Women – Trust or Mistrust
5/8/2025
11:15 am
It is a Thursday morning.
I am fully awake and fully rested today which is a rarity in my life.
I saw this quote “It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.” by Jane Goodall and thought it was fitting for my writing today.
After sending a few lengthy overreacting text messages this morning to my online relationship a few thoughts came up that I want to share here. I eventually unsent the text messages and apologized.
I have never spoken about this before, not even to my therapists or psychiatrists.
It is about the trust and mistrust I have in people particularly women in general.
Mistrust – “be suspicious of; have no confidence in”.
Trust – “firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something”.
As a woman of color that has worked, lived, and been in school with predominantly white people most of my life, I realized much later that a majority of my trust issues were not with white people. The issues were with the behaviors of others.
The most significant trust issues have been with other women; race played a part but attitudes and behavior were most of it.
This is ironic since the PTSD trauma is due to both physical abuse and psychological abuse. The physical abuse was caused by men but psychological trauma has been a factor behind everything and that was caused mainly by women.
Let me explain how I came to this conclusion this morning.
Thinking back to my relationship with men whether romantically, friendships, or coworkers, I had always garnered some sort of respect from them even if it was sometimes short lived or misguided.
They would always be the first to defend me if needed even if we did not particularly like each other. It was this understood equality between us.
Take for example the last two years of my military career before I retired. I had gotten into it with my female second commander and a few other higher ranking women within our unit because of failed inspections. I passed my inspections but the other sections did not because they failed to follow through and hold their supervisors accountable even after all the write ups and pre inspections that I had completed. The Air Force’s inspectors saw these issues too and it was in their final report to our wing commander.
The second commander tried to have me discharged but found out that I was in sanctuary because I was within two years of retirement. She attempted to find other rules or regulations to push me out but the directives were finite, the timelines could not be changed, and it would require units outside of our state to form a committee and do a review. All were within my rights and I was entitled to as an enlisted non commissioned officer.
Instead of coming together and working the issues from the failed inspections, I was removed from my position, and I was locked out of my office one drill weekend. They had me go to our classroom to await further orders. Then later that morning they had me taking out the trash then sweeping and mopping the floors. They were trying to make an example of me, break me down or embarrass me, I was not sure.
On the base, I was known and respected because I had helped almost every unit pass their inspections or manage through them. I had been given commendations for those efforts. A couple of pilots saw me and came up to me that morning asking me what I was doing. I told them that is was the duty assigned to me that morning. They got irritated and told me that it wasn’t right.
These pilots were displeased with what they saw and told me to put the mop away. I followed orders and went back to the our classroom to wait. They left and had talked either to their unit commander or someone else because the next thing I saw was a the unit training manager for our maintenance group. He stopped by and asked me what I was doing mopping the floors. I explained what had happened that morning.
He told me to go to lunch and I went to our dining facility with a couple of the female officers. When I came back my first sergeant had me wait in the classroom.
The unit commander, second commander, the base training manager, base training technician, the first sergeant, the unit chief, the command chief, and someone from the wing commander’s office were having a meeting. Apparently it was about me.
These were all men who I had worked with, worked for, or had trained except for the second commander, the woman who later demoted me. They came to some sort of agreement and I was sent back to the wing base training office to work until I retired. I went back to help other unit’s with their inspections and work in the training office.
A majority of the time while in the military, I was just one of the guys.
These men would come to me with their relationship issues, their thoughts about themselves, career or job concerns, and sometimes talk about the trauma they had endured. I was their emotional sound board, advisor, counselor, and mostly just their friend.
I also knew that I was temporary to their life, just a pivot point for them to move in a new direction. It was not always one sided and I learned quite a lot from them. Some of the skills I acquired was because of them. There was oddly a sense of trust in them, not always but sometimes.
I know that is weird to say because there were also men who caused physical harm and trauma to me. Those were the ones who showed no remorse and never apologized for their behavior.
The dynamic and relationships between women had never been that easy.
The first women in my life that I learned to mistrust was relatives. My mother being the biggest one, then my half-sisters, and then a few cousins.
My mother did not take me into her home until I was 9 years old. I realized much later that she was the one that determined my punishments inflicted by her husband even after finding out that he was abusing me.
She only brought me to live with her to take care of her other daughters when her and her husband would go out on the weekends. Then turning them against me.
She used my talents and creativity for monetary gain. She found satisfaction in embarrassing me publicly then would gaslight me about it. She was the biggest abuser of them all. The only thing I learned from her was the kind of mother that I did not want to become.
My half-sisters constantly reminded me that I was not their sister after finding out that we did not share the same father when I was twelve years old. They only wanted me around when they wanted something from me and would have their parents guilt me into being a “good big sister”. I also took the blame and punishment for their mistakes.
They were never friends and never included me in anything about their lives especially as we got older. My middle sister was friends with the same group of kids that bullied me in high school. I had hoped we would become friends but my half-sisters always saw me as less than themselves. Their parents encouraged this behavior and made me less important to them.
The last text messages from them from two years ago still hurt and sadden me even today. I never saw them as anything less than my sisters. I always thought it would change and at least I would have some sort of friendship with them but it wasn’t so.
The girl cousins that I had were my first friends growing up but I was not fully accepted by all. As we got older, they talked to me less and less. A few helped me grow up and guided me when they could but I knew they had their own lives to live because they were all older than me.
There was an incident where one cousin in particular took advantage and used me when I was about 9 or 10 years old. She told my grandparents she was taking me and her kids to eat pizza and then to a movie.
As a poor native kid in a rural area, I was excited to go but after we ate pizza she drove me and her kids to a bar instead. She had me stay in the car to watch them while she went inside to find her “hookup”.
We were later driven to a park and ended up staying there all night in her car. This while she was in the park with the guy she met at the bar. When I was driven back to my grandparents’ house the next morning, her mother, my parents, and grandparents were all there waiting for us. They did not know where we were.
I was asked if I liked the movie and that’s when I told them what happened. That started a lot of shouting and an argument. I never saw her in the same light again and I never fully trusted her.
Then another cousin, who I thought was my best friend, turned against me when I left for the military. Her racism and bias towards white people was directed at me when I came home pregnant with my first child. She had asked if the father was white and I said yes. It did not matter to me because I was raising the child on my own. She called me a traitor to our people then stopped talking to me and that was over 30 years ago. The only time I talked to her was at her father’s funeral.
As I grew up the mistrust in women also grew.
From elementary to high school the “friends” that I had were never true friends. They never included me in things or invited me over to their houses. There were a few incidents where I was invited then was ditched so they could go over to other people’s houses or meet some boys. I was left there to be with their younger siblings. Then their parents would come home and I was not going to lie for them, those friendships ended quickly.
After high school then there was the military, a place that I thought I would be treated equally because we were all basically the same. We went to the same training and had the same jobs. I was wrong.
In the Air Force we were always told that we had to be each other’s “wing man” and look out for one another. The women who I thought were friends definitely were not my friends. As a young woman, first time out on her own, and learning to trust others, I thought we had each other’s backs especially if we were out together as a group. I was struggling with a lot of emotional issues and would cope by drinking when we would go out.
There were too many incidents where I would wake up with some guy on top of me, or I was not fully dressed. I had been plied with alcohol to the point of blacking out by these supposed female friends then they just let these men take me back to their rooms. They never protected me even though I protected them from the same thing.
Then there were the moments these female friends would flirt or purposely go after the same men knowing that I was already interested in or with the guy. They knew because we had talked about it. I never understood why I was treated that way. Towards the end of my time on active duty I did not have any more female friends.
These kinds of incidents also occurred while I was in the Air National Guard. Sometimes it was a higher ranking female member who I had admired and thought were mentoring me. They would sometimes offer to send me on temporary duty trips with certain men or they too would plie with alcohol on temporary duty assignments. I have not had any further contact with any of them.
This brings us to the women I worked with or have been in groups with the past 11 years.
The women were always friendly at first and I was always optimistic that I was finally making friendships, the one thing that I wanted the most. Then something would occur that would cause them to believe that I was after their jobs, their titles, or sometimes they just didn’t like me anymore.
Most of the time is was another woman within the group or workplace who did not like me from the beginning that would eventually turn them against me. I could always tell who these women were but I kept moving on and focusing on my own goals and aspirations. Thinking it would be okay. I would eventually have to leave the job or group because it would become toxic or hostile.
I think that has hurt the most. To be outcast by your own gender because of not thinking or acting the same way as they did. I tried to be my own person and stand on my own two feet. I did not conform to their ideas or notions of how I was supposed to behave.
The funny thing is that I never did conform to what society believes I should be even as a kid. I was always told this way of carrying myself was interesting from others. Until they did not get what they wanted out of me.
Is that not what a nonconformist is about, behavior or views that are not in line with ideas or practices of others? People like the idea of a nonconformist until things get serious and those kinds of people stand out the most. Then they become uncomfortable.
That was a lot of thoughts and ideas to work through this morning.
The realization that the majority of the mistrust has been with women.
Knowing that even though they did not care about me it never stopped me for wanting the best for them.
I wanted the best for them because they were my fellow sisters. The ones who would always be an important part of humanity; the life givers. They need to be protected and supported even if we do not think the same.
That as a woman our strength and power is our ability to be compassionate and caring even in the worst of times.
Writing this out and finally speaking about some of the things that occurred has been helpful.
Every day is just another little step towards being okay with myself.
Understanding that the life I have lived is just that, a life lived.
Knowing that with each moment we learn a little bit more and hopefully we heal as we go.
Thank you for taking the time to stop by and support this blog.
Have a wonderful week!
Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!
Suzanne
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