...just how painful it is to give someone your loyalty and trust, and watch them suddenly beat feat on you. Yeah, that usually incites a bit of anger with me, at least in the beginning.

The issue of Trust is fascinating. There seems to be an intellectual and an emotional component to the issue of 'trusting' someone or something. Anger arises from the 'betrayal' of this 'trust'. I've experienced it so anyhow.

I now accept that I cannot really 'trust' anyone else in the sense that I can never be guaranteed that they will not act in a way that makes this 'trust' feel betrayed within me. In fact, it is very often the case that my feelings have been hurt tremendously and I have felt this 'betrayal'. I also know that I have 'hurt and offended' others in similar ways that I can only very vaguely grasp. Since I cannot guarantee with any honesty that I will feel the same way/ have the same attitude as I do today, in the future, I cannot with Honesty guarantee that I will not betray this 'trust' that someone may place in me (which often amounts to the 'hope' that the trusted person will indeed be or feel the same....is this the sense of loyalty, I wonder!?).

So wtf is 'Trust' to you Mista Barge?

I don't know! :D

Whatever it may be, it is not wishful thinking, nor is it hope, IMO. And I have found that it is the non-fulfilment of these (ie wishful thinking and hope) which has triggered me to anger when I have felt 'betrayed'.

People may run away because the 'Truth' that someone is expressing is painful to them and they do not wish to face it. You point this out! I have done this myself and can see the dynamics being triggered in both directions in my life, current and past. Appearances can be bitterly deceptive and speculating about what a situation means (words, interactions, reactions, silences etc) has sent me off on many many downward spirals of depression and anger.

I think the issue of 'Trust' is entirely an internal one! Here it begins to resemble a 'benefit of doubt' when I do not know. I accept (trust?) my internal processes and accept them as valid - in the moment/just NOW. I realise that circumstances change and shift, as do people and perceptions. Here then, in this space, I can extend the benefit of doubt (ie Trust myself to do so) to the external without being dependent on it to the extent that it fucks with my own emotional state (when 'betrayed'). If I feel 'betrayed', I can own those feelings without blaming the outside, coz I know that the outside is fickle and appearances misleading, and I know that this feeling of 'betrayal' is really a compound of my own desires/fears etc and actually nothing much to do with the other!