Vulnerability vs. Transparency: Notes from a Crying Work Session

I thought the “Propaganda I’m Not Falling For” trend was interesting but I'm usually bad at videos so I didn't hop on. Last week, mid-meltdown, I saw Jessica Daylover from Nuclear Fusion post hers. 

Here’s mine:

Propaganda I’m Not Falling For:

• I will never succeed without working harder/doing more

• I’m doing this wrong

• Wanting/asking to be babied is immaturity or a flaw

• Wanting to be my lovers’ soft landing is only danger and never fulfillment

• I need to write and make videos more like “them” gestures vaguely

• My past mistakes will disqualify me forever

• My brain’s struggles don’t have opportunities

• My connection to my ancestry dictates my ability to be free in my present

• Having missteps, mistakes, and ruptures means repairs and rebuilds aren’t possible

• It’s too late

• I’m getting old

What had happened was:

I was sitting in front of my computer and planners trying to submit poems that I’ve been trying to submit all week. I edited them last night. 

While locating the submission links and re-reading the guidelines and trying to contextualize my artist’s statement, I checked my email by accident and saw a Patreon notification. 

I realized that I missed a small step in my Patreon settings that was disqualifying me from receiving free benefits I was paying for. My brain does not interface well on screens. As soon as I saw my very small mistake with annoyingly large impacts, I started crying. Like really crying hard. 

For context, I had already had an anxiety attack two days before. I don’t exactly know why or what triggered it. Then after I wrote this, I went to dinner with family and then had another anxiety attack. 

My therapist says we may never know the cause. Also she helped me realize that I push my feelings away when they first begin so that I’m not aware of them until they become overwhelming. That tracks. 

She has “sent” me resources through her portal twice and I thought I hadn’t looked at them just because I tend to procrastinate and get analysis paralysis. So today, when I found myself crying over back office settings, I thought I should access the coping skills resource she sent. But then I had to text her because I don’t know how to find that either. 

That’s when I began auto-scrolling on IG, looking for distraction, and saw Jess’s post. I started writing my own list in my head and then started this blog post.

Notes and Lessons:

This is vulnerability in action in the moment. I joined Nuclear Fusion several months ago because I need someone to take care of me. I also need ways to understand and articulate what community is, what care is, and what community care is. 

I’m not a great community member right now. I’ll dig into why on future posts. 

Also, through Nuclear Fusion, I learned that vulnerability is different from transparency. Vulnerability is in the messy moment and transparency is from a clearer remove. I’ve always been transparent and rarely vulnerable. I don’t believe that vulnerability is safe in all settings, but for this post it’s fine. I don’t believe we should even be transparent about everything, and so I’m not. However, I do believe secrets create spaces where shame and fear breed, so we have to handle them carefully. (Footnote)

I wrote this in case anyone else needs to see what it looks like to be struggling but still doing the things.

As the antithesis to the Propaganda I’m Not Falling For, here’s a list of affirmations I am falling for.

• I will succeed by doing slow, deep work out loud

• My life is my life and I’m living it - there’s no way to live wrong

• I deserve to be babied

• My lovers deserve my love - that’s why I chose them

• I write and make videos like me

• I’m an excellent learner and I can still get everything I want

• For every downside of my brain chemistry, there’s an upside. I’m almost a genius with excellent pattern recognition

• My ancestors are my teachers, not my jailers

• Repairing and rebuilding is healing

• Time is fake and whenever I get to it is when I was meant to do it

• Time is fake and it’s a very long life

 Footnote: If you're technical like me and you're wondering how this is vulnerability and not transparency, it's because I wrote this that day and only didn't post it because I'm a procrastinator.