I suffer from the paranoids

See I've got a problem - I suffer from the paranoids. Part of its inherited - my Dad was a cop and if you wanna know about paranoia have a cop for a father. He taught my sister and I VERY well. It also doesn't help that I love crime dramas on tv, movies, books etc and have read wayyyy too many true crime files.

Now with regard to myself and my personal safety I've mostly got my paranoids under lock and key. I'm mostly confident in my awareness of my surroundings and my abilities. I've thus far managed (with the grace of God) to stay safe *knock on wood*.

And sometimes - knowing the statistics that I know and the things/circumstances that have happened in my life (some of which I could or could not control) its kind of amazing to me that I have stayed safe when so, so many others in similar circumstances have not. I credit God totally on that one.

But now I have a whole new problem: I have a child. More particularly I have an as-yet non-verbal child. That means that he can't tell me if something isn't right. I can't ask him and get a direct response if everything is okay. I can't instruct him as well what is and is not okay. He's only 2. He's not there yet.

And I am so mind numbingly terrified to trust people with him. He's my baby. My precious. Its my job to protect him. Nobody on the 6'o'clock news says "Oh yeah they made me nervous but what can you do right?" No! Its ALWAYS, "I never, ever suspected anything was wrong.... I never saw it coming... I trusted them completely".

So I'm trying to come up with child care options and so very often its "Oh well so and so would work.... but I don't know their spouse... are they safe too?"

Part of me goes, "Well I just have to have faith that God will prompt me so that we can avoid those situations". But part of me goes, "Yeah well what about X, Y, Z people? Did God just not prompt their parents or were they not listening or was this just some sort of 'learning experience' they needed to have in their life?" and ya know I just can't wrap my mind around that option. This is my baby. Its my job to protect him.

How do you trust people? How do you trust their judgement of OTHER people? If I trust them, can I trust their judgement of the other person? ... The wife is always the last to know right?

The Paranoids. They're evil and obnoxious and keep me from sleep. I'm this paranoid and nothing happened to me personally... Just to so, so many people I know and love.....

How do you trust?