Mar 7, 2021
You Can’t Buy Back Trust
The title speaks for itself. It’s a basic statement, with a detailed meaning. One that seems quite easily understood as the truth. Many of us may agree with it, and it’s one thing to agree with a statement. But much more difficult to live it. It makes sense that trust is the biggest commodity of the human race. That’s why it is something that takes so long to build. Yet its value can be easily slipped away from our hands.
It seems to lose, and harder to gain. Yet it’s even more difficult, when it’s once been lost. Gaining it and regaining it are two quite different things. When an attempt is tried rebuild trust, the road ahead can be an extremely difficult Believe me, if there was anyone who can vouch for that truth, It is me indeed.
There was a time in my life, when I had all the trust in the world. Friends, co workers, family members, and fellow firefighters, were able to have a strong solid trust in me. It felt important. My word was respected. But I was complacent about that importance, until it was literally too late. I certainly was not mature enough to have mindfulness as to the absolute crucial importance and value of how major that trust was, until the struggles, and toxic choices of mine, began to happen.
Losing trust imprisoned me, inside my own depression and negative emotions. I hated no man on earth, quite as much as I hated myself at that time. Looking at the pulse behind the lost trust, we must start with determining the causes and actions. It can come in 2 components.
Excuses vs reason.
While mental health and addiction are not excuses for causing pain and mistrust, they certainly can have their part as a reason. A reason, while a potential cause, does not excuse us, from not taking responsibility to grasp control of our lives. A legitimate reason, doesn’t give a person like me a pass. My mental health and especially my drug addictions were major players in friends losing hope in me, and me losing hope in myself. And these are true loved ones. People who gave chance after chance after chance. Literally, to the point where they no longer had no choice, but to not trust me at all, and oftentimes many walked away. Some for long periods of time, and some totally forever.
While sobriety is often seen as the key to someday regaining trust, it isn’t something that’s going to make it happen overnight. The building blocks of trust, must be rebuilt, brick by brick.
The title for this piece, speaks the solid truth. We cannot buy back trust. It is a statement that hopefully, most of us can agree with. Throughout my journey of losing trust, I realized the actual loss of it, while it may have seemed like a fast, and quick motion, that seemingly happened in a brief time, was actually an event, that was a long time in the making.
A somewhat snowball of an event, where let downs and lies were given many chances, over the many months, and sometimes years. It was a layered and complex process to lose trust, and to regain would require a very long time of living in truth and sobriety.
I rarely, if ever was able to talk my way back into trust, once it was lost. It was my own word and promise, that was a lie, again and again. Instead of giving my word to request regained trust, I have to instead live my word. If I claim to be sober, than my life should reflect a life of recovery. Earning trust, is all about earning it through honest living. And giving patience and space, to those who remain cautious. We cannot put on a performance, and once again be trusted. We have to put on a way of living that reflects a trusting person.
Hold on strong to that trust in life. Be mindful of it, and respect it, for everything that it means and represents.
By MICHAEL PATANELLA
Michael Patanella
is a Trenton, New Jersey Author, Publisher, Columnist, Editor, Advocate, and recovering addict, covering topics of mental health, addiction, sobriety, mindfulness, self-help, faith, spirituality, Smart Recovery, social advocacy, and countless other nonfiction topics. His articles, publications, memoirs, and stories are geared towards being a voice for the voiceless. Hoping to reach others out there still struggling.
