Who She? Part IV: Vulnerability
I thought I had the concept of vulnerability measured. I thought I had reached a point in my friendships where I was okay with being “vulnerable”. When you’re comfortable with someone, you share. And I share. I share it with my friends. I share here on my column. I share some thoughts on things and even some experiences. That’s vulnerability, right? Not exactly. I can entrust others only with the things I own about myself, but I bury the things I can’t. From others and even myself.
Vulnerability- The state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.
True vulnerability is measured by trusting others with the things that can hurt you. I avoid those topics like the plague. Truth is, it’s painfully unsettling for me. I realize, what I confused vulnerability with, was intimacy and simply, bonding. I think my definition was a warped version of vulnerability that I trained myself to believe because that’s all I agreed with myself as being okay, or at least because that’s all of what I was willing to do. It was really cool. I felt protected. I felt like I was maintaining my privacy. And I felt impenetrable. I learned recently that while all of this is true, it’s not as great as it first felt. That protection transformed into standing guard 24/7, that privacy turned into loneliness, and nothing could penetrate me because I was almost stone-like emotionally.
My personality still flourished and I was still maintaining my relationships. I was completely intact, but the soul in which is 80 percent of who I am and who we are because of those deep feelings, was starting to disconnect from the body, from the person. Things that upset my soul and my heart, I kept inside, while showcasing the “person”, and being the person that everyone is used to seeing. She cracks jokes, she’s so chill, she’s so nice and helpful. She gives advice. So then there were two. The girl, I would show every day and the other one I kept hidden in my room- because that’s where I could break down. Time ticks and the person has to work. The person has friends and she of course loves to go out. She doesn’t have time to sort out emotions. So what about the soul? Truthfully, I forgot about her.
It easier for me to be free from my emotions. “Fuck it” has been my motto for years. It’s kind of an affirmation for me- choosing to release any emotion that causes me turmoil of any kind. I don’t care to over-thinking and worry about things that do not matter or that I can’t change. I like to feel free from those rigid things that aren’t so pretty and easy to handle. I was free and I was flying, away from most stressors. For others, I see now that I wasn’t “free” from them, I was instead suppressing them. They still resided beneath the surface of daily activities. Being vulnerable and sharing those feelings is something that I was never comfortable with, so it was the norm for me to suppress feelings of frustration, embarrassment, and insecurity, while only dealing with the positive, easy to deal with surface emotions. I didn’t want to face these things within myself and I absolutely trusted no one with these emotions.
I downloaded The Pattern, an astrological app, a few months ago. If you’re familiar with this app you know how insanely accurate it is. It’s so detailed and spot-on, that it was telling me things I didn’t know were true! Things that I didn’t believe and dismissed because ‘an app can’t know that much about someone’ and ‘yea, maybe they’re talking about that other December the 8th Sagittarius with a Pisces moon and Cancer rising’. It was saying things like:
“You may have had a domineering or controlling authority figure who made you feel inferior". It’s possible that you grew up without the support you needed- one or both parents were emotionally unavailable or absent and you may have been left to figure things out on your own.” Things like your understanding of intimacy might be in response to a kind of survival mode. You might be blocked in ways that you are unaware of because your vulnerability is so embedded. This pattern can make you defensive in anticipation of your partner’s criticism”.
At first read, I was like “uhhh, okay..” and now, months later after another read: “son of a bitch!” Like a sack of nickles, it hit me. Also like a sack of nickles, my emotions hit me. With one blinding swoop, like a Charlo uppercut.
When you have a kid you’re molding that child into a figure and when you start off dismissing that child’s feelings, being judgmental, controlling, and overbearing, you’re molding that to a child into someone who is skilled at internalizing, always on defense emotionally, with major trust issues, and cripplingly independence. I’ve become one hell of a defensive fighter, but what good does that do out of a ring?
I didn’t notice how much I was on defense and distrusting I was because it became so second nature. I was okay with only having myself to talk to. Up until one day, where I was bombarded with all of the emotions and feelings I hate: embarrassment, insecurity, rejection, confusion within my identity and purpose, etc. It thrust me into this wave of depression and I had no one to turn to, but myself. And I was overwhelmed. For the first time, I was unable to process all that was happening to me.
My defenses were so strong I ended up in isolation. Not because no one cared, but because I put myself on an island all alone and no one knew I was there.
For about two weeks when I was at home or even at work, I was writing. Merging together the person and the soul. Asking myself questions and allowing the answer to come to me, instead of allowing my ego to force an answer upon me tainted by what I wanted it to be, but for what it was. I rarely journal unless I’m drafting content, which doesn’t really count as journaling, to be honest. But this time I needed clarity, to free everything I felt internally, and figure out why the hell was I feeling this way.
‘Why am I so bottled up? Because I don’t want to talk to nobody. Why don’t I want to talk to anybody? Because I don’t want to. Why not?! Because they ain’t about to have this information on me- to use against me. Girl, what?! Why do you think they’d do that? Because that’s what people do, for real. That’s what people can do.
That’s usually what happens, anyway’
Who wants to risk being harshly criticized, judged, and ridiculed? For me, this is what I’ve known to come with being vulnerable. That was the moment when everything came full circle and I was hit with the enormous revelation and finally saw what The Pattern was trying to tell me. I didn’t realize before this moment that I had these blocks. I’ve been receiving these messages for a while too, literally and figuratively speaking. This pattern was weaved into me early by my mother.
The lesson I’m learning now is that everyone is not my mother and that after all of these years, there lie many imperfections. Journaling and unmasking the sources of my identity and my limitations, has also abled me to recognize what I need from the people in my life. I don’t want to hold back anymore; I want and need to rely on someone other than me for a change, and it’s important in my growth that I continue to surround myself with those that inspire me to continue this shift. People I can trust. People who know and more importantly, want to know, how to care for me. This is a major key to the undoing for me.
I need to trust more and allow myself to be comforted and supported. It’s so foreign to me, but I’ve been practicing it lately and it feels amazing. There are others who deal with the same shit and when I bring these feelings forth instead of burying or ignoring them, I find real solace. And in return, someone else can as well, within me. Vulnerability is disarming and it can feel equally, if not more, safe. Others can protect me too.
