Lesson 11: Trust after Trauma

Have you ever buried a part of yourself so deep that you couldn’t even find it? In this 10th lesson, The Time Smith explores the hidden depths of trust—how it breaks, how it hides, and how it can be rebuilt after trauma. From a pivotal night in 1997 to a near-death experience, and ultimately being uprooted from home, this episode journeys through the emotional terrain of being forced to grow up too fast.

This is more than a story—it’s an invitation to reflect:

• Can you trust your own decisions?
• Do you still trust others with your truth?
• And what happens when you finally start to?

Through the dark halls of memory and the metaphorical sixth floor of the Forge, this episode confronts the vulnerability and power of trusting again—yourself, others, and even God.

If you're healing, helping someone else heal, or simply trying to understand your own past, this one's for you. Remember: if you feel unloved, you are loved. If you feel lost, you can be found.

🔨 I am The Time Smith.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Have you ever been lost in your thoughts? Randomness? A thought pops into your head and you don't know where it came from. Many times it's your past. Things that have happened that have not let you go. Why have they hung on? Let's talk about that. Hi, I'm the Timesmith and welcome back. I hope you had time to listen to my last lesson, confession. The things that we keep to ourselves that we might need to tell others just for the freedom. I appreciate all the new listeners and those joining us. I've been able to get out a little bit further and share this knowledge to other people. It has been an uncomfortable situation for me as I'm opening up parts of me that I wanted to reserve just for myself. But never mind my feelings. I think the important thing is that people are starting to understand that there is a way out or that there's someone out there that actually cares. I was asked if I can do an episode on trust after trauma. What exactly does that do to the person or even the family? Well, for me, it didn't change much, to be honest with you, because it didn't come from my family. But it did show me parts of myself that were hidden. Well, why don't we venture down and let's talk about this. Normally, when we come into the forge, we start to see the counter, the elevator to the left, and we see the stairs to the right, the flooring, and the foundation. The foundation. That's an important one. keep that in mind but trust and where does trust lie within ourselves is it something so deep that it becomes unsearchable or maybe that we don't want to tap into it any longer so we bury it deep deep down inside and we make it virtually impossible for those to see it well who are those maybe the ones we love maybe the ones that we want to get to know trust well Why don't we venture down? And on this one, let's go down to the sixth floor. A place so deep, a place so unsearchable. Well, let's walk over to the elevator. Let's push the sixth floor. Well, here we are, the sixth floor. Wow, this place is dark. There's things in here that probably We haven't searched in a long time. The hallway is long and there's many doors. What could be in here? It could be the sides of us that we don't want to share. The secrets that we hold that we tell others, I will take that to my grave. So how does trust lie in here? And why is trust so deep? One of the things I remember about getting better and healing was about being violated by a nurturer. And that had me thinking for a long time. That when we trust, what exactly do we violate? We violate the innermost parts of ourselves. Parts so deep and so interwoven within our character. Trust. Well, let's walk into this room. When I was about 15, my father had told me that if I continued to misbehave and do drugs, that he wasn't going to let me live at the house anymore. And he told me that he'd send me off somewhere. I didn't take him serious at all. Well, I continued doing what I wanted to do. And that's what this memory is. So let's walk in. Inside of this room, it starts off with me actually meeting and being with my wife. It was the night that I asked her to be with me. October 11th, 1997. And... I did proceed to ask her, but I also told her that I might not be around much longer. Well, she agreed. No more than a few days later, my father came to me and said, later on this week, you're going to have to pack your stuff. We're going to head up north, and you're going to go live with your brother in Oregon. I didn't care much. I thought to myself, that's what my life is. It's just a big mess. Remember, this is about trust. As the week started, on a Monday, actually, I had to go down the street to pick up some friends and walk them home from school, mainly because where we lived at, we were part of a gang. And rival gangs would come and try to mess with the younger guys. So it was my responsibility to watch over them. Well, on that walk home, the rival gang, surely enough, showed up. And they jumped out of their car and one man with a gun, well, a young boy, and immediately came and pressed the gun up between my eyes. I was really arrogant around that time and I didn't really care that he was doing that, to be honest with you. And he pulled the trigger. Three times. My friends hit the ground and where I should have been bleeding out, I wasn't. I didn't understand. Well, neither did the gunman. And he looked at me like he had seen a ghost. And he jumped back in his car and they took off. I looked back and the bullet holes were on a garage door actually that was behind me. My friends looked at me and I said, let's go home. And they got up and we walked away. I went home and relaxed and thought about that. I thought about how quickly life can change. But anyway, later on that week, my father drove me out to Oregon with my brother. My week started off with me asking this girl to be my girlfriend. Then I got shot at. Then I'm in another state. And how does all this relate to trust? Well, I had no control over my life. I had no way of making right decisions. My processing ability was extremely low. And my life was in someone else's hands, which was actually my father's. And at times I look back of how hard that decision must have been for my dad. to take me and leave me, you know, a few hundred miles away, mainly because my life was in danger. There was no control. Well, that weekend I sat there and my habits hadn't changed. There was no one around. My brother was working. His girlfriend at the time was working. And I lay up in this house by myself and I thought to myself, there's no way that I could make good decisions. There's no way that I can understand what's really happening. And I couldn't trust my decisions. But I looked at the decisions that my dad made and I thought to myself, maybe I have to trust his. Why don't we walk out? You know, when I walk down these halls, I look at moments of, especially down here, that there's countless moments that I could not trust myself. I did things foolishly, arrogantly, confidently in the wrong direction. Trying to survive, trying to make myself feel better. But I realized that my life was no longer in my hands. And who could I trust with it? Why is this so deep? Why would something like this be so deep? Because trust, trust is something that we should hold sacred. Trust is actually on every level of our lives, back up in the forge and down to the deepest depths of our soul. Trust. Do you trust yourself with the things that you do? Do you trust your decision-making process? How do you feel about that? Or has somebody had to take control of your life? And do you trust them? Being involved with gangs, drugs, and even the law, there's been many times that I didn't want to trust those who took control over my life. But there came a time that I had to gain control. And I had to believe that the decisions I made, I could trust. But until my motives changed and the idea of healing became secure within me, I couldn't trust myself. Can you trust yourself? Let's start making our way back to the elevator. The trust that was established in our family wasn't so much that they violated my trust, it's that they presented, meaning my parents presented the idea that they will make the hard decisions, even to the point that when my father looked at me, he would tell me, trust me, I will do it. And he did. And it affected my life. I wasn't allowed to sit there and cry. And it wasn't just a get over it mentality. In fact, it was deal with your life. Handle what is bothering you. If you do not want to talk to anybody about it, then do something with it. Let's make our way up. You know, when I go back up and I think to myself exactly, how did I begin to establish this trust? We think about curriculums of mental health. There could be a church, your faith, the counsel of your parents, your best friend, those that listen. And sometimes we have to trust them that they have the good advice. More often than not, most people listen to the voice that says, don't worry about it. It'll go away. Or they lead us into other bad habits. And we tend to trust those who that don't want us to grow. And maybe a good hearted nature will say, well, I don't want you to feel more pain. Let's get off that pain. You know, I'm taught fight the good fight. And I think to myself, there is a struggle happening to do good. And if you've ever done anything bad, There does come a time that your conscience will tell you don't do that. And with that being said, you struggle to do bad. The struggle is on both ends of it. So where do you lie with it? Do you trust that you can overcome and make a decision? Do you trust that there are better days ahead of you? Trust. Trust after trauma. was difficult because I didn't want to listen. And I didn't believe that anyone could take a hold of my life and handle it with care as I expected. Again, when I was young, I was told not to talk to anybody. Don't talk to your teacher and don't tell anyone in the family business. Well, I took that so deeply that the private matters, I didn't even tell my parents. I didn't tell anybody. And yet they had a hold of my life. Well, if you're gonna trust people with their advice, don't withhold information. Tell them what's going on. If you're gonna pray, tell him what's going on. If you're gonna write, write it all down. Trust can only be established if there's clarity, genuineness, and truth. What trauma did to my family after was that it caused confusion. There was no answers to what was going on and the recklessness amongst me and quite possibly my siblings. A level of rebellion, mainly because they had no clue as to the details of what was happening. But you know what's happening within yourself and you might not be telling anybody. Anyway, I hope that we can continue to share and pass this along to others. People need to hear this message, and I believe it. It's a really uncomfortable situation for me to have to open up and be vulnerable. But like it says, if we can reach just one, then it's worth it. This is the purpose. I do not condone actions of abuse of any kind, but I do understand now why I went through it. It is for others to hear the message. The message and the lessons learned through that, that when we look at younger people now, teenagers, children, that they have tools to overcome. Embrace your children. Embrace your family. Be truthful. And remember, if you feel unloved, you are loved. And if you are lost, you can be found. I am The Timesmith. God bless.