Episode 159: How do I stop being scared to trust again?

It's normal, appropriate, and above all else, healthy, to not immediately trust someone you don't know. You may feel broken because you don't seem to readily trust others like you once did. Taking a total stranger at face value, letting them set the pace, and getting emotionally invested in them right out of the gate (or before you've even met them) is a crap shoot at best, and, at worst, a really dangerous way to go about meeting new people. It's okay and healthy to have a reasonable degree of skepticism and to move at a pace you feel comfortable with. Turn inward and listen to your emotions. If you are feeling anxious, unhinged, and your stomach is in knots about someone or their behavior, these are all important signals for you to slow things down--because something that they are doing is registering as "off." And odds are this isn't just your PTSD going off, it's that you are now much more in tune with your internal alarms. 

Trust is something that is earned over time, and we don't even begin to scratch the surface of knowing someone until around the 90 day point. Everything before then is them being on their best behavior. (And if what you are seeing before then is really problematic, then this is a big problem, and their behavior will get worse the more settled in they get.) 

Trust your gut. It's there for a reason.