Vulnerability. If vulnerability were a pill, I'd avoid it. If it were a vitamin, I'd pass it. I wouldn't smoke it, eat, sniff it and if it were a person, we wouldn't be friends. "Big mouth" spin-off "Human Resources" has a character named "Keith" from the "grief department." He reminds me of what vulnerability is like. The character is a sweater and his favorite line is "the only way out is through." Get it? The only way to get out of a sweater is to go through it. Time and time again people in the show try to push past what's going on and be logical and strong (depicted by a logic rock) but Keith get a little psycho. She grows bigger and bigger and gets nasty and dirty about making sure you face him. Grief is like that. The more you avoid it, the more it leaks out in different areas of your life and you become a more difficult person to deal with. Grief comes when you least expect it.
Besides that grief can come for so many reasons. It's not just for the death of a loved one. You can grieve the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, you can even grieve feeling left out of a friend group. Your loss doesn't have to be real, it can be perceived. I've been grieving the loss of love I'll never receive from my parents for years. Each interaction I have with them accumulates and periodically it gets to a point of realization that these people will never love me, or love me in the way that is significant to me.
What does all of this have to do with vulnerability?
It's the ability to talk about it and process it and get through it. I saw a tik tok (I can't believe that's my point of reference, I'm palming my face) that said babies are born with the instinct they need the most. For example giraffes are born able to run, lions are born able to bite and humans are born able to cry for help. As a social creature and a collective we are born to ask for help, born to be part of the community. We communicate our needs through those screams. That's where vulnerability comes in. Somewhere in life we have learned not to be vulnerable. We learned that it's not safe to ask for help, it's not safe to process emotions, and it's not safe to let others know that we have emotions to process to begin with. We would streak across an open field rather than be emotionally vulnerable. I would at least. We don't even want to be vulnerable with ourselves.
This is where I am. I'm in a place where I'm trying to be vulnerable with myself. Letting me know that I don't have the capacity for much, I am falling apart, I am grieving and I need to do that in order to grow. But I don't feel like I'm actually growing right now. Just a complete and total wreck. Today, though, I admitted that I need help. And that the first step of getting out by getting through.
Join me on my journey to embrace Keith from grief.
Love,
Dat Bahamian Borderline
IG: @bahamian_borderline
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