On Vulnerability

I’ve always understood power to be the most sought out trait.  The word is synonymous with strength, respect and worth as a human being.  However, what I’ve come to realise is that power does not garner love or deep emotional connections.  In fact, power can be lonely and sad.  To be powerful involves appearing with no weaknesses, and as a result, possessing an unmonitored shame towards that which you are hiding.  I recently read an article in an online university magazine, stating:

Brene Brown describes shame as playing two lines in our heads: “Never good enough” and “Who do you think you are?”. They tell us to doubt ourselves. Shame makes us uncertain and it stops us from taking risks… The way out of shame? Vulnerability.

As I lie there questioning my closeness with those around me, I mindfully comment that I have always put up a front.  Throughout high school, the shame of wanting something desperately, whether it be a certain confidence, or a reputation, or to not be anxious to talk to people, would result in a pretence that I already possessed all these traits.  It was a thinly veiled attempt to fool my parents, my friends and myself into thinking that everything about myself was as I thought the status quo to be.  I’ve admired strong characters all my life, and my way of being one was to lie away all the things I am ashamed of.  Strong characters are always put together with no imperfections, right?

Yesterday my sister and my mother were having an argument.  She complained that she did not want to, and would not, ask a girl in her class for a minor favour.  Her fear of social awkwardness was laid clearly on the table in front of her. She had no shame and no reservations. My inherently judgmental personality would of course be harsh towards myself if I were to expose such discomfort, but when my sister nonchalantly revealed her feelings, I really couldn’t have been more indifferent.  It’s as the shame wizard from Big Mouth taunts each kid at the school sleepover. Inside their heads, the shame progresses into a powerful, self-hating force of denial.  Yet, if one kid were to be frank about their feelings, the others would probably feel a sense of relatability.  

The normalisation of these feelings within our heads would lead to an accelerated self-growth I wish I’d had.  In 2011 I watched Glee for the first time and found that the show made me uncomfortable.  The star of the show was annoying and self-obsessed.  The popular cheerleader was pregnant.  This was not your regular Hollywood teen television.  The same thing happened with The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  Why was Emma Watson so sad, and why did she have short hair?  Normal people don’t act like this.  Normal people are shiny and blonde like Kirsten Dunst from Bring it On.  Older now, I am a huge fan of both Glee and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, perhaps because their supposed quirkiness brings forward a truth about the way we feel.  They allow us to feel like any absurd thought we possess is in actuality okay.

This acceptance, both within society and the individual, should enable us to peel back this deceitful protective layer.  In recent years I have pride myself on transparency.  However, it’s like Lorde says, Let’s let things come out of the woodwork / I’ll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies / Yeah, awesome right?.  While I somehow truly believe I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, in reality those things that bring me shame are still hiding deep within.  I guess addressing that those ‘weird’ thoughts are actually okay is easier said than done.

However, is showing your best side really all that deceitful?  Is being vulnerable all that necessary?  I’ve been grappling at the idea of a public versus private life, of mystery and maintaining a persona.  Over brunch today, my friend described how we are all too concerned about the projection of ourselves on other people.  Perhaps this brand we are demonstrating to the public is more effective and respectable with blocked out weaknesses and vulnerabilities. But where and when does this brand get replaced by the genuine truth in order to form close relationships?

I watched a video entitled Why you will marry the wrong person in which the psychologist states that when we say, ‘I love you’ what we are really saying is ‘I need you’.  We are putting ourselves in a vulnerable position.  He goes on to describe how your typical type A personality would respond to this scary feeling by almost saying and acting the opposite.  When we begin to feel vulnerable, we become avoidant, we begin to nag, and we act as if we don’t need them when we wish we could say the contrary.  This results in them questioning the relationship, leading to a cycle of low trust. If you are unable to acknowledge and understand all your own vulnerable thoughts and feelings, then how can you expect to have someone truly love you for who you are?

Additionally, honesty is attractive, and shame is not.  When asked about something I am insecure about, I find myself avoiding answering the question.  Sometimes I want the projection of myself to be something else so badly that I mimic the ‘strong’ self I wish I was.  After these incidences, I can’t help but see how two dimensional and flimsy each small dishonesty was.  Years later in hindsight, I see that if I had demonstrated the genuine self I was ashamed to be, that would have been stronger and surer.  That would have drawn the correct people.  That would have allowed people to understand my emotions, and potentially acknowledge the likeness of their own.  Ultimately, laying my vulnerable self on the table would have, and will always, lead to the most meaningful encounters.   

While we may subconsciously grow up daydreaming about the validation of receiving that trophy with the respect of all those standing below us, as we get older, we begin to realise this isn’t enough.  All the self-help books and the fairy-tale movies tell us we want love, family and ultimately to be understood.  However, bad habits of hidden insecurities are difficult to break.  In my opinion, if we acknowledge what we are ashamed of and unabashedly bear ourselves, all hidden grievances will become non-existent. Our burdens will be shared and understood by others.  Ultimately, the truth will set you free, so why not lay every single truth out there and just… be.   

Love,
M

How Sally Rooney's 'Normal People' makes me feel

It makes me want someone in my life who makes me feel nervous, who I am so desperate to impress.

The book has given my mind a kind of genuine portrayal of love I could never have fathomed before.  And I know the feelings are so emotionally realistic because while I may not have ever experienced this kind of adoration first hand, it's the kind of thing I've been imagining a lot lately - how a single touch can make you feel special, beautiful, fragile but safe; the way he looks at you, you feel seen, feminine, adored, like you and only you have the power to make him feel sheer happiness; you know he would do anything for you, anything to make you happy, and you feel submissive to him in the same way; the kind of mutual respect for each other's opinions, and the way you could watch the cogs turn in his head all day, and you know he feels the same; when thinking about him makes you feel exquisitely happy, or sad, or something.

It's how the book begins with a conversation full of palpable tension - so hyperaware of every little movement and noise, thoughts are zoning in on the paper being rolled between your fingers.  It's something for them to do.  Heart pounding, awkward, and when it's over you go back to your room, look in the mirror and re-enact the way you must've looked, the way he must've seen you, wishing you could've done something or said something differently.  It makes you feel a heavy wave of hopelessness and sadness.  That is how much you want to impress him.  That is how intrigued you are by him.  At every waking moment, the thought of when you might see him again is in the background.  As you sort your thoughts out in the shower, you imagine telling him things, telling him honest opinions and anecdotes, and portraying yourself as your best self, but still yourself, and he is becoming a little more intrigued with your mind with every word.

This obsessive emotional connection is one I feel a stark relation to, a feeling I criticise as pointless.  Romance is supposed to be easy, isn't it?  It's supposed to feel right from the beginning, like you have a mutual emotional understanding.  There's no awkwardness; just a back-and-forth ease, full of laughter and fun, something that will progress so naturally that it requires no effort, easy vulnerability, and no sense of shame.  That's how you know he's the one, right?  I've never thought that feeling of awkwardness, genuine intrigue and nervousness could ever be a sign of potential, could ever lead to some kind of deep future connection.  If you're not easily open on first encounter, then how could you ever be easily open?  Yet, somehow, in this story, a nervous dreaded intrigued encounter grows progressively and beautifully, allowing two people to change each other for the better, like two thorns entwined during their most malleable years as they make their way towards the sky.

Upon buying the book, I was under the impression that the title, Normal People, was referring to how two normal people in our society behave, like an ode to all of us readers allowing us to feel less alone.  However, while lying in the dark in a vulnerable moment, Marianne asks why she can't be like normal people, like him, in a seemingly healthy relationship, with a seemingly healthy group of friends.  Whether this really is an ode to the general population, with our potentially shared grievances about belonging; or whether this is an ode to her character, and those alike, seemingly cold, unlovable, strong and alone.  There's something in a derisive, wild female personality that always makes her less of the ideal girlfriend who reads books quietly on the train like Rory from Gilmore Girls.  There's something about the unorthodox girl who feels stuck under a bell jar of being unlikeable, yet stubbornly defies socially liked characteristics anyway, if only to make excuses for the shame that stems from a lack of belonging.  Or does every girl feel this way sometimes?

And then there's the description about how the opinions of the people around us, the shame we have towards our honest feelings, can lead us to do illogical, regrettable, cruel things.  There's a kind of realness in the way she portrays the desperation to be liked by everybody, and how those with weaker personalities would 'betray any confidence, any kindness, for the promise of social acceptance'; or the way Helen criticises Marianne's choice to discuss ethics and politics over lighter conversations as self-obsessive.  I would probably give the same criticisms if put in the same situation.  But then, there's the way Marianne describes the social ladder in school, how she sees herself at the bottom, but sometimes sees herself as completely off the ladder altogether, unphased by the hierarchal social constructs put in place.  Whether this is self defensive or forward-thinking, I'm not sure.  But we have all thought that way some time, even if just to feel superior, and the book portrays this so incredibly well set in a university full of prestige, elitists and intellectuals.

All I feel is sadness now that I have finished.  This book has added an intensity and thoughtfulness to my life that I hope lingers for a while.  Two people experience the kind of love we have all experienced a part of, and I know that all love is different, and there is no one definition of love, but I truly hope that everybody experiences a level of closeness to another person that is something like this one day.

Love,
M