What does vulnerability mean to you?

As my friend said “This is what happens when you put two deep feelers on the task of coming up with writing prompts 🤣”

Oh my gosh, right?!?

Being vulnerable means somebody can hurt you.

You choose to let down walls and guards and in doing so, they have access to parts of you that not everybody (or in some cases very few, if anybody) sees. It’s the precious and personal parts. The parts that make up who you are. Your faults, failings, and feelings.

Years ago when I was going through depression and trying to make sense of it all, I sketched a picture. For the life of me I do not know which one of my tens of journals it’s in (there is nothing quite like cracking open and starting a new journal - it’s a problem, I know). It was a picture of a person, sitting with their back up against a wall, head resting on their pulled-in knees, which their arms were wrapped around. That was the only part of the picture you could see. The rest of the page was midnight-ink black.

It was rough. I felt so very alone and surrounded by darkness. I shared this with somebody who I thought was my best friend, and I asked them to sit and be with me in the dark. Their response was “Why would I do that, that place is so icky - I’ll be here when you climb out of it”.

Ugh. Yup. Ugh.

It was only later that I discovered this short (under 3 minute) video on empathy and I nearly lost my mind. This. THIS!!!!! This is what I had wanted and was trying to communicate and my heart longed for. LONGED FOR!

I thought our friendship was at the level that I could ask that and their response almost killed me (and on some levels, it did kill me). It was that same friend a year or two later, after attending a conference on disabilities, that I shared I had a pretty big aha and I was pretty sure I was autistic (being autistic vs having ASD is a discussion not for me or this blog - i.e. Identity-first vs Person-first language). Without so much of a pause or reflection or question to ask how I came to that conclusion or why I thought that, their immediate, IMMEDIATE response was “No you are not”.

Ugh. Yup. Ugh.

That was before my exposure and understanding of neurodiversity (whether I am or am not autistic - is not actually the point) and the different forms of it: ASD, ADHD, HSP, OCD, cognition, etc, etc. What mattered is that I was choosing to share something very deep and close to me and got hammered, ABSOLUTLEY HAMMERED emotionally. The door wasn’t just slammed in my face, it crushed my spirit.

Crushed.

It’s hard to remember and hold that. Those memories still have a razor’s edge to them.

Pause.

It was at this stage I stopped writing as I realized I hit something pretty deep and it sucked. I added it to my “to talk about with my therapist” list and gave it time to breathe. Sure enough, my therapist had some delightful insights and recommendations as to where and how to proceed. Short version was “acknowledge it and move on”. Of course, the actual conversation and context was much greater and involved many more swear words. :)

Un-Pause.

So. Vulnerability. It means that people get to see past the shine. That you open the door. That you allow the walls that you’ve put up from past hurts to be taken down (or at least lessened). That you trust. The goal being that you are seen. Heard. Felt. Loved. Accepted. Not in spite of, or because of, the stuff you shield, but because you are you - all of the bits and pieces that make up the “Puzzle of You”.

I, of course, am not talking about an invasion of privacy or “forced vulnerability”. It’s the active act of allowing people in. Of dropping your guard. Of showing your belly. Of disclosure and of give-and-receive. The amount is dependent on where you’re at in the Ladder of Trust with them, including:

• Context - Without over-contextualizing, are you shaping the parameters of your vulnerability? Are you comfortable with the edges?
• Consistency - Does the person you are sharing with have a history of reliability (i.e. holding and protecting what you share)?
• Confirmation - At each step on the ladder, have you tested the vulnerability safety measures and is the step appropriate? Meaning you don’t just go from “I really like Jersey Milk bars and am sad I can no longer find them” to “I think I have feelings for somebody I shouldn’t have feelings for”.
  
• Comfort - Do they hold what you share with love and care? Do they provide emotional support and reciprocity?
• Conversations - Do your conversations have ease and flow and trust?
• Correction - When mistakes or misunderstandings happen (because they will), is the correction received well and repairs made? This usually happens when the person listening doesn’t realize the depth or importance of something being shared and either brushes it off, takes it too lightly, or shares it with somebody else, unintentionally breaking trust. If they deliberately break trust, that’s a different matter.

And, we are all human. All of us. We make mistakes. We misunderstand. We laugh when we should hug, we hug when we should be silent. We are silent when we should ask questions. We ask questions when we should laugh. It’s in the shackles of humanity that we find our freedom to be ourselves and to love and be loved.

And that requires vulnerability.

Posted on March 13, 2025