I actually started this post about quite a while ago now (like September 2023 long ago), but in typical me fashion thought gheeze that’s a bit deep and left it for a little bit. Anyway, a few times in the last few months this phrase has come up over and over, so here I am, finishing the post I started. Back to it.

I didn’t even know that a ‘vulnerability hangover’ was a real thing until I was reading a post online and was like ‘wow, that’s how I feel’. I’ve always struggled being open and vulnerable and letting people in and most of the time ago around trying to avoid whatever is happening in my thoughts. I push off how much my brain affects me sometimes and feel like I have it under control (I don’t all the time). And sometimes, people can see the struggle through my emotions but I do the typcial, ‘I’m fine’ or ‘it’s nothing’ and just continue on like nothing’s happening.

Anyway, I was chatting to someone a little while ago and it got a bit deep and I shared some things that I either hadn’t spoken about for years or just hadn’t spoken about full stop, either through thinking I’d healed or just wanting to ignore them or just not feeling safe enough, or a whole other list of other reasons, anyway, I did, but I didn’t feel any better or proud or any other similar emotion for doing so, in fact, I felt emotionally drained, tired and for a few days after I felt on-edge, nervous and just weird. I couldn’t work out why but the feeling was weighing me down and part of me thought shouldn’t there be some kind of ‘weight lifted’ feeling, or like ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’, I don’t know, but I couldn’t work it out, everything just felt messy and in short, I felt even more vulnerable because it was out there.

There were so many things going through my head, ‘why did I do that’, ‘what was the point’, ‘do they think differently of me now’, ‘am I enough’, it was endless, for a quite a while. I was then reading a post a few days after that conversation and the phrase vulnerability hangover came up so I started reading some more and researching. It’s a term that was first coined by Brené Brown and is described as ‘the gut-wrenching feeling of shame and fear that pops right after we undertake an emotional risk. It refers to the aftermath we experience in the form of an ’emotional cringe’ upon deciding to put ourselves out there’. That was it. That’s what I was feeling.

What actually started the conversation was that one of the sessions at a work event was framed around vulnerability, leading out of who you are as a person and ultimately, leading out of vulnerability. As soon as I saw it I was like no that session really isn’t for me, no thankyou. I hate the idea of being vulnerable and have my armour ready at all times in case it’s needed, so a whole session on it made me feel a bit weird. We spoke about all different aspects of vulnerability and how it plays into who we are as individuals and the importance of being vulnerable.

For something I was really dreading, it was annoyingly helpful to hear about it. It’s probably one of the scariest concepts ever, but very true. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. By this, I don’t mean go and share your deepest, darkest secrets with everyone around you, but allow yourself to drop the mask for a little bit, to those you trust.

Someone shared a quote with me recently that said, ‘I once thought that being strong meant never showing weakness, never admitting defeat or showing vulnerability. Now, I realise that you can still be strong and also be vulnerable. You can feel defeated one day and rise again the next. You can have moments of weakness and not be ashamed to admit it. Once I got comfortable with self-expression, I no longer felt the need to hide that I am human; even the messy parts.’ This quote was written by Madame K Poetess. It speaks volumes to me. Being vulnerable has always seemed like a really scary concept to me and that actually it makes me weaker by sharing the things that bother or worry me, and that I should hide them out of fear of not being good enough, strong enough, or worth it, but actually, being able to show to others around you that you are still just a human that struggles sometimes but can also still function and thrive is what really does speak volumes more than silence and keeping things to yourself.

I’ve always struggled with how much I believe in myself. I’m confident but have little self-confidence. I hate compliments and feel myself squirming when people say something nice about me because I genuinely do not believe it myself. Individuals are sometimes scared of vulnerability because it is showing the side or parts of you that are sometimes what you want to forget, or have held you back in the past, or bring back times you didn’t like. It’s also scary in a sense of being worried or concerned that people might look at you slightly different or think something else of you after finding things out, but honestly, everyone has elements of vulnerability.

Anyway, that’s enough from me. Catch ya’ll later x