"To be vulnerable is to be capable of being hurt; to be weak is to be unable to withstand injury"
I... also do not resonate with that at all. I am physically weak. I withstand injury constantly. I can't NOT injure myself, I live with new (chronic) acute injury every. day. That's not what makes me feel vulnerable.
For me, vulnerability is being exposed to someone I don't trust, feeling like someone can turn the tables on me and would; it's structural power imbalances where I feel helpless and know if someone feels mean today I can't fight back; vulnerability is seeing someone else's weakness that can bring them to their knees and not wanting to hurt them and being aware of the precarity of my ability to do harm and wanting desperately not to do harm. When I am physically incapacitated (eg. literally unable to speak during a seizure), I am vulnerable because my ability to not-harm is extremely compromised, I could shatter trust that exists between me and people I love. It's not a weak a spot in my own personal armor so much as the sense the shield I use to keep other people away from the truly dangerous things is either missing, or can't protect them. (From me, yes, sometimes.)
But people I trust don't make me feel endangered. That's such a huge thing, isn't it? Do I feel safe? Do I have the capacity to make safety for my loved ones? I feel dangerous and exposed when I can't make things safer. Maybe there's no truly safe way to engage with people we trust, but it doesn't feel vulnerable when the understanding I'm working on is that we will hold each other's fragilities with care and try to make it safe. An argument is a vulnerable time to admit something needs to change because nobody is their best self. Needing to change doesn't make me feel vulnerable.
And maybe I miss a lot of the world because I move through it not opening up to people I don't trust, but I've learned the hard way that my red flags are worth listening to.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-10 07:06 am (UTC)I... also do not resonate with that at all. I am physically weak. I withstand injury constantly. I can't NOT injure myself, I live with new (chronic) acute injury every. day. That's not what makes me feel vulnerable.
For me, vulnerability is being exposed to someone I don't trust, feeling like someone can turn the tables on me and would; it's structural power imbalances where I feel helpless and know if someone feels mean today I can't fight back; vulnerability is seeing someone else's weakness that can bring them to their knees and not wanting to hurt them and being aware of the precarity of my ability to do harm and wanting desperately not to do harm. When I am physically incapacitated (eg. literally unable to speak during a seizure), I am vulnerable because my ability to not-harm is extremely compromised, I could shatter trust that exists between me and people I love. It's not a weak a spot in my own personal armor so much as the sense the shield I use to keep other people away from the truly dangerous things is either missing, or can't protect them. (From me, yes, sometimes.)
But people I trust don't make me feel endangered. That's such a huge thing, isn't it? Do I feel safe? Do I have the capacity to make safety for my loved ones? I feel dangerous and exposed when I can't make things safer. Maybe there's no truly safe way to engage with people we trust, but it doesn't feel vulnerable when the understanding I'm working on is that we will hold each other's fragilities with care and try to make it safe. An argument is a vulnerable time to admit something needs to change because nobody is their best self. Needing to change doesn't make me feel vulnerable.
And maybe I miss a lot of the world because I move through it not opening up to people I don't trust, but I've learned the hard way that my red flags are worth listening to.