My Adversarial Relationship with Vulnerability

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I have been truly overwhelmed with all of the feedback from my first post. The encouragement and love shown has been so moving. Thank you all for being so supportive. I sincerely appreciate everything. All of this for a blog post that almost didn’t happen, that came close to remaining unsaid because of the fear that I had about putting it out into the world, of putting myself out there into the world.

The feeling of panic set in as I sat down with my wife to make the blog live. I had planned for this moment for weeks. I had formulated future blogs in my head during runs, I had spent nights writing, it had been on my mind almost non-stop. I would go over the numerous and powerful reasons that I wanted to start sharing my story. I had an undeniably strong feeling that this was part of my calling. I was beyond ready to do this. It was time. It’s funny, part of me knew that I would panic. I have been doing a lot of reading about the power of vulnerability and many of those authors talk about the fear you feel just before you share. They go on to explain that’s how you know that you need to do it, to share what you are scared of sharing. To be honest, if it hadn’t been for that advice, I would have given in to that fear, deleted that draft, and never sent that first blog out into the world.

I had told my wife earlier that day that I would be posting my first blog later that night. She had experience with blogging and was going to help me get it ready to post. I then proceeded to tell her to that there is a possibility that I would act like a small child when I got close to posting. She gave me a somewhat puzzled look. I explained to her that I have a feeling that the closer I get to sharing my blog, the more that the fear of vulnerability will try to sabotage me, to stop me from posting. I might whine that I don’t want to do it anymore, I might fidget, I might act like a spoiled brat if there were any technical difficulties. That fear in me, in terms of fear of vulnerability, feels like a fear that small child would have. That’s what I revert to when I feel too exposed. A childlike terror comes alive in me. The overriding urge I get when that part of me comes alive is to just go somewhere, cower in a corner with my hands over my head and let the hard part pass. I’m still getting to know that part of me again. It’s something that I didn’t think much about until I started working through things in therapy and started to really try to understand that feeling. It’s funny how you have these “feelings”, some that you have had for as long as you can remember, and you don’t try to get to know the feeling, or try to understand where it comes from.

I had trained myself when I was younger that no matter what that kid in me feels, I need to look calm on the outside. I need to not show any of that fear. Over time, it wasn’t enough to just look calm on the outside while the childlike terror gripped me inside, I began to harden my external visage to almost a statue, lacking any emotion. I started to not even feel that part of me anymore. I don’t know if it was because I had ignored it for so long that it had just thrown up it’s arms at some point and had just quit trying, or if I had gotten so good at shutting it down – that I had shut it down for good without even realizing it. The thing is, you can never really shut off a feeling completely. You can suppress it, but it’s still there. When this feeling did boil over, to a point that I couldn’t push it back down and pack it away, it would come out as anger. It would manifest in shouting and yelling, in my words being used as weapons. That anger and rage were products of my confusion about what I was feeling. It was how I protected that childlike part of me. I had to protect that part of me from being vulnerable. In my mind vulnerability meant weakness and it meant pain.

I’ve spoken in front students at Ohio State, at Ohio University, high schools, and teams about parts of my story, but never with such raw honesty. What I’m sharing now is different. It’s one thing to talk about things that you’ve been through, it’s another thing to talk about what those things did to you.

As I was getting ready to hit the final button to put it out into the world, I remarked, “I’ve just got to rip the band aid off.” But then I continued, “ The problem is, I’m not just ripping the band aid off, I’m asking the world to come take a look at the wound that was underneath the band aid.” As I sit here and write, I realize that it isn’t just one band aid and one wound. It’s numerous band aids, on numerous wounds. Some of those wounds are just nicks or scratches, while others are deep gouges that will be hard for me to want to show, not just because of the ugliness of those wounds, but also because of how much pain those wounds have caused me.

We all have certain reactions to situations. We often just accept those as who we are, that they are part of our hardwired programming. In some ways many of us feel like we are who we are and that’s who we always will be, that we can’t really change much, especially in terms of how we react to certain situations. That’s how I used to feel, but I know now that it isn’t true. We need to explore those reactions. We need to sit with them. What does it really feel like? Why do we react that way? Once we understand the why, we can start figuring out how to try to change those reactions. That’s what I’ve been working on with my fear of vulnerability.

My healing didn’t begin until I learned how to be vulnerable and completely open. As I’ve noted, this is all new territory for me. By far, it has been the most difficult part of my journey. Some of that is due to how ingrained that my aversion to vulnerability is. I’m ready to share some things and I still am working on the courage to share others. It’s one thing for me to share that I have struggled with depression, but it’s another to be open about some of the reasons that caused me to go down that road in the first place.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve hated vulnerability. I thought it was a the ultimate form of weakness. I don’t really know how I developed that attitude. My attitude wasn’t just about being vulnerable about feelings, emotions or mental health. As long as I can remember, I’ve had the attitude that I did not want to show any pain, most notably any physical pain. To me, showing any pain was not just a weakness, but carried a strong sense of embarrassment with it. In some ways I think that my severe distaste for showing any physical pain just carried over to the non-physical too, to emotional vulnerability.

I was taught to be tough. I know that some may say, “Well that’s the problem”. I can’t stop anyone from believing what they want about how being taught to be “tough” can be detrimental to kids, but I can tell you with complete honesty that it is one of the most important lessons that I have ever been taught in life. Toughness, at least mental toughness, is absolutely essential in life. I would also argue that physical toughness is essential too. For those that argue that instilling toughness into kids is detrimental, often have not lived through situations in their lives where it was needed. For myself and others who have, we understand how absolutely necessary it is. If you find yourself in a situation where it’s necessary and you don’t have it, it’s not going to go well for you. Without the toughness that was instilled in me, both physical and mental, I would not be alive today.

Growing up, I was 14 years younger than my brother-in-law and 10 years younger than my brother and his friends. I also had a father who had been a Marine and enjoyed using me as a way to test his memory of hand to hand combat techniques. They all messed with me, a lot. There was never any malice or an intention to really harm me, but I got my fair share of charley horses, of being put in garbage cans, and countless other methods of physical torment. One of my brother’s friends told me a few years ago that he was surprised that that I lived through all of that. The thing was, I loved it. I kept coming back for more, over and over, to the point that they got sick of picking on me. In looking back on my life, that’s what I’ve done. Life knocks me down, I get up and go back for more. Life knocks me down again, I get up and come back for more. Sure, sometimes it took me longer to get back up – but so far I’ve always gotten myself back on my feet, brushed myself off and kept going back for more. Without that toughness and resilience that was instilled in me, I wouldn’t be the person that I am today.

In looking back on my life I have never really shown any vulnerability, other than with my family. I wasn’t the most open with them either, but I was more so with them than with anyone else. I wasn’t ever open with my friends or others than I spent a lot of time with. Even with my closest friends that I had for years, I never opened up about anything. Whenever something negative happened and they would ask how I was doing, the most I would give was a canned response, like “It’s hard” or “It sucks”. That’s as far as it went.

There were times where I had previously thought that I had shown vulnerability. After closer examination, I realized that any of the vulnerability I had shown had been a ruse.

Through my junior high and high school years, I was a hopeless romantic. I was the type of person that always felt like they needed to be in a relationship. I wrote love notes that would have made great R&B love songs if put to music. To be honest, I often just used song lyrics in the letters. I would drop the “L” word a month or two into a teenage relationship. I’ve had at least one heart wrenching breakup where I turned into a blubbering cry baby, where I begged and pleaded for a second chance. I thought all of those things had been vulnerability. The thing is, I know now that that was codependency. I reacted that way after being broken up with because I had relied on girlfriends for approval and a sense of identity. The breakup meant that I lost all of that.

During really rough, difficult times in my early adulthood, I bared my soul to my family about how much what I was going through sucked, how much despair I felt. That may sound like vulnerability, but it was coming from an entirely different place. I wanted people to save me from what I was going through. I was like a child who thought if I whined and screamed enough, I would get my way. To be fair, as the youngest of 3 kids and beyond stubborn, this strategy had worked in different circumstances. I had often worn my parents down with my whining, until I got my way. Deep down I must have thought that if I got enough pity for the hell that was going through, someone would be able to save me from the situation. I just wanted someone to fix it, to somehow make it all go away.. Part of me must have been thinking that I could bend the will of fate, of the universe, of my current situation if I made the world feel sorry enough for me. That vulnerability wasn’t to foster connection, it was to garner as much pity I could get. I thought if the universe felt sorry enough for me, it would deliver me from what I was going through. I think part of me also wanted to bring people down with me. If I had to suffer, in some way, I wanted others to have to suffer with me, to feel what I was feeling. I don’t think that I was doing this consciously, but nonetheless, I was doing it. Vulnerability to make others feel sorry for you, or to try to bring people down to your level, is not vulnerability at all. It’s manipulation.

To be clear, this blog and the vulnerability that I am trying to share with it, is not coming from a place of codepedency, or to gain any pity, or manipulate in any way. I am in a place now where I do not need, or want those things.

I have been fortunate enough to hear others share their stories, to read their articles or books, to witness them being completely open and vulnerable about their experiences. They shared from a place of courage, a place of strength of having overcome what they had gone through. There was no solicitation of pity, or manipulation. They were sharing to encourage true connection with others, knowing that others had been there themselves. I was one of those people that they were trying to reach, someone who needed to hear their message. About a year ago, I posted a great video about overcoming trauma with the following note:

“For those of you going through something traumatic, or who have recently experienced trauma, may you have the resilience to get to the point where you can say, “I did it. I made it”, the point where you can start the healing and start feeling empowered by what you overcame.

For those that have been through something and gotten to that point where you can begin to heal, we need to reach back and help others who are not as far along in their journey.”

This blog is a way for me to try to reach back and help someone who is not as far long in their journey, or to try to help someone start theirs.

Every time that I faced considerable adversity in my life, I always tried to think of someone who had encountered a similar situation and overcame it. No matter how insurmountable my situation felt, thinking of those people helped me to realize that others had faced it and overcame it. I didn’t even care how they did it, I just needed to see someone had done it, that it was possible. Those people became my inspiration and each was a lighthouse that guided me through a lot of dark times. As I’ve looked back on my life over these past few years, I’ve begun to think that it is my turn to try to be a lighthouse, guiding others through their darkness.

Although I focused on depression in my first post, this won’t be a blog just about depression, just as my story isn’t just about depression. It will also explore my experiences with facing and overcoming adversity, my odyssey with the long term effects of trauma, the events in my life that have shaped me, my belief that your mindset is one of the most important tools that you have, and whatever else I think can be of some help to others.

I have always wanted to try to make a difference in people’s lives, and I hope that through being open about my experiences I can inspire and empower someone out there.

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” – Brené Brown

If you found this to be inspiring an empowering, or think you know someone that it could inspire and empower, please share.

#depression #mentalhealth #trauma #transformation #vulnerability #selfimprovement #healing