Rely on the self

I learned self-sufficiency quite young from disciplined parents and so rely on myself. It's not that I completely mistrust people, it is that I have noted that we are largely unreliable and volatile as a species. Therefore, depending on someone else whether it be for happiness or anything else is asking for a mixed and uneven bag of results.

I even had to become my own psychologist after my initial gender identity clinic treatment and worked hard to come up with a carefully measured and researched response to lifelong gender dysphoria I had not asked for. As a result, along the way I became a steady problem solver for myself and as well as others and never left solutions I sought at the hands of someone else. Maybe it's the engineer in me.

The downside is that at this age and armed with greater knowledge of how people function, I can see them coming a mile away. That can build a fatigue of predictability which hampers trust and the joy of surprise. Being young you are sometimes blindsided but at least that feeling of novelty is still there and the cynicism is yet to be developed.

For you haven't yet been sufficiently burned by haphazardness of existence.