How to Trust Yourself Again After Trauma

You second-guess every decision.

You struggle to know if your feelings are valid.

You wonder if you can even trust your own mind.

If trauma has made you doubt yourself, you’re not alone. One of the deepest wounds trauma leaves behind is self-distrust. Maybe you ignored your gut feeling once and something bad happened. Maybe someone you trusted betrayed you, leaving you unsure of your own judgment. Maybe you were taught that your thoughts, feelings, and instincts weren’t reliable.

The good news? You can rebuild self-trust. You can learn to believe in yourself again.

Why Trauma Damages Self-Trust

Trauma (especially relational, spiritual, or childhood trauma) teaches you that your instincts, feelings, and choices aren’t safe to trust.

Gaslighting and Betrayal Break Inner Confidence

Gaslighting is a deliberate form of psychological abuse meant to make you doubt your memories, perceptions, and even your sanity.

Over time, it chips away at your inner compass until you stop believing what you see and feel.

What Gaslighting Isn’t

Pop culture sometimes slaps the label on anything uncomfortable, but true gaslighting is rarer and more calculated than that. It isn’t:

• A one-off lie. Someone fibbing once or twice is hurtful, but it isn’t a plan to unmoor your sanity.

• A regular disagreement. People can see the same story differently without trying to make you doubt yourself.

• Firm pushback. Challenging your take (even strongly) isn’t the same as dismantling your sense of self.

• Clumsy snark or sarcasm. Awkward humor may sting, but it’s not the systematic distortion real gaslighting involves.

• Disengaging or clumsy boundary-crossing. Unhealthy or disrespectful? Yes. But not gaslighting unless it includes denial of obvious facts.

• Pulling away or going quiet. Withdrawal can be painful, yet it isn’t the calculated rewriting of reality the term was meant for.

• Plain projection or blame-shifting. Manipulative, yes. But unless it’s a steady effort to make you question what’s real, it’s something else.

• Forgetting or overlooking. Memory lapses happen. They’re not the same as denying what you clearly saw or heard.

If you’ve lived through real gaslighting, you may second-guess yourself even as you read this. Pay attention to that inner tug; the impulse to excuse someone’s ongoing distortions or to downplay your own clarity. That caution is a clue that you’ve known something deeper than a spat or a bad joke: you’ve felt a steady campaign against your sense of reality.

Why Trauma Also Disconnects You from Your Emotions

Gaslighting isn’t the only way trust gets broken. Even without overt manipulation, chronic neglect, betrayal, or high-control environments can teach you that emotions are dangerous or “too much.”

You might have learned to suppress feelings instead of trusting them. Or betrayal by someone you loved may have left you doubting your ability to make good choices.

At its core, trauma severs you from yourself, but that connection can be rebuilt.

Signs You Struggle with Self-Trust

✔ You constantly second-guess your decisions, even small ones.

✔ You feel disconnected from your emotions, unsure if they’re valid.

✔ You ask for reassurance before making choices.

✔ You replay past mistakes, afraid of repeating them.

✔ You ignore your gut feelings because you don’t trust them.

If this sounds familiar, it’s not your fault. AND you don’t have to keep living this way.

How to Rebuild Self-Trust After Trauma

Recognize Self-Doubt as a Trauma Response

You weren’t born doubting yourself, and if you grew up in an abusive or high-control environment, you may never have been shown what healthy trust in yourself feels like.

That uncertainty isn’t proof you’re broken; it’s a survival response learned in unsafe places.

Try reframing:

• “My self-doubt comes from the conditions I survived, not from a flaw in me.”

• “I’m allowed to learn how to trust myself, even if it’s for the very first time.”

Healing means teaching your nervous system it’s safe to develop that trust now.

Start Listening to Your Gut in Small Ways

If you’ve never had space to follow your instincts, begin gently.

Tiny choices... what to wear, how to arrange your space, when to pause and breathe, can help you notice what feels calm or tense inside.

Each time you let yourself have an opinion, a preference, or a “yes/no,” you’re building something brand new.

Challenge the Fear of “Wrong” Choices

When you grew up in an environment where mistakes were punished or used against you, any decision can feel risky. Remind yourself: learning is allowed. You don’t have to earn the right to experiment.

✔ I’m allowed to make choices and learn from them.

✔ My value isn’t determined by never messing up.

✔ Every try is practice in building a voice I can trust.

Separate Fear from Intuition

For many survivors, fear has always been the loudest voice. Intuition might be unfamiliar, or brand new.

Give yourself patience while you learn to sense the difference:

• Fear: frantic, heavy, urging you to shrink or disappear.

• Intuition: steadier, often quieter, guiding you toward safety or growth.

Even if you’ve never heard that steadier voice before, you can grow it through practice.

Build a Track Record of Trust

Whether you’re reclaiming an old skill or learning it from scratch, consistency matters.

Keep small promises: take a walk, finish a journal page, pause before answering. Celebrate evidence that you can rely on yourself, even in tiny doses.

Surround Yourself with Supportive People

If you’ve only known relationships that minimized or controlled you, finding safe connections may feel strange at first.

Look for people who encourage your voice, respect your “no,” and cheer your progress without taking over.

Work with a Therapist to Heal at the Root

For many who were raised in cults or chronically unsafe homes, self-trust is built, not restored.

Therapy offers a steady space to explore where mistrust began and practice new patterns of safety and autonomy at a pace that honors how much you’ve already survived.

You Are Capable. You Are Trustworthy. You Are Enough.

You don’t have to live in self-doubt forever.

You don’t have to second-guess every choice.

You don’t have to stay disconnected from yourself.

You can rebuild self-trust. You can believe in yourself again, or for the first time.

Ready to reconnect with your inner wisdom?

I offer in-person therapy in Las Vegas and online across Nevada, New Jersey, and Colorado. Let’s work together to help you trust yourself, fully, deeply, and without fear.

Book a free consultation today.

About Rachel Hansen, LCSW

Rachel Hansen is a trauma therapist and founder of Thrive Well Therapy in Las Vegas. She specializes in helping adults heal from trauma, rebuild self-trust, and reclaim their inner voice. She integrates EMDR, CBT, somatic work, and psychedelic integration to support deep healing.