Vulnerability
- melissasargentobrycki
- Feb 13, 2021
- 5 min read
When your conditioned to extreme circumstance, constant fear of rejection and toxic trauma bonds, you find minimal ability to trust. Sometimes this means you push those you love most away.
Ironically we are told in therapy that in order to heal we must continue to be vulnerable. We also must have minimal shame in our stories.
To tell of ones story to begin healing. To admit the flawed behavior or bad judgement calls as a result of coping-that takes immense courage. It is of the highest risk for judgement or shame. So we continue to ask for grace. In exchange, we work through our healing process with all our guts & with grit in hopes to find glory and gratitude of which is called acceptance.
Many therapists say it imperative for our healing process to be every bit of vulnerable, yet how does one do that when they are in a constant fight or flight. Also, if it’s not known by others what is happening and why they are constantly wanting to find a resolution to the problem, it’s perceived as needy, over the top and always wanting the next thing. It’s always said to be wanting more.
It seems from my experience that trauma survivors healing from years of layered complex damage; that we are all walking a fine line.
I feel I am walking a thing line daily in MOST if not ALL of my relationships. So humor me while I try to figure this out.
Over the years, I’ve engage in healthy relationships with the people closest to me. Whether that relationship be a significant other, a husband, a friend, a parent, a sibling or in-laws, one of the requests in most of those relationships is that those I love share with me what they want and need so I don’t have to read their minds. I’ve spent too many years feeling like I’ve disappointed the people I love, but often, it’s because I didn’t even know what they wanted, so I failed to meet their desires.
Finally, I came to realize I was asking something very vulnerable of the people I loved. When we ask someone to share what they want and need from us, we’re asking them to get naked emotionally.
I want you to imagine dating someone new, and you begin to really like this person. He/she then asks you to share what you want and need in that relationship.
Gulp.
No guts. No glory. Right? You proceed to tell tell that person what you expect, what makes you feel good/bad and what can make you tick or set you off. Although you understand the relationship is new, you’re enjoying that person’s company so much you’d be happy to see each other every other day and that it would be great to plan on spending Saturday nights together as well. And really, you’d love it if neither of you were dating other people. And it would fill your cup if you could spend Valentine’s Day together. And just so you know, you like your coffee with sugar but no cream.
Then you finally that person is pale as can be and he/she beats around the bush and for sure freaked out. Said person then mutters, “Hmm… well, I’m busy this Saturday, but maybe the third Saturday of next month.” And suddenly, as Brené Brown would say you’ve just lost a lot of marbles from the trust jar.
FEAR OF REJECTION I think we fail to express our wants and needs because we’re terrified of getting rejected or being judged or being perceived as needy.
->This is even heightened and can be even harder to process in those who suffer from what is called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD).
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is an extreme emotional sensitivity and physical pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short or failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations. This dysmorphia is 100% a symptom of those who exhibit ADHD. In fact, it has taken a long time for physicians to recognize that these symptoms are caused by the sudden emotional changes associated with ADHD and rejection sensitivity, while all other aspects of relating to others seem typical. So what happens with those who suffer from RSD is when an emotional response is internalized it often times imitates a full, major mood disorder complete with suicidal ideation. The sudden change from feeling perfectly fine to feeling intensely sad that results from RSD is often misdiagnosed as rapid cycling mood disorder. RSD is hard to recognize; especially if you are constantly being told you are making it all up in your head. Often, people who have underwent it for years, can’t find the words to describe its immense pain and will repeat over and over what they are trying to say without it making much sense at all. What they say is “it’s intense, awful, terrible, overwhelming.” And that is is always triggered by the perceived or real loss of approval, love, or respect.
Often, patients diagnosed with RSD are comforted just to know there is a name for this feeling.They feel a huge release of anxiety and if awareness is brought about about the dysmorphia, it can be handled much easier within ones self. Personally, just knowing that I am not alone, that this is scientifically proven and that almost 100% of people with ADHD experience rejection sensitivity has relieved my own amount of anxiety in why I am the way I am. After hearing about my diagnosis, it’s been weight off my shoulder knowing it’s not my fault and that I am not damaged.
Its important to know; you do not ever become any less valuable after rejection (with or with out RSD)
The sad part is even this being a scientifically proven fact; Neurotypical type people do not believe this to be a thing. They believe they are above this happening to them and to anyone else in that matter. They are often the ones minimizing your reality. Telling you you are delusional. Using what they know about against you to hit you where it hurts the most. You are then left feeling like you are never enough.
MARBLES IN A JAR When we express a need and the person we’re vulnerable with chooses to meet that need Brene Brown explains this the best; we get marbles in the jar. This means trust and intimacy grow, and we feel seen, heard, loved, nurtured.
But in order to gain the intimacy we desire, we need to risk having our needs not met, and we need to learn to self-soothe, so we’re not making our happiness dependent upon someone else. Because sometimes people are in a relationship to get; versus being in it to give.
So to follow up with what I stated earlier...vulnerability is a very fine line to walk especially when someone is healing as is. Be vulnerable though by explaining what it is your wanting. Make your wants and needs known with those you can trust. But be willing to sit in that place of excruciating vulnerability when your wants and needs can’t be met, at least not at that moment. And let go of the people who always say you are arguing when your discussing how you feel about something with them.
If someone perpetually chooses not to meet your wants and needs, you’ll lose marbles in the jar. and that’s ok. Sometimes we have to let ourselves be in that vulnerable moment for some time and we unfortunately become skeptical of certain things while figuring out how to love ourselves in the meantime.
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