For many of us, the cultures and societies we live in confuse vulnerability and honesty for weakness. As women, in particular, we are raised to believe that our strength comes from an infallibility, stomaching the very things that inflict poor mental and emotional health.Farah Gabdon talks about her own struggle to be vulnerable, the physical effects on her body and how her bold move to be brave remains a work in process.
I have always been a person who makes it incredibly easy for others to be emotional in my space. I am a nurturer by nature. I need to care, to heal. But I have never been able to allow myself to be open, to wear my emotions on my sleeve. I am always reminded by friends (who have known me for a lifetime) that they have never seen me cry. I guess this is why I began writing and why I continue to do so even today.
When you have spent years swallowing your emotions, bottling what matters most to your being, there is a danger of losing a vital part of your existence; the sincerest part of your soul. These last few years, I have been finding, in small subtle bursts how important vulnerability is and teaching myself how to be so. I have learnt how much strength there is in it. How very necessary it is for our health and happiness.
Two years ago I began an anonymous blog and called it “All The Things We’ve Left Unsaid,” writing under the alias “wordswoman”. I poured my heart out onto a screen, neither knowing nor paying attention to who was reading. I wrote about love, my fears, my hopes. I found ease in this and healing in the hundreds of messages shared with me by people who felt and thought the same.
Often we are so afraid of shame and rejection that we conceal, cover and coat the parts of our hearts we think to be weak. But in accepting these broken pieces, these terrifying little crevices inside me, I was introduced to a world of hearts and souls whom I could lay myself bare with. Open. Honest. I found that by saying “I am weak. I am vulnerable. I accept this”, even in this virtual space, I was inadvertently granting permission for others to do the same.
I grew tired of feigning strength. I began to understand that emotions were natural, necessary and the strongest of us were those who were able to accept and embrace them. All my life I buried my emotions and I found myself unable to make sense of them. As a Somali woman I was expected to be strong. As a Muslim woman I had to be ‘proper’ and as a young WOC growing up in England, I had to conceal all possible weakness. We live in a world where appearance is the most important thing. And we play this role. All of us, some better than others. We need to appear strong, happy and in control, often even when we are not; especially when we are not.
There is a greater expectation still, when you are the sons and daughters of a Diaspora displaced by war and strife. When you are the daughter of a woman who has looked death and destruction in the face and survived, you learn through even the smallest interactions that strong is the only way to be. There is no space for weakness or appearing too emotional. You learn that pain, for the most part, should be swallowed. As a result, we live in a constant state of fear. Of shame. Of showing too much. Saying too much. ‘Being’ too much and even, of not being quite enough.
Sometimes we spend so long holding on to things, swallowing pain, sorrow and fear, that we become stuck in this routine of stoicism; holding back when all we really need is have a good cry, a genuine heart to heart and a cup of tea. Over the years, I have seen first-hand the results this has had on my body, my relationships and my very existence. By the time I started university, I had no emotional response to stress, I was calm but I would fall ill during exam period. Three to four times a year I’d become bedbound.
My body took on and formed its own response to the stress my mind was neglecting. Forming new friendships seemed impossible because I was always on edge, unsure of how much of myself was okay to show. I had bigger walls than I knew how to break through. I became a creature of comfort zones and familiarity. I was enslaved to these things. And when I was removed from them, I’d put on my emotionless face and body language. Strong. Strong. Always strong. I was stronger on the outside than I felt on the inside and I knew this had to change.
Over the last few years, I have been trying to create safe, open spaces. To construct a world that makes it easy for me to be at my most naked emotionally, so I can be at my strongest, physically and mentally. I have befriended people who I can say ‘hey, I’m sad’ or ‘I’m afraid’ to. Friends who validate my emotions rather than dismiss or pass judgement. I have taken my writing onto the stage, performing intricately personal poetry in-front of crowds who struck fear inside me, but later offered words of understanding and acceptance.
In forcing the world to see who I am - everything I am- I took away all power of shame and fear. Those who accepted my being, came in peace and empathy and those who could not or did not, stayed distant. In being so painfully vulnerable, I have felt stronger than at any point in my existence. This has been the most frightening journey of my life, but also the most rewarding. My emotional, physical and psychological states since entering this state of vulnerability, have improved greatly. I believe this is vital for our bodies, our health, our mental states.
I formed connections with those who understood the need for vulnerability, who were able and willing to accept and share this understanding. I sought out people with kind faces, honest eyes and bodies that held no arrogance. In my journey to embracing vulnerability, I met a girl last year, who told me she’d had a nervous breakdown. A Muslim girl like me. A Somali girl like me whoo told me that she had been depressed for a great deal of time and couldn’t cope, that her emotional problems led to her eventually having to leave her job. She also told me that I was the only person she had felt able to speak to, because our society was not emotionally validating. Sadness, fear and insecurity are not things we share with others.
These conversations are difficult, so difficult and breaking, always breaking. But these are the conversations we need to have; depression, sadness, self harm, loneliness, self worth, confidence, insecurity, self image, self love, self hate. We need to make it acceptable to talk openly about these things; normalize vulnerability.
This year I moved to Saudi Arabia, where I began working as an English teacher. I found an incredible clarity as to how important it is that we construct environments that are ‘good’ to us; good for us. My last few months in London, in the space I had spent so long creating, seems a lifetime away and I am faced again with the same battle.
I reverted back to that young stoic girl when I first arrived, stern face but a frightened crumbling exterior and within a week I was ill and bedbound. I am however, more determined than ever, to recreate the kind of world I can be at my best in, to find the kind of people I can be open with and to become the kind of soul I can be happy with. Because now I know this is possible. And now I know how this can be done.
We are not strong because we appear so, we are strong because we are brave enough NOT to be.There is strength in vulnerability, even in the face of all there is to fear.
Farah is a 26 year old English teacher currently living and working in Saudi Arabia. She has written and performed poetry in the London Spoken word scene and dreams of one day publishing a novel. She loves reading, writing and spends much of her time watching dance choreography videos and trying to emulate them.
You can catch her writing on herTumblr.
