Broken trust and broken hearts

Picture // WeHeartIt

I had a therapist who once, when I talked about my parents, told me that "when your parents spent years breaking your trust, they'll have to spend at least twice as long re-building it, there's no way around that." I think that makes sense because trust can take years to build and be broken within seconds. Why can't everyone see that? Why is it that people who come into my life expect me to trust them so quickly? Why do people break my trust and then wonder why I don't trust them and don't believe them anymore?

I've been abused and lied to and abandoned by so many people in my life, so I've always been mistrusting and suspicious. My ex was verbally and emotionally abusive, and he'd lie and deceive me several times (for instance, he'd flirt with others, and lead a boy on, promising they'd be together (possibly cheated on me with him, I'm not 100% certain), and then got mad at me when I found out and basically said it was none of my business, and lied about who he was dating to people). He knew I had trust issues already. I'd stay with him (silly me), and some time after the fact, I'd at some point get insecure and scared because I struggled to believe that he loved me and cared about me (which he ultimately didn't). At first, he handled my "accusations" okay... after a while, he'd just get mad at me. He claimed he worked his ass off to make me trust him again and said all his efforts were for nothing when he couldn't get me to trust him anyway so why should he bother to try, when the truth was that he didn't even fucking try, and it had only been a few weeks. In what world does that even work? I didn't trust easily to begin with.

Now, after he dumped me, it's even worse. I don't believe anything. I can't believe it if someone says they care about me, or that they're worried about me, or that they wish they could see me but can't. If I feel ignored and avoided and say that and someone says they don't mean to make me feel that way, I can't believe it. No matter what, my mind just keeps screaming "LIES!" and tells me "you're even more stupid than I thought if you believe any of what they're saying... why would anyone be truthful to you? You're not worth it." I try to block it out, and maybe I'm not trying hard enough, but that's because I'm so insanely scared of getting hurt again. How mistrusting and suspicious and scared I am is so crippling and makes it so hard to have any form of relations, especially when people refuse to show me that they care. They refuse to back up their words with action.

And now there's a guy I met and stuff who keeps saying how he can't make me trust him and how it bothers him, and I've known him for like... three months, and he's basically been ignoring and avoiding me the past weeks anyway, and again, how does that even work? It won't make it any easier, and saying that just makes me feel like he's gonna give up trying to make me trust him, too, because it takes too much time and effort.

People tend to say a lot of things, but then their actions prove otherwise. Why is it that so many people seem to think that words say as much as actions when that's nowhere near the truth? Why do so many people seem to think that trust comes so easily? Why do they think they don't have to work for it and that someone who's probably the most mistrusting person they'll ever meet can just meet them and start off by trusting them?

Also, do I have to accept that people will only tell me things, not show it? Because that's what it seems like people expect me to. If I talk about proving what they say to be true by actually doing something to back it up, people seem to perceive me as having unrealistic expectations to them; that I'm too demanding. Due to being lied to so much, I don't know if I can do that. Actions speak so much louder than words. I don't know how to learn to trust anyone without that.

Trust is earned. You have to work for it. No one should hand you their trust just 'cause you want them to. I certainly won't, and I can't.