The Difference Between Trustworthiness and Trust Is “Merit”
By: Myriam Ben Salem
Tags: Self, Philosophy, Trust, Relationships, Psychology

Trustworthiness

Truth is some people “seem” to be trustworthy, while they are merely brilliant manipulators who mastered the art of mirroring:

When someone mirrors us, they are doing a range of things. They may mimic us, emulate us, be interested in us, share our interests, point out our strengths, gently point out our weaknesses, and simply reflect us. Healthy mirroring involves a person who sees us accurately, and who allows us to see them as well. It is safe. It is reciprocal. It is honest. It is kind. Having this sort of holistic mirroring leaves us feeling safe. Narcissistic mirroring is a whole other game. The process is less about seeing you in some meaningful way than it is about data gathering. — Dr. Ramani Durvasula

Interestingly, those fake trustworthy people sell to you, on purpose, the kind of connection you crave. As a human being, and before our life-time of conditioning even started, we used to be a secure interdependent person:

When I am physically interdependent, I know that I can do any physical task alone. But, I also recognize that you and I, working together, could do much better than, even at my best, I can accomplish alone. If I am emotionally interdependent, I am emotionally healthy and self-reliant, but I also admit my need for sharing the love. If I am intellectually interdependent, I can recognize that our analytical skills put together could take us to the farthest places I would have never been able to reach alone!

The conditioning made us accumulate numerous limiting beliefs about ourselves and build an insecure attachment style — 1. Fearful-Avoidant, 2. Anxious-Preoccupied, and 3. Dismissive-avoidant (some people might be a combination of two styles).

The style depends on our bond with our caregivers and how they loved us conditionally and/or inconsistently. Some of us might have been raised by narcissistic parents, resulting in microtraumas, which sometimes could lead to CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

What happens during adulthood is that we tend to look for the patterns we know and perceive as the “norm” in our relationships. Manipulators, and especially malignant narcissists — described in the words of Psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg (1970) as sadistic psychopaths — know it and exploit it shamelessly.

Always keep in mind that Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is best known as the triplet {E, E, E}: Entitlement, Exploitation, and lack of Empathy, along with the grandiosity pattern and need for control.

More to the point, after studying your attachment style — and they are experts in doing so in no time— they make sure to provide you with your familiar patterns no matter the kind of relationship — be it a life partner, a colleague, a friend, you name it!

It is their intentional strategy to seem trustworthy to you. Giving them your trust for free is the shortest road to abuse, anger, disappointment, frustration, sadness, disgust, confusion, guilt, shame — sometimes even losing your sanity especially when your self-esteem is low and that you are a codependent (quick to self-doubt and self-loathing and having weak emotional boundaries).

Bear in mind that not only manipulators can violate your boundaries, be selfish, toxic, and unable to value your investment in the relationship and honor your feelings. Many kind souls may disappoint you because they don’t know better. Should you be interested, I explored the topic here:

As a general rule, trust is a gift you should only grant to the person who deserves it, no matter how trustworthy they might seem to be!

What does it take to build trust?

Trust as a verb is “built”. It involves making deposits. The first and major one is showing integrity. Unfortunately, spotting duplicity requires making use of one’s critical thinking skills.

And because most people are operating on auto-pilot without even being aware of it, their self-awareness human endowment and the ability to question everything, including their own thoughts, are sadly out of service most of the time.

A non-exhaustive list of other deposits could be:

Active listening, making the person we are interacting with feel seen and understood or what we call providing them with psychological air, as well as attending to the little courtesies and small kindnesses. The latter part is not the same thing as merely buying you gifts. It is about the “being” versus the “doing”.

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Clarifying the expectations of every party from the relationship and getting them on the table in the most transparent way.

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Keeping promises: you need to understand that some people tend to build their hopes — in some cases their lives — around your promises. keeping your commitments is showing you care, and this could build bridges of trust that span the gaps of understanding. I mean, let’s be pragmatic! We will not be able to understand people from the very first interactions. It takes time, and that’s okay!

Courtesy of the author

Apologizing quickly and sincerely whenever screwing things up, as we all do. It takes a great deal of internal security and strength of character.

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Making those deposits raises the “Trust Reserve”. In other words, the trust will not be easily lost. We can make mistakes and withdrawals from the reserve — or what Stephen Covey liked to call the “Emotional Bank Account” — and there will still be room to continue trusting the person and elevate it again.

Final thoughts

Unless you fully reconnected with your purest gut, that is having entirely re-written your invasive subconscious program, and which was never achieved by any human being, most probably— at least, according to my limited knowledge, giving your trust for free is seldom a winning strategy.

More often than you would like to believe, you granted your gift to a person in whom you saw great potential. Sadly, the potential is anything but enough whenever the person is not ready to break their denial circle.

You can continue believing in potential and risking to break your heart over and over again or decide your sacred trust needs to be deserved. The choice is yours!