Learning to Trust Yourself Again
When you’ve been told for years that what you feel isn’t real, the doubt starts to take up space. And you may find yourself questioning your own pain.
You ever doubt yourself so much you start apologizing to your own body?
This one is a weird one.
I’m not sure if anyone else has felt like this before.
“I used to do that.”
“Sorry for not having energy today.”
“It doesn't hurt that bad.”
“Sorry for not bouncing back like everyone else seems to do.”
Somewhere between being dismissed repeatedly, misunderstood by almost all, and told I was “just anxious” and “you’ll outgrow this,” I stopped trusting what I felt.
When did others' opinions outweigh my own about my own life?
That’s like the polar opposite of a teen or young adult, right?
Aren't they supposed to not care what anyone thinks and make their own way?
Well… that depends on the point of view, I guess.
I’ve always seen the fight for independence and self-discovery as a mission we all must go through, not just a rebellion.
When I said something hurt… they told me it didn’t.
When I said that I felt dizzy… they said it was all in my head.
When I said I needed help… They said, “You’ll be fine.”
And for a while, I believed them more than I believed me.
How doubt sneaks in quietly
It doesn’t knock loudly on the door.
If it did, I’d prefer that. I’d just ignore it and pretend no one’s home.
But instead, doubt is clever.
It seeps in under the cracks, sometimes disguised as “verification.”
“If I could just have this, then” is a fan favorite in my mind.
JK (but not really).
Every time someone questions your pain, it plants a seed of maybe they’re right. And if you receive that long enough, your mind will go looking for cues to prove them right; because who doesn't like to be right?
“Maybe I am dramatic.”
“Maybe I should just push through.”
“Maybe this is my fault.”
“Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”
Those maybes are bricks that build into walls.
And before you know it, you’re living inside them: isolated, content in sorrow, stuck asking permission to feel your own pain.
The slow work of trusting yourself again
Healing that kind of wound isn’t fast.
It’s awkward, clumsy and sometimes full of side-eyeing your own instincts.
But little by little, it starts to shift.
For me, it began with an insomnia session.
(It just so happens that I get great ideas at 3a.m. when I absolutely should be asleep…back to the thought.)
“What if my body isn’t broken, it just needs a reset from all the times it's been ignored?”
That thought cracked something open for me.
All of the moments of being ignored, unseen… they compiled into my own actions toward myself.
I had done to my body what others had done to me.
Ignored it.
So I started listening, I mean really listening.
To my breath.
My stomach growls.
To the way my hands trembled when I was overstimulated.
To the ache that always seemed to come back when I ignored rest.
To the agitation that grew around people who caused me pain.
And slowly, I began to act like I believed myself, even when it still felt weird to do so.
Tiny ways to rebuild self-trust
If you’re in that space of half healing, half doubting, here are a few small ways that helped me start rebuilding:
Listen to your fatigue instead of fighting it.
Rest doesn’t mean weakness or laziness. Sometimes it’s just wisdom showing up in a softer form. If you charge your phone because it's important it works when you need it, can't you apply the same theory to yourself?
You are more important than the phone. So let yourself recharge.
Say no without a dissertation.
You don’t owe anyone a PowerPoint of reasons for why you can’t overextend yourself. This ties to craving validation hoping to be heard.
But what you feel is real. And that’s enough of a reason.
Celebrate tiny wins.
“I ate today.”
“I asked for help.”
“I didn’t gaslight myself this morning.”
These are important.
The smallest tasks compile into the biggest motions.
Keep a ‘proof of truth’ list.
Write down moments where your intuition was right, even the small ones.
You’re teaching your brain to trust your body again.
Having a physical list can act as evidence that you know what you're talking about. Eventually, you won’t need the list anymore.
To the mothers who feel like it was their fault
This part is tender and hard to write.
When I went through my own medical trauma as a teen, I saw the way it broke my Baba too.
She carried guilt that wasn’t hers.
Like she should’ve known.
Like she should’ve done more.
But here’s what I’ve learned since:
We all do the best we can with what we know at the time.
It’s not fair to yourself to use knowledge you know now as “proof” of how you "failed" then.
That's like giving someone a test in another language in which they do not know, expecting them to excel in a world they do not understand.
As much as it pains me to say, sometimes the experience you weren't prepared for is the lesson.
You were doing your best in a system that doesn’t always listen;
not to the patient,
and not to the mama standing next to her either.
You didn’t fail me.
The system did.
And if you’re a mother reading this… maybe you didn’t fail your child either.
What trusting yourself looks like now
These days, trusting myself looks less like big declarations and more like tiny acts of honesty:
Saying “this hurts” without minimizing it.
Letting myself cancel plans without guilt.
Speaking up even when my voice shakes.
Letting rest count as progress.
It’s not a straight road.
More like a meandering dirt path with wildflowers, detours, road closures, and the occasional pothole…
But it’s mine.
If you’re still learning to listen, you’re not behind
Sometimes healing sounds like laughter in the middle of tears.
Sometimes it looks like sleeping through the “productive” hours.
Sometimes it’s just sitting still long enough to notice you didn’t apologize for existing today.
That’s trust.
That’s growth.
That’s strength, quiet as it may be.
Don’t use someone else's path as a measuring stick for your own.
Life isn't fair, and the more you psychoanalyze that fact, the more you miss living it.
If what I wrote feels aligned, you might love the Recentering Rituals Guide I made. It’s full of gentle ways to ground when the world gets too loud and feels unbearable. You can download it for free.
Or, if you’d rather just sit a while longer, join our private community Letters from Tyberiana. You'll receive a cozy monthly email from me filled with gentle guidance, poetry, and reflections for tender hearts like ours. I respond back, so this is not a one-way conversation.
On a more personal note, how are you currently doing with rebuilding self-trust?
Key Takeaways (for the 1-minute readers)
Doubt after medical trauma is normal; rebuilding self-trust takes time.
Small wins count as real wins; rest is valid and necessary.
Parents often carry undeserved guilt after medical dismissal.
We all do the best we can with what we know at the time.
Don’t measure your path by someone else's.
Thanks for sitting with me awhile.
Until next time my friend,
Tybre’ana