Trust and Teenage "Don't Tell Mom"

"Trust what can be trusted
Offer what can be offered
Ask for what can be given
Make clear how we want to be predictable & unpredictable." twitter.com/consciousjack

I was reading Tuesday's NYTimes when I can across the article, "What to do if Patient Says, 'Don't Tell Mom,' " and thinking about my friend Samantha and issues with her 10 year old Noah when I recognized myself in the article.

At nearly 17, I nearly lost my life. The situation that precipitated the illness was one of a lack of trust. Mom didn't trust me; I didn't trust Mom. Interestingly, I was not offered an obvious place to put my trust and the doctor that saved my life was her doc and I did not feel comfortable to trust; so much so that I lost my interest in medicine as a vocation.

As I was healing, my interaction with him was tenuous at best. I was completely honest and trustworthy with information I was willing to share. I was untrusting with the unpredictability of the relationship between the doc and my mother and I did share what I could comfortably with him. He didn't trust me because he knew I was withholding information from him.

As I look back, it was the lack of clarity of the relationship we had with each other of predictable and unpredictable behavior that guided our interaction -- from my experience, it was not possible how to know when people were being predictable or unpredictable. When I trusted, I had been let down...very much so. It was impossible to know what information could be trusted or not.

Later, when I was given an opportunity to trust, I could not see it. I didn't have a clear understanding of how to trust:

"Trust what can be trusted
Offer what can be offered
Ask for what can be given
Make clear how we want to be predictable & unpredictable."