[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

[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)