Be Well Presents: A Coping Conversation - "Trust"

Are you in need of trust? Listen in to our Coping Conversation with Michelle, who shares her powerful story of showing up and learning to trust.

Kevin: Welcome. I'm Chaplain Kevin, and today I'm talking with Michelle, who, as a young girl, faced insecurity and instability. Throughout her journey, she learned the importance of showing up, which helped her to build a strong foundation of trust. This is "Coping".

Michelle, thank you so much for joining me today. I am so excited to have you here with me and to hear more of your story.

Michelle: Thank you so much for allowing me to be here. It's a privilege and an honor. 

Kevin: It's great to have you. So as I read your story, one of the main themes that came up for me was this idea of trust. How do you define that word, trust? What does that mean to you?

Michelle: For me, trust means the ability to show up. When you say you're going to be there, you're going to be there.

Kevin: Yeah. Where has showing up been important in your life? 

Michelle: So I have an interesting relationship with trust. When I was young, I had two parents that were going through a fairly contentious divorce, and often I felt like I was caught in the middle of that. I didn't have a deep sense of safety at either parents house because of the nature of their divorce. Police were often getting called in as they were working through joint custody. I was often in a courtroom. I had to do some, like, psychological evaluation so often, didn't feel like I could, I would say, really trust my surroundings. So already I had this shaky foundation of trust. And then probably the hardest part of that culminated when I was around, I think it's around six and a half every Friday night I would wait for my dad and I'm waiting for him to come and pick me up and I wait and he didn't show up. And we really lost contact with one another. I would sparsely get cards and then those came to a trickle and it left me wondering what happened for about six years. And I think at that point all bets were off on the feeling, a sense of trust, just in general. So even though I had a fairly tumultuous childhood, my grandparents created this lovely safe haven. For me, it was just a very rhythmatic pace at their house. I knew it was going to happen all the time. 

I knew during the summertime my grandmother and I were going to sit and watch soap operas. I knew she was going to fix me a sandwich at like, 12:00. I knew that every summer we were going to go away for two weeks to Silver Lake. I knew my grandfather was going to pick me up at a specific time and take me to school at a specific time. At the elementary school down the street, they always showed up for me. 

Kevin: Those rhythms are so important for building trust. 

Michelle: Absolutely. Consistency, especially for. A child who is kind of being tossed and turned is essential, and I'm so grateful that they were there. But there was still a huge gaping hole left in my heart from my dad not being present. When I entered into junior high, I was able to establish connection again with my dad through to one of our mutual relatives. Wow. And it was somewhat of a surprise. I didn't think that I would be seeing him again. And he appeared on the phone one day, which was after six and a half years, a six and a half year old to about a twelve and a half year old. But I think even at twelve and a half years, I had the sensibility that I don't quite understand why this happened, but I'm going to give my dad the opportunity to be a part of my life. 

I think that was important for me to make that decision and give him another chance. So for two years, we reconnected, and it was wonderful. He was with another partner at that time, and I would go down to their house and he started to play that role again of that important male figure that I needed. And I felt like I had my dad back. For Thanksgiving, my dad, his partner and I were planning on going on a ski trip, and I was really excited. About a week went by and I hadn't heard from him. So I called to his house, and his partner at the time picked up and said, well, you haven't heard from your dad. I said no. And she said, well, he left. And I was confused, hurt. I was so excited about this and I had put my trust in my dad, and I think to have this happen a second time, in fact, this expression would often play in my head. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. 

Kevin: So you're 14 years old, and you are learning yet again that sometimes our parents just don't show up for us when we need them to, when we want them to. How did trust continue to evolve for you from there?

Michelle: Yeah, it was challenging, to say the least, at that point. I recently found some poetry that I had written, and sometimes you forget in the recesses of your mind how angry you were. But I was angry and rage filled, and that poetry says it all. Some of it's hard to read. I didn't have a therapist. I needed to have gone to counseling or therapy to work that out, but that wasn't presented as an option. And I just didn't, frankly, know about counselors and therapy at that point. When we're talking about trust and where that kind of takes me, I think at that point, I'm putting a lot of, like, false trust in relationships. Trying to find it seemed like I was just in the quest of trying to find a boyfriend at that time. And then once I got into college, I actually ended up. Getting into a relationship, and that ended up being with my now ex husband. We were together for twelve years. I think he provided, actually, a very stable presence for me, and perhaps I did need that at the time. But then it ended up being very unhealthy after twelve years. So much so that it ended in our divorce. We ended up going to an emergency counseling session, and the counselor clearly said a word I had never heard, which was codependency. And what I later learned that that meant for me at least, was I could not depend on myself. 

I could not trust myself. I could not trust myself to make decisions. I was looking for other people as outlets. It's very odd for me when I look back, because I was so highly independent. I traveled abroad when I was 16 and I lived there. I did all of that on my own. I was living quite like a fiercely independent life. And then when my ex husband and I got together, I think there was something that just switched in my brain to being dependent on him and just seeing him as almost like oxygen that I needed to breathe. I needed him that badly in a very toxic way. It sounds like you were fiercely independent, like you described, but I think you've been wanting to depend on others, especially these male figures in your life. 

Kevin: And that desire to depend and to have somebody dependable then turned into codependency. 

Michelle: Yeah, I think because I didn't understand healthy dependence. So yeah, that's a very. Keen observation that that search for just having a healthy dependency and desire ended up morphing into something very toxic. You know, the the moral of that, that story and the divorce that came out of it is, ma'am Michelle, you got to figure out how to show up for yourself and depend on you first. And that's going to be a real hard road for the next ten years. But that's where we're going. And it was such a like I said, the Band Aid got pulled off in a real harsh way with the divorce, and I was almost thrown into boot camp on how to show up for myself, in a way where, as you pointed out, there's being fiercely independent to the point where you are still craving people to show up for you. And then there's being independent in a healthy way of like I trust myself. 

I know I can show up for me. And I know I have a pocket of people who will also show up for me in a healthy way if I need them to. But first and foremost, I'm going to trust myself, I'm going to show up for me. 

Kevin: Right? Yeah. Those two things are not incompatible being independent and having dependable people. We'll be right back. 

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Kevin: Welcome back. So you find yourself now divorced and in a boot camp of sorts, of learning how to trust and depend on yourself. Where does journey take you next? 

Michelle: So my journey kind of got pulled in two different directions. On one hand, I had people who started showing up for me, and interestingly enough, a lot of them are Christian. There was such a gaping hole in my soul at that point, and they were nourishing me in a way that I had never been fed. It was with spiritual food. At the same time, I think this was so new to me. It was like a divergent path. I was going down another path of old habits, of codependency. So I had some rebound relationships. I was still looking for that soul to be filled in a very destructive manner. And so I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at this point, just trying to find stability for myself. And then this all kind of culminated. I was on my way back home. I was already anxious, driving a car, and I had a fender bender with another vehicle. Cool. So I'm jobless holding on to any financial resources I had, again to this accident. I think that this company is going to come back and sue me because they sent their workers to a hospital again, just as a routine check up to make sure everything was okay. And it just kept me in spiral. I mean, that's what anxiety will do to you. Anxiety will just keep you in the spiral of the worst case scenario for as long as you are kept in it. And it takes sometimes a lot to pull you out. So for one week, I was in a constant state of anxiety. 

I went to my neighborhood dog park, and a neighbor of mine saw how anxious I was. And she had known a lot of background. In fact, she was one of the ones that I was going to Bible studies at her house. So my neighbor pulls me into her house, and she said, Michelle, with all the Bible studies that you've been going to, has anybody asked you to make a commitment to trust him with your heart? And I said, no. And I think the important thing to keep in mind again, because I'm a new person to faith. I did not know what this question meant to me. It had no more bearing than asking me if I want butter on my toast. Like, literally, I did not think about it. I did not understand quite what she was asking me. And all I can tell you is when I said yes, this immediate wash of calm, like, I could not describe came over me. 

It was a night and day difference between me entering her house and prior to her praying for me. I literally can't explain. It's one of those moments that there is no explanation. There's no cerebral explanation. I can't put logic to it. 

Kevin: Something happened, something transformed inside. 

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. So that moment really put me on a path of putting my trust in God, and then ultimately, it's putting our trust in ourselves, and it really set up a very good foundation for me over the next several years of being able to make thoughtful decisions, ones that I could get behind. So much so in 2018. So now it's five years after I sat with my neighbor and she prayed for me and with me. And God puts a prompting on my heart to go through what I call the year of forgiveness or the forgiveness train. And it was essentially laying aside all of the hurt and the pain that I had from some grievances and relationships. You would think that I would have gotten eased into this. But no, we started with the one that I had the hardest time, which was my dad. So this comes somewhat full circle. The last time I had seen him was 14 and a half and I'm now 37. 

Kevin: That's 23 years.

Michelle: Yeah, it was a long time that had gone by and again, through a relative of mine, she was able to connect us and we ended up meeting for dinner. I'm still somewhat angry, dismayed, confused, but I lay all that aside and I go to that dinner and we sit down and we had, for all intents and purposes, what was a very awkward conversation for about 2 hours, but that started us on the path of starting a relationship again. That dinner led to another dinner and that led to me inviting my dad down to my house, a house that I had rented for several years. And I had this dilapidated piece of dirt in the back and I just wanted my dad's opinion on this garden. I wanted this thing to be a beautiful garden. I had lived in this place and I actually wanted to feel like home. And my dad is well versed in construction and just being able to build things from scratch. So as we were talking about this dilapidated piece of dirt and what I could do with it, he made the suggestion, to my surprise, that he would come down and on the weekends we would do this as a project together. 

I think those first few meetings, again, were the start of a relationship. But that garden project was the impetus for us to actually build out a blossoming relationship. 

Kevin: What advice do you have for others that may be struggling with trust and desiring for others to show up for them? What advice do you have for them? 

What I've learned is first and foremost, you have to show up for yourself. Because if you can't depend on yourself, then you do start putting trust in the wrong places. And secondly, I would say that trust is a process. It took a lot of time, I mean, 23 years. It really does take time to build a foundation of trust, to have a solid relationship with somebody else. Lastly, I think trust can easily be eroded, but trust can also be rebuilt. Again, it can take time. It can take a series of events for that to happen. But. our relationship is a testament to the fact that it can be rebuilt and beautiful things can come from it. It can sprout anew, and it can blossom into something that is so magnificently beautiful, you just can't picture it. You can't imagine it. 

Kevin: Wow. Well, Michelle, I just thank you so much for sharing your story with me, with us. Your wisdom, your vulnerability, your strength. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story with us. 

Michelle: Thank you so much for allowing me to be here.