How To Be Vulnerable
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: Personal Growth, Self, Mental Health, Vulnerability, Writing

How To Be Vulnerable

It’s Time to Open Up

Photo by Genessa Panainte on Unsplash

I cry a lot.

Nobody knows. Because I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want anyone to comfort me. I don’t want anyone to console me. I don’t want anyone to touch me when I am sad. I like to feel sad. It reminds that I am still here. But it also f*cking hurts.

I bury myself in work. I hibernate in an Internet cocoon. I lay comfortably behind a screen. I unravel. I stop myself from crying. But it all builds up. And one day the dam will break. I will like it when it does.

I lose myself in fatherhood. I lose myself in loss. I lose myself in ego-spirals. I lose myself because of a broken world. Sometimes I want to lose myself. Sometimes it’s an excuse to hide. It is an excuse. But I don’t know what I’m scared of.

Maybe I’m scared of dying. Maybe I’m scared of losing someone I can’t live without. Maybe I belong alone. Maybe I am unlovable. Maybe I use maybe as yet another excuse not to say yes to everything.

I love myself more than I hate myself. I have no reason to hate myself, but still, some days I walk by the mirror and call myself a name. I don’t know why. I am objectively a good person, even to myself. I don’t know if I want to be more or less. Or to just disappear.

I think about how I was holding my mother’s hand when she took her last breath. I was 20. I think about how I was holding my father’s hand when he took his last breath. I was 33. I wonder what I’d be like if they were still here. I wonder what my kids would be like with them in their lives.

It’s easier for me to open up online. My friends don’t read this. I wouldn’t care if they did. They probably know all this. My oldest friends know me. They know me when I am pretending I am ok. I am not ok. I am rarely ok. But I am always stable.

Being vulnerable feels good. But the Internet has made vulnerability a commodity. There are people on this site who use it as a crutch. As a content churn. That is really f*cking sad. And messed up. But it’s real.

Sometimes I feel like I deserve bad karma. There is literally no reason for this. I’ve lived a fairly pristine existence, but for a few minor anomalies. It’s almost as if I want to be bad, but I can’t be. Because I know that inside, I am good. And I would be uncomfortable being bad.

I hold doors. I say thank you to everyone. I pay attention to people. I haven’t left my house much since March. Like, less than you. I can’t tell if I hate it or love it. Or if my existence right now is so static, I am in a simulation of myself. I am static.

It’s hard to be vulnerable. People judge your vulnerability. God forbid you admit that you are not ok. Diagnosis. Medication. Hospitalization. For some people, all of those are relevant and important and life-saving. But for some people, it’s ok to just feel like hurting yourself. Even if you never plan on doing it. Admitting it isn’t always a sign of more.

It’s ok if you want someone to break up with you because you don’t think you deserve them. It’s probably not healthy, but it’s ok. A lot is ok. It’s ok to feel like the world has failed you. What’s not ok is to act like an entitled prick all the time. Yeah, there are too many of those people.

Do you ever wonder what the point of someone who plagiarizes is? Is it that they are so desperate for attention that will do something that is so easy to figure out? Do you ever wonder if Internet sites truly care about ethics? Or is literally everything in our lives fully commercialized?

Some days I want to punch a wall. I don’t even know why. I am completely calm all the time. I think my insides hold some mild rage. Maybe because of all I’ve lost. I miss them. I miss being a son. I miss my mommy. I miss my daddy.

I cry a lot. Like, more than you would expect. I cry watching The Good Doctor. I cry watching A Million Little Things. I cry listening to Shallow. I’m kind of an emotional basket case. But no one knows. I am not embarrassed in the slightest bit. I like crying. Just not around anyone else.

I want to crack myself open and lay threadbare on a spool for the world to see.

I want to lay in a forest for eight hours. On the ground. I want to stare at the sky and the trees. I don’t care if a bird sh*ts on me. I want to breathe in the crispest air in the world. I want that air to cleanse me and make me feel better. Part of me doesn't want to feel better.

People used to say I moped around a lot. I did. I was lonely. I think I wanted to be held more than I was. I still mope around, but it’s different. Now I just see time slipping through my fingers while I stand in one place. My feet are cemented. I’m bored.

I’ve never been addicted to anything. I can stop doing anything. I don’t feel like I need anything in my life. Besides my kids. And that’s a problem. Because I probably need love. Like a lot of love. Better love. A different kind of love. From someone who actually gets me.

I think I deserve that, but in the same thought, I like to tell myself I am fine being alone. That solitude suits me. And in a lot of ways it does. But it’s because I am numb. The pins and needles of my life don’t allow me to feel enough. I’m scared to feel something. I’m scared to lose something.

I think about dying a lot. I worry that my kids will be lost without me and the next second I worry that they will be fine without me. And what was I here for anyway? Some days I wonder if I am really good at anything. Even the stuff I know I am good at.

I think someone will read this and suggest I get on some medication. I think that sounds stupid. Because the act of spraying vulnerable thoughts on a wall is not a defect. It’s just an emotional brainstorm. It feels good even when it feels bad.

I used to be rigid. Then I realized I had an appetizer portion of Asperger’s. A lot of people don’t believe that. They think it’s an excuse I use to make the fact that I don’t want to emote or connect or go to parties more palatable. I don’t give a f*ck what they think anymore. I fall where I fall. Sometimes I want to fall down and then stay there.

I’ve never heard voices. I wish I did. And that they were my mom or dad. Sometimes I see birds near my garage and I think they are them. I don’t care how that sounds. I miss them. I don’t think I’ve recovered from their deaths. It doesn’t matter how old I am. I can’t recover.

If I hadn’t found writing again a few years ago, I know I would have a lot more anger inside of me that would be constantly festering. If I hadn’t found meditation a few years ago, I may have had a heart attack. Or panic attacks. Or an overload of stress. Mindfulness and awareness are what makes me breathe. And get up in the morning. And my kids. Even when they don’t want to talk to me. I still love them more than I could possibly ever love anything.

I wonder if other people get tired of reading the same story from the same writers, in a different form, every other day. The same narrative. The same. The same. The same. The same. Different headline. Different paragraph structure. Same. Sh*t.

I like writing whatever the f*ck I want to. Including the * that I put in all the curse words in here except for prick. Because prick looks better and is contextually accurate without an *. I may be the only writer who doesn’t care if you read me. Or follow me. Or follow me just because you want something. I am oblivious. You can stop. I don’t notice. I don’t care.

I wonder what it would feel like to love someone like I love my kids. That would be nice. But I wonder if it wouldn’t be as nice as I think. Because I think I love my kids too much sometimes. And it causes pressure for them. And then I feel bad about myself, as if I can’t do anything right. Even when it comes to unconditional love.

Do you ever just want to spill your darkest secrets onto this screen? I don’t have many, but this is what it is to me. To be vulnerable. This is how to be vulnerable. This is how to stop caring about what everyone thinks. Or what comes next. Or what this will mean. Or anything.

These are just words. They come from the inside of my heart. But they are still just words. But when the words you write can touch someone else, even for a second, you have achieved something. It’s why I write poetry. Well, I have to write poetry.

It spills from my arm and eyes and ears and my mouth. It has to come out. But what I’ve come to find is that the less I care about who reads it, the more meaningful it is when someone does. And when it hits them straight in the chest. The biggest compliment I can get is a tear. Not a word. Emotion from my words. That is pure.

I cry a lot.

It feels good. Maybe one day I will be bold enough to cry with you. But until then, my words are my tears.