How do you build a support network when you don’t trust anyone?

Dear Carolyn: I’ve recently realized my mental health is not very good and I should probably try to lean on “my support network” if I want to get better. Problem is, a big part of my poor health is that I don’t trust people to be there for me. This has been proven (recently!) and it’s hard to believe I even have a “support network,” let alone one I can actually rely on. Help?

— Distrustful

Distrustful: I’m sorry you’re feeling low.

Please start by getting professional support — call your primary care doc if the idea of finding a therapist feels too daunting.

Once you have a place to go in a crisis, then start building a network you can trust.

Here’s the secret, though, about people being “there for me”:

Some will be, some won’t; some outer-ring friends will shock you with their attentiveness and inner-ring ones with their negligence; sometimes everyone answers your distress call and sometimes no one does. So the whole “rely on” concept is really misleading.

What you’re actually counting on is your own resourcefulness. It’s your own ability to find ways to get through tough times.

That can mean leaning on friends, yes, and trusting them sometimes. But that’s just one piece of the larger mechanism of trusting yourself, which includes your own ability to:

— Recognize when you’re in trouble.

— Distinguish between being just-the-usual down and needing help.

— Identify what is helpful. — Locate that help.

I’ll use my own moody self as an example. If I’m down, I might want to talk to someone. So, I’ll contact the person whose “medicine” seems right for what I’m feeling.

And when that person isn’t available or effective, I go to alternatives more under my control: the dogs, a walk, a cry, yoga, escapist TV, a book, a charitable act, an annoying chore (accomplishment as analgesic).

You can scrape together your own version of this, yes? The person or four to call, the list of simple, feel-better steps? Because that’s your network, and the person you’re trusting, always, is you.