[working definitions] vulnerability

[kaberett]

I've been noticing, working my way through Brené Brown's books, that many of the ways in which she defines or exemplifies vulnerability are just... not intuitive to me. They don't stick; they're an active effort to think my way through every single time I try to engage with the concepts involved. "To be vulnerable is to be capable of being hurt; to be weak is to be unable to withstand injury" is a definition she suggests that sort of works for me on an abstract level -- I at least don't have to work to remember it -- but I don't experience any emotional resonance with it.

Here's an alternative I've been turning over: vulnerability is offering people more complete data so as to enable them to better model me.

On the one hand, I can sort of see that it might sound more impersonal, more abstracted, than the explanation proposed in the previous paragraph -- and on the other it's one that I am viscerally attuned to, to the point that typing it out leaves me hyper-aware of my belly and my throat, of my physical softness, of my -- yes -- vulnerability made manifest. ("The delicacy of my skin" might need to feature in a poem, hmm.)

It seems to be a succinct and internally intuitive way for me to encode the thought-shape of hope-and-fear inherent in letting people see me by showing them how to hurt me (by telling them how I work), with its mirror terror that even if I try I won't be understood.

Comments

[recessional]

....I mean the definition of hers you quote makes me viscerally say "fuck you" and also "okay so what are you trying to get from me, when you decide to define me as being 'unable to withstand' the hurt, oh sorry 'injury', that you've just dealt out, and thus weak?"

But this is largely because of how that rhetoric is used and has been used against me, and as a result I call bullshit on the idea of differentiating "hurt" and "injury", and I also call bullshit on "okay you know what define 'withstand', because basically it SOUNDS like you're trying to make 'vulnerable' mean 'getting hurt but not TOOOOO much just enough that I can convince myself to be comfortable with the risk and also to accept that I'm going to react to the injury when/if it happens, but as long as I Keep My Chin Up then I don't have to deal with the concept of weakness or the idea that I might, in fact, get fucking wrecked.'"

Which is . . . another aspect of my problem with her work? In that she's trying! really hard! to convince you to take risks. But she refuses to, like, ADMIT that she's asking you to take risks. She's trying very hard to convince you that this risk! it will be okay!


Whereas your definition honestly makes perfect sense, because yes, that is in fact what's happening.

And in most cases this is actually going to be a good idea! Because MOST PEOPLE will actually use that data to make a better model in order to get along with you better.

But there's also no obscuring the fact that, welp, sometimes that better model is not going to be used to your benefit, and that's a thing that exists, and a risk that we have to take.

[kaberett]

In fairness to her she has written An Entire Book on the premise that "sometimes you take a risk and it doesn't work out for you and you end up flat on your face in the mud & the dust & the blood and... how do you get back up from there?" rather than glossing over it entirely, but that's very much in the context of "leaders!!! entrepreneurs!!!" so it's kind of a turn-off from that angle.


My definition is also coming from the place of -- okay, so, small fucked-up autistic Alex, right, is in the process of going I'M TOO GAY FOR THIS SHIT and flouncing out of the Church and therefore trying to work out a whole new system of ethics from the ground up while honestly probably quite traumatised and passively suicidal--

-- & where I ended up was "I won't deliberately use information people have entrusted me with specifically to hurt them". That was it. That was my line in the sand. (You will note that hurting people other ways was still on the table, along with recognition of... well, at least some of... my own limitations.)

I... have managed to broaden the scope a bit since then, what with becoming more stable and secure and generally closer to being within hailing distance of functional if not sane, but that's where I (as in the-me-that-feels-at-all-continuous) started from, and I Think It Shows.

[fyreharper]

Tbh that sounds to me like a good and reasonable baseline, and it would be great if more people put that into use.

[kaberett]

I get the impression it makes neurotypicals' skin crawl that I'd Need To Spell That Out For Myself. This is why it's asserted that autistics have zero empathy and are probably basically Nazis, etc etc etc...

[fyreharper]

:makes series of Faces: (does facepalm count as a face)

[alexseanchai]

yeah I'm not resonating with the better-model thing at all but damn could her comparison be improved

like if someone sticks a knife in one's back, neither one's weakness nor one's strength has anything to do with why one is bleeding

[kaberett]

I do want to clarify some that I was providing a very brief summary of something she genuinely has written Entire Books trying to explain; to sketch a slightly more expanded version, this is something she says very clearly in the context of trying to draw clear distinctions between "vulnerability" and "weakness" for the sake of an audience that's assuming vulnerability = weakness, and weakness = bad.

(Examples she gives of vulnerability that don't really work for me include "giving comprehensive and thoughtful apologies" in the way that I... kinda default to, these days. It hadn't occurred to me that saying "hey, I screwed up, here's my best understanding of how & what I'll try to do differently next time" could be considered "vulnerable" because these days a lot of it is just... automatic. I have drilled it enough that I don't have the anxiety about Losing Face If I Say I Was Wrong any more, so it's not... scary.)

[alexseanchai]

ohh gotcha

I will probably have more thoughts when not Splitting Headache?