What Is This Life Without Letting People In?

Accountability and vulnerability have been two big things on my mind lately. Vulnerability has always been something that’s hard and scary for me. Showing actual feelings? Those deep down ones that feel like the most tender and precious parts of my heart? I can talk about those feelings – I’ve spent decades in therapy learning how to talk about those feelings. But to actually feel them and show them to someone else? It’s hard. It’s especially hard if I have shown and felt them and it wasn’t received well. If it was shut down or treated like something that just makes everything worse, of course it’s going to be scary to open up whether that’s to the same person or someone new. Our nervous systems don’t forget that kind of thing. I think protecting yourself and having walls at times is part of the human experience, but it shouldn’t ever be your whole human experience. (And by your, I mean mine.) Now having emotional boundaries, yes of course. But those boundaries can’t be walls. There’s a huge difference between ‘I know where I end and you begin’ and ‘you cannot reach me anymore’.

That brings me to accountability. I’ve gone from that wide-open, totally-raw vibe to walls-up-and-completely-closed-off vibe really quickly before. At times I’ve been in the mindset of if you do me dirty once, you’re locked out behind the walls forever. Has that led to me legitimately hurting people who I wish I hadn’t? Absolutely. At other times, I’ve accepted not being treated anywhere near where I should be for far too long and eventually hit the point where those walls went up even harder than the quick version. Again, did that hurt people? Of course. And again, do I wish I hadn’t? Yes. But the thing is… I don’t regret the walls I’ve put up most of the time. Some people deserved to be shoved out the door of my heart and never let back in, BUT communicating the why and how and what was going on for me when that happened was my downfall almost 100% of the time. That walls-up, shoving-people-out-the-door version wasn’t me or who I was to my core but it was the version of me that was trying to protect myself from getting hurt and, in turn, I hurt people in the process. Maybe had I communicated how I was feeling and what I was thinking better and more clearly, the hurt wouldn’t have happened or maybe it would have, but I would’ve been more true to my core had I been able to do that.

And that takes me back to vulnerability. Maybe being vulnerable isn’t for someone else or for a connection – because, again, some people don’t deserve that continued vulnerability. What I think I’m realizing is that being vulnerable is for me (or for you). It’s not something that requires bearing my heart and soul on a silver platter and asking for you to take care of it. It’s something that I hold close but still show someone – maybe more of a ‘hey here’s a peek into me, take it or leave it but this is who I am’. Maybe that sounds like something obvious to you, but until recently I thought that, or at least acted like, it was all in, rip my bleeding heart out of my chest and give it to you and beg you not to hurt it and being disappointed when it gets mishandled OR I’m not letting you anywhere damn near this heart of mine at all or anymore. Maybe vulnerability isn’t giving someone else ownership or power over the most fragile parts of ourselves. Maybe it’s allowing ourselves to stay emotionally honest even when someone hasn’t necessarily earned unlimited access to us, because that’s just who we are. And by ‘we’ I mean me and maybe you if this lands in any way at all.

Now what’s weird is after rereading what I just wrote, I thought to myself that I’m not that way in friendships typically. I’ve had my moments like that in friendships, don’t get me wrong – I have had my share of weird, close, drama infused (by me and the other parties) friendships – but why is it so much easier to be vulnerable with friends than with a romantic partner usually? The stakes are lower, sure that’s an obvious answer I suppose. We don’t necessarily get to know those deep dark corners of our friends’ minds that partners get to know. So if we’re vulnerable with our partners, who know all the little pieces of who we are, and they reject that in some way or another, then does that mean that who we are down to our core isn’t worthy of care or love? Obviously the answer is no, but that sure doesn’t feel like the case sometimes.

So how do I protect myself without throwing all of my walls up and becoming someone I don’t want to be? Can vulnerability exist alongside self protection instead of being the opposite of it? What even does healthy vulnerability look like? I don’t really know at this point honestly but I think maybe, for me at least, it all comes down to staying focused on the ‘me’ of it all and not becoming an unattached, cold person that I don’t recognize. Staying open, not because I’m doing it for someone else but because of me and because that’s who I am. Because what is this life without letting people in?