Saturday
Apr282012
Vulnerability Bender
Saturday, April 28, 2012
I've been on a vulnerability bender for the last month, and it feels like it's killing me sometimes.
It started with writing We Can Become Known in February, and then continued with a bunch of other pieces I've written since then, including I'm Speaking My Truth and Spreading the Word, Because It Does Get Better, and most days now it seems like a pretty good idea to stay in bed with some hot coffee and pretend that I just woke up on some other day a long time ago when I didn't feel so vulnerable.
I'm not depressed really. I'm just really broken open, like a soft meat seed pod that's been split down the middle, and the wind's having its way with redistributing my innards.
My anxiety about it all dresses itself up as shame burning up the back of my neck, and I feel consumed by self-doubt and self-loathing. It creeps in sometimes when I've been feeling open for too long. It's a self-defensive reflex. The scared voice inside me tells me that I'm bad, not because I am bad but because it knows I will stop and withdraw if I feel bad enough. I am afraid of being hurt.
The scared voice inside me is a little kid afraid of the dark. Growth and change redefines my boundaries, and the new limitations those boundaries map out make me feel naked, and not the good kind of naked.
I don't know if it's the moon or the planets or something I elicit when I give off a certain mood, but everyone was tossing their vulnerability around yesterday in a mad fit of self-exposure, and it was both poignant and distressing. I was busted open, I received emails from other people who were busted open, and even my Friday night junk food delivery guy was busted open. I've only ever seen him once before, but he told me how his cat of 15 years had died a number of years ago, and that he'd never had another because he didn't think his heart could take the weight of loving so much. I imagined taking the food delivery guy into my arms for comfort while I pressed the buttons on the debit machine.
I wrote for seven hours straight yesterday until I finally collapsed and cried in the dark, because it hurts to be human, and that was good, even when I punched myself in the hip to keep from wailing out loud next to my open bedroom window. It has been a long time since I cried like that. I needed to let off the steam. It puts trouble at rest to let it out to rabble-rouse once in a while.
The next step in my personal brand of self-therapy this morning, after putting this little number out there, is to have a shower, paint my fingernails bright red, and take the Palinode out for a late breakfast like regular human beings do. I can't lie around being an aching, busted open seed pod 24/7. I like food too much, and there's a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing that has my name on it.
----------------------------
PS. This is what I wrote exactly one year ago at Aiming Low: "Anxiety, Panic Attacks, And What Gets Us Through". Vive la annual révolution!
PPS. I just got an email about something huge for me that has been a major part of this whole vulnerability breakdown, and it is wonderful, fabulous, good, really excellent news, which I'm not going to tell you about yet, because life's a bitch sometimes, and I would be remiss if I didn't contribute.
It started with writing We Can Become Known in February, and then continued with a bunch of other pieces I've written since then, including I'm Speaking My Truth and Spreading the Word, Because It Does Get Better, and most days now it seems like a pretty good idea to stay in bed with some hot coffee and pretend that I just woke up on some other day a long time ago when I didn't feel so vulnerable.
I'm not depressed really. I'm just really broken open, like a soft meat seed pod that's been split down the middle, and the wind's having its way with redistributing my innards.
My anxiety about it all dresses itself up as shame burning up the back of my neck, and I feel consumed by self-doubt and self-loathing. It creeps in sometimes when I've been feeling open for too long. It's a self-defensive reflex. The scared voice inside me tells me that I'm bad, not because I am bad but because it knows I will stop and withdraw if I feel bad enough. I am afraid of being hurt.
The scared voice inside me is a little kid afraid of the dark. Growth and change redefines my boundaries, and the new limitations those boundaries map out make me feel naked, and not the good kind of naked.
I don't know if it's the moon or the planets or something I elicit when I give off a certain mood, but everyone was tossing their vulnerability around yesterday in a mad fit of self-exposure, and it was both poignant and distressing. I was busted open, I received emails from other people who were busted open, and even my Friday night junk food delivery guy was busted open. I've only ever seen him once before, but he told me how his cat of 15 years had died a number of years ago, and that he'd never had another because he didn't think his heart could take the weight of loving so much. I imagined taking the food delivery guy into my arms for comfort while I pressed the buttons on the debit machine.
I wrote for seven hours straight yesterday until I finally collapsed and cried in the dark, because it hurts to be human, and that was good, even when I punched myself in the hip to keep from wailing out loud next to my open bedroom window. It has been a long time since I cried like that. I needed to let off the steam. It puts trouble at rest to let it out to rabble-rouse once in a while.
The next step in my personal brand of self-therapy this morning, after putting this little number out there, is to have a shower, paint my fingernails bright red, and take the Palinode out for a late breakfast like regular human beings do. I can't lie around being an aching, busted open seed pod 24/7. I like food too much, and there's a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing that has my name on it.
----------------------------
PS. This is what I wrote exactly one year ago at Aiming Low: "Anxiety, Panic Attacks, And What Gets Us Through". Vive la annual révolution!
PPS. I just got an email about something huge for me that has been a major part of this whole vulnerability breakdown, and it is wonderful, fabulous, good, really excellent news, which I'm not going to tell you about yet, because life's a bitch sometimes, and I would be remiss if I didn't contribute.
categorized in general, health and tagged in Seasonal Affective Disorder, anxiety, change, fear, fears, growth, seasonal depression, vulnerability
general, health and tagged in Seasonal Affective Disorder, anxiety, change, fear, fears, growth, seasonal depression, vulnerability 
Reader Comments (13)
(stop it, i mean it. get outta my head.)
I think it was indeed the moon and stars. Last night as I was wrapping up my little piece of terrifying self-exposure, I received a very big phone call as well. It was unrelated to my aching, but the rush of good and unexpected news felt like the Universe answering my mourning. "Yes. This is good. Shhhhhh, my little friend. Be still. And listen." And so we listen. First we bust open, and bleed it all out, and then we lay there basking in the open woundedness of our spirits, until the quiet "Shhhhhhhhh...." whispers to us. And then we get up. And we sew ourselves up. And we look up. And we take on the world and we do it all over again.
You are doing the hard work.
The world is reaping the benefits.
And I'm so thankful that you're on the internet!
Hang in there friend! Also, I can't wait to hear about this awesome opportunity.
I've been going to therapy for ptsd every other week now and every time I go the day of and the day after are shot. I can't do anything. I am a mess. It sucks, but we are doing the work to get stronger...
A good cry can be incredibly cathartic, so can writing!
I realized last week that when I travel and get so worked up I am in pain, it is because leaving my home for more than a couple hours makes me feel incredibly vulnerable.
And about a week or two ago, a friend suggested watching Brene Brown on TEDtalks. She's been researching shame and vulnerability for 6 years. And I would recommend watching her talks to the world.
Boy howdy do I ever know that feeling.
For me, well...I could talk to you for hours about the time I spend here, poring over your old posts.
I do it late at night, and I go over your words...they bring me to tears, because I think of all the years I spent ( A LOT OF YEARS) feeling alone in all my feelings.
And to have found a place where someone knows...it's beyond words.
I wish I could somehow let you know that you are never shouting into the wind. Your words have miraculously reached me here, in a small town of less than 10,000, in Wisconsin. In between a cornfield and across the street from a wetland, with just the glow of the computer screen...there is a quiet, small woman at 1 a.m., finding herself in your words.
Thank you.
I for one appreciate your words here ... hope the cupcake was awesome!!
Letting yourself be vulnerable is HARD. I hate the idea of being pittied and that's exactly what all those glances and "how are you doings" feel like. I'm fine until someone asks me if I'm OK. So don't ask. Eventually we figure out a balance so that all the broken open mushiness has some sort of hard candy shell.
You are brave and magnificent.
I think you are awesome, clever, intelligent, and real. The raw that you expose is wonderful and enlightening as well as inspiring. I am so thrilled I stumbled upon your blog a few years ago. You have inspired my writing, my poetry, and allowed me to be true to by own voice by being humbled by your own.
You are truly beautiful. I have suffered from anxiety for so long as well as battling depression.
<3 Jen
I appreciate your vulnerability, more than you know! It's not often that people share these things, so I rarely get to know that there are people like me out there that also struggle with anxiety in their daily lives. Thank you for sharing!
For me, the more I have been treating my anxiety issues, the more writing I have been able to do.