were so deprived in childhood that you need this even more and this is what makes you more vulnerable and it's really difficult to fill that hole this whole is called traumatic aloneness and I've made another video about this so my advice in general is just try and take it slow because if somebody has red flags you are not going to notice in the first time you meet them or the second time you meet them some people are ctly abusive and they are so well at hiding their nasty Behavior they can smile at you and pretend everything's okay but underneath that they may be really envious they may not really like you they may have so many deep insecurities but you're not seeing them yet so taking it slow slowly getting to know someone and forging a relationship with them is a better way to um make sure that you are safe when you have been starved of affection and love in childhood any tiny amount of kindness from somebody else will suck you straight in like a magnet because this is something you are desperately missing this makes you vulnerable it will always make you vulnerable but if you can build up a social circle of friends that are safe you won't feel this intense need so much you are more vulnerable for this need of connection with others when you are on your own if you are estranged from your family because of the abuse and you don't actually have a lot of friends you don't have any family members left this makes you more vulnerable to further abuse it makes you more vulnerable to trusting the wrong people so a few other things that make us vulnerable to trusting too much and then getting burned is number one having poor boundaries number two if we are seeking approval outside of ourselves if we are seeking validation externally um this will also make us much more vulnerable to potential predators to potential toxic individuals that don't have our best interests at heart and lastly if we have a desperate need to connect with somebody to feel acceptance to not feel lonely to not feel isolated and to avoid feeling sad because we are lonely and isolated well this will also make us much more vulnerable to toxic individuals on the other hand there are also many of you that don't trust anybody and you have isolated yourself from the world because you don't trust other humans because you don't want to have contact with other people because all they have ever done is hurt you and that is another way of protecting yourself but it's also not Ideal Balance is what you need it is so important to have balanced relationships many of you live alone have a dog or a cat or a couple of pets and that is enough for you and that's great you know if you're happy that way and you feel safe that way then that's great at least you have a pet right but human connection is something that we do all need even if it's just one friend even if it's just one other person in your life that you feel comfortable with if you need support with this then please feel free to send me an email at courage is all you need gmail.com I hope that you found today's topic useful if you could relate to it then please feel free to leave a comment below the video thank you so much and I will see you very very soon take care bye-bye