sometimes healing means losing things
I often hear people talking about how they find it difficult to be vulnerable. However when they say it, it is sometimes in a strange way, where they can recognise that it is a problem, but it is also a problem they are proud to have. Like, there is something cool, or edgy or romantic about struggling with vulnerability. I think, in general, there are a few types of problems that people really romanticise, things that make them broken but in a hot way. I can understand the impetus, the culture that most of us live in valorises this type of thing. Think of the 100’s if not 1000’s of pop culture representations across all formats that idealise brooding, tortured men who are too damaged to be vulnerable.
I think this speaks to a secret, something that is often unspoken even amongst counsellors and therapists and other mental health practitioners. That sometimes, healing or getting better means giving something up. Often that thing is feeling special or different, or perhaps just interesting! The culture that we exist in can make it seem like being boring perhaps one of the worst things that we can be. The proliferation of social media and influencer culture can make it seem like everyone else is living thrilling and dramatic lives and that this is aspirational. Stability and functionality can be seen as succumbing to being being boring.
Additionally I see sometimes in activist circles, that pursuing these things is part of perpetuating capitalism, because it means conforming to the structures of the system. While I can see why this argument is compelling, I think actually the oppsite is true, capitalism thrives on our dysfunction and that it actually feeds the individualism and exploitation inherent in the system.
The idea of being boring being akin to death is starting to shift, I am looking at the popularity of the dull men and women’s groups on facebook as people beginning to embrace being ordinary and uninteresting. I think to some degree the pandemic has helped people recognise the joy that can exist in somewhat mundane pleasures. However, that this is relatively new and a push-back against the dominant norm. This means that sometimes there is active incentive against giving up the things that make us unique, even when those things are our damage.
In my last post I spoke about over-identifying with disorder, if we turn our damage into our personalities or identities healing can also mean that we lose the story of who we think we are, which is terrifying! Part of thinking that our damage is the most interesting part of us, means that we begin to think that it is us.
In one of my previous posts I listed a bunch of emotional and relational skills that I think are important for living in healthy community, I think the capacity to be vulnerable is perhaps one of the most important, because from it flows so many other things. If we have difficulty being vulnerable, it means we find it hard to ask for help, or even to admit to other when we are struggling. If we have difficulty being vulnerable than it can mean that we find it hard to let people know when they have hurt us, which means we cannot have healthy conflict with people which can deeply damage our relationships. If we can’t ask for help, how can our relationships be reciprocal? Community cannot exist without reciprocal relationships.