Vulnerability
This week, we’ll talk about vulnerability. And I’m not looking forward to it. I have a very strong aversion to the world “vulnerable.”
The word “vulnerable” just screams “weak” and “defenseless.” Its often associated with breakups, especially divorces. But not to the men going through breakups or divorces. Just women. We’re the only ones that get ascribed the word vulnerable. “Oh, she’s very vulnerable. Her husband just left her.” I hated it. It was embarrassing and exposing like I was running naked through Downtown LA. Or like one of those poor Disney damsels in distress.
If someone called me vulnerable, which friends and family often did, my mood would immediately shift. I’d get defensive, needing to prove my strength and resilience. I’d detail everything that makes me a badass - my looks, personality, accomplishments, amazing coping abilities, etc. As if they didn’t already know, or as if it would immediately change whatever it is they were seeing that made them define me in such a way.
But let’s define the word vulnerable because I’ve never actually done so. Defining it may take away some of the stigma for me and maybe you too. Being vulnerable means being capable of being physically or emotionally wounded.
Well. Ok, then. I guess my feeling naked analogy was pretty accurate. After my ex left, I was certainly wounded. Not capable of being wounded. Already, deeply wounded. I think my issue comes with the fact that I worked really hard to not fall victim to the wound. I didn’t lay up in the hospital, taking visitors, refusing to work, or do physical therapy. No. I was quite the opposite. I was up, trying to walk again the very next day, not even citing or mentioning how this even happened to me. That people could still see my wound, I think is what made me so defensive. That people still saw me as wounded and in need of protection made me feel weak. And I was convinced I wasn’t. So I rejected the notion.
This rejection cost me a little bit. It’s one thing to be wounded. Its a whole other thing to be wounded and approaching a task like you’re not wounded. Doing so opens you up to deepening that wound or getting more wounds. Because you are in fact very capable of being wounded. I found as I re-entered the dating world, refusing to accept that I was already wounded and capable of being further wounded, that I was super susceptible to ignoring red flags and making the wound so much worse.
Men seem to have a radar for vulnerable women. Some want to help, to be your knight in shining armor. Some want to take advantage of your emotional state to get what they want. I encountered a mixture of both. My vulnerability kept me from guarding myself more carefully and from discerning which category the men in my life fell in to. I was so desperate to make them be a band-aid for my wound that I’d unknowingly tolerate disrespect, inconsistent behavior, and a lack of commitment just for the cold spray they were to my wound. (For reference, cold spray is this antiseptic my high school would always give. No matter what the injury, you got cold spray. I’m not sure if it even helped, but we were sure convinced it did.) But I’d always end up even more wounded in the end. I once read a quote that reminded “a wound can’t heal if you keep touching it.” And that’s exactly what dating so soon after such a huge breakup was like for me.
I still feel like the word “vulnerable” is synonymous with the word weak. But that’s probably my own baggage to unpack. Perhaps I’ll think of it as a little less strong or simply temporary, as opposed to weak. That might help. I certainly don’t want to go out into the world wounded and making the wound worse.
Does that make sense?
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When I realized I needed to, and was ready to, build a new life for myself, I ran straight towards the plans - big plans. Inevitably, what then came was anxiety and overwhelm. I prompted myself to slow down, and over the course of several weeks took stock of all I had done for myself.
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