Trust vs. Mistrust: The First Crises Of Being

Erikson Series | Neurodivergent Identity | Dr. Neff

Aug 04, 2025

This is part two in my new series exploring neurodivergent identity and shame through Erik Erikson’s developmental framework. You can catch part one here. Today’s essay centers on Trust vs. Mistrust ~ our first developmental task, and what it means to revisit this stage through a neurodivergent lens.

Note: This series is more emotionally charged than some of my other essays, as I revisit early developmental stages through a neurodivergent lens. Today’s essay reflects on complex birth, early parenting, and formative experiences of unmet needs. Some pieces may stir discomfort or old grief. You can step away, come back, or skip what doesn’t serve you.

Wobbly Beginnings

It had been a brutal six days ~ preeclampsia, a 36-hour labor that ended in a C-section, a uterine infection, and then a transfer to the NICU for Grace. For reasons only a hospital architect could explain, postpartum recovery was on the fourth floor while the NICU was on the first. I was told to rest, to let my body heal, my body had struggled quite a bit during the labor and birth. But my baby was three floors down, and every instinct in my body screamed that I needed to be near her.

So, against the advice of my nurses, I spent most of my time in the NICU. In truth, I was trying to reclaim the birth I didn’t get ~ to hold onto the one thing that still felt within reach: nursing. If I could feed her, maybe that could be the grounding thread that tethered us together after all the rupture.

Fast forward a week later. That first night home, my dad took a shift so my spouse and I could sleep. I woke to her cries ~ faint, distressed. My body, still stitched and swollen, climbed the stairs. My dad was gently rocking her. He said she didn’t seem hungry, just uncomfortable. I took her downstairs. She wouldn’t nurse. I tried all the stomach soothing tips I knew. I hated the thought of her in pain.

Eventually, I laid her skin to skin on my belly ~ if I couldn’t soothe her, I wanted her to at least not be alone in her discomfort. And slowly, she softened.

I still remember that moment ~ not because it was sweet, but because it hit me: I couldn’t take away her pain. All I could do was be there with her in it so at least she wasn’t alone in her pain.

I didn’t realize then how important that lesson would become in my parenting.

That, I suppose, is where our trust story began. Not with ease or seamless bonding, but with two hurting, overstimulated bodies trying to find regulation together in the aftermath of a complicated birth.

From the jump, we were stacked for things to go awry ~ a complicated birth turned slow recovery for us both, turned postpartum depression and anxiety, an infant who wouldn’t sleep more than 90-minute stretches (day or night), who was “colicky” and struggled to be comforted. Nursing often felt strained and restless (I now understand that as sensory overstimulation and her own fidgety regulation attempts). Meeting her basic needs seemed to take more out of me and my spouse than it did for the other parents I saw navigating newborn days. More pain to attend to, more sleeplessness for all three of us to contend with, and a nursing relationship that, as she got older, often felt more activating than connecting.

But damn it, the rules told me to nurse her until she was two if I wanted all the benefits and protection from scary things like autism. (Joke’s on me there.)

And so it’s with a lot of curiosity, and a bit of pain, that I revisit Erikson’s identity model through a neurodivergent lens. I can see now how much harder these developmental tasks can be for neurodivergent humans and families. Not because there’s a lack of love or care, but because there are often so many layered and unmet needs we don’t yet have language for.

The Architecture of Trust

Erik Erikson’s first stage of psychosocial development, Trust vs. Mistrust, begins with a fundamental need: to feel safe in the world. Will someone come when I cry? Will my needs be met with care, with consistency?

When an infant’s distress is met with holding arms, when hunger is followed by food, when discomfort gives way to soothing, the body begins to encode a sense of safety. Over time, this becomes the foundation of trust. Not a belief we consciously form, but a somatic imprint. A felt knowing that the world is, at least mostly, reliable.

From this trust emerges the first virtue in Erikson’s model: hope.

But when the world feels chaotic, when needs go unmet or are misunderstood, the infant begins to learn a different lesson. One of unpredictability, of hypervigilance, of mistrust. The mistrust lives in the body. It can show up as a quiet bracing, a subtle flinch, a nervous system that stays on alert.

It can later show up as anxiety, especially in moments that require letting go, depending on others, or trusting that things will hold. There is a sort of existential wrecking with a world that is inconsistent and therefore unpredictable.

When that early mistrust gets bumped throughout life, it can resurface as a quiet suspicion: Will this person really be there for me? Will this good thing last? Is it safe to soften here?

It might show up in relationships, where intimacy feels like a setup. Or in work, where self-reliance and hyper-independence becomes a coping strategy so deeply ingrained it’s hard to ask for help. It might even shape how we relate to joy ~ bracing against it, waiting for it to disappear.

When Neurodivergence Enters the Nursery

For neurodivergent families, this early developmental task can come with additional hurdles ~ not from a lack of love, but from layers of mismatch, overwhelm, and invisible complexity.

A neurodivergent infant might cry more frequently due to reflux, sensory discomfort, or disrupted sleep.1 Feeding may be complicated by tongue tie, oral-motor coordination challenges, or sensory aversions.2 Soothing might not come easily.

Developmental psychologists have long studied the concept of temperamental mismatch ~ or “goodness of fit.”3 when a child’s temperament and a caregiver’s style or capacity are out of sync. Some babies come into the world with higher sensitivity, lower adaptability, or greater emotional intensity. They need more: more soothing, more patience, more co-regulation, to feel safe in their bodies and in the world. And when those needs aren’t met (or can’t be met), it can lead to rupture in the trust-building process, even in deeply loving families.

For example, a sensory-seeking infant who craves movement, noise, or intense touch might overwhelm a caregiver who is easily overstimulated or touch-averse. The mismatch can quietly erode co-regulation, leaving both parent and child dysregulated and depleted.

Now layer in a neurodivergent parent.

If one or both caregivers are Autistic or ADHD, that brings its own texture: sensory overload, emotional dysregulation, executive functioning strain, touch fatigue. The relentless input of caring for a baby: crying, clinging, unpredictable sleep, bodily fluids can push even the most attuned parent to the edge of their window of tolerance.4

It seems a reasonable hypothesis that in neurodivergent families, temperamental mismatches may be more common ~ not due to a lack of care or effort, but because the nervous systems involved are often more sensitive, more complex, more easily pushed past capacity. And yet, most families don’t have language for what’s happening ~ only a vague sense that something feels harder than it should.

When there’s no language for what’s happening, it can start to feel like failure. The baby isn’t easy to soothe. The parent feels frayed, over their edge. And something as foundational as trust, that slow back-and-forth of need and response, starts to feel shaky. Trust can still form, of course. But the road there is bumpier. And it asks a lot more than we usually acknowledge.

We don’t often talk about how disorienting it can be to care for a child while your own body is still healing: from birth, from trauma, from chronic overstimulation. And we rarely name the reality that many neurodivergent parents enter caregiving already carrying too much ~ navigating systems that don’t accommodate their needs, while trying to show up for a child whose needs are also layered and complex. It’s not a failure of love. It’s a collision of nervous systems without enough support.

To make this more tangible, here are a few examples of temperamental mismatch patterns that can quietly shape early caregiving:

These mismatches don’t mean something’s wrong with the baby or the parent. They mean the nervous systems involved are doing the best they can in a world that is just beginning to understand this level of complexity. What looks like failure is so often a lack of language, support, or margin. When we stop treating the struggle as pathology and start seeing it as a relationship in need of resourcing, the story starts to shift. Trust can still grow ~ even in the mess, even when it doesn’t look the way we expected it to.

A Note for Neurodivergent Parents

Looking back at those early parenting years, the concept of goodness of fit lit up a string of light bulb moments. Parenting a risk-unaware, sensory-seeking toddler stretched me to my edges. And I carried so much shame about not having more capacity. This lens would have helped back then.

Pretty much every neurodivergent parent I know wrestles with guilt or shame at some point. Many of us didn’t yet know we were neurodivergent when we were in the thick of those early, sensory-intense years. We were white-knuckling our way through without the language, support, or accommodations we needed.

Sometimes, revisiting those years through identity frameworks or developmental theory can deepen the shame or grief. But here’s what I hope this framework does instead:

Gives you language. Terms like temperamental mismatch or nervous system mismatch can help name what was happening (and may still be happening) ~ not as personal failure, but as a dynamic to be supported and navigated.
Offers a lens of self-compassion. You were navigating something hard, possibly unsupported and unseen.
Interrupts all-or-nothing thinking. A few missed cues or hard moments do not equal mistrust. Trust is built in patterns ~ as is repair.
Reminds you it’s not too late. Whether your child is a toddler, a teen, or a young adult, trust can still be nurtured. And so can self-trust.

If you're parenting older children, here are a few ways to continue building trust, in the relationship, and in yourself:

Name and acknowledge when things felt hard or were missed without spiraling into shame.
Name the disconnect. Sometimes we can’t meet the need in the moment, but we can still connect in the disconnection. “I really wish I could take you to the park right now, and I need to finish this report for work.”
Name the miss and repair afterward. When we get it wrong, and we will, being honest about it helps rebuild trust: “I see I snapped at you when I was overwhelmed. That wasn’t fair.”
Model self-trust by naming your own needs. “I need a sensory break, and then I’d love to come back and play a card game with you.”
Create routines or rituals that offer consistency and connection, even if they’re small.

There will be moments when you’re tapped out, dysregulated, overwhelmed. That doesn’t make you a bad parent. One mishap doesn’t mean your child is fated for a lifetime of mistrust. More important than the misses is our willingness to return to them, name them and repair.

That’s true in adulthood, too.

Rebuilding Trust in Adulthood

Even if early trust was ruptured, it can be restored. This is part of what I appreciate about Erikson’s model ~ our development isn’t etched in the stone of time lost. These stages don’t close like doors. They remain open, revisitable. And for many of us, that return happens in adulthood, when we finally have the language, support, or self-awareness that wasn’t available to us the first time around.

Trust isn’t built all at once. It happens in micromoments ~ small cues of safety, over and over again. For many of us who grew up undiagnosed, mistrust became the default. Our bodies learned to brace. To expect disappointment. To not reach out. So it makes sense that trusting now, be it in others or ourselves, can feel like too much of a risk. Like a setup.

But trust isn’t a trait you either have or don’t. It’s something we can slowly rebuild.

Sometimes that begins in relationships, with a partner who stays steady when you unmask, or a friend whose presence stays consistent even amidst messy times. Sometimes it happens in therapy, when someone helps you see yourself in a less distorted light.

And sometimes, it starts even smaller, in how you respond to your own needs. When you rest instead of push. When you recognize that your nervous system is overstimulated and step away. That, too, is a form of trust.

And for some of us, the repair happens in parenting. Not by recreating a perfect version of what we missed, but by interrupting the cycle. By showing up differently for our kids and in doing so, showing up differently for ourselves.

A Few Ways Adults Can Rebuild Trust

Attachment-based or trauma-informed therapy that honors neurodivergent experience. These approaches can help you understand where mistrust took root, recognize attachment wounds, and begin to move toward more reparative experiences with yourself and with others.
Developing relationships that feel safe, steady, and non-performative. If mistrust shaped your early relational template, it can take time to recognize what safety actually feels like. Part of rebuilding trust is learning to notice the green flags, the people who are consistent, attuned, and trustworthy, even if they feel unfamiliar at first.
Noticing present-moment safety in your body and responding to it. Pausing, stepping away, slowing down. Letting yourself come down from the brace.
Practicing self-trust by setting boundaries, naming your needs, or choosing rest over pushing through.
Challenging old narratives especially the ones that equate needing others with weakness or failure.
Leaning into co-regulation seeking out people, pets, or spaces where you feel met, even when you’re not at your best.
Offering yourself attunement noticing what you feel, what you need, and responding with care instead of criticism.

Trust doesn’t have to come all at once. It builds slowly, unevenly ~ sometimes in fragments. It’s not binary. It’s something we cultivate over time, through consistency, through repair. Even when mistrust has shaped our nervous system for years, it’s not set in stone. Trust, in others, in ourselves, in the world can be re-learned, one small moment of safety at a time.

Next Week: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Next week we’ll continue this series looking at ages 18 months to 3 years ~ the era of “I do it myself!” and the early formation of will, independence, and self-concept. We’ll explore how interoception, executive functioning, and sensory-motor differences can complicate this stage, and how neurodivergent adults may carry forward shame where autonomy was meant to grow.

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