“Who are you walking over there with?”
As I read the text from my mom, I felt anxiety creep up my spine. I’m in the pep band at my college, and I have to walk over to the arena to set up before the basketball games. Sometimes that means walking in the dark through downtown St. Louis by myself. I know it’s not the best idea, but I’d rather risk it than ask someone to walk with me. It worries my mom a lot.
“Already here,” I texted back, hoping to avoid the question.
“Did you go by yourself?”
“Yes,” I replied. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I hated telling her the truth.
Overall, my mom is confident and self-assured. She isn’t afraid of asking for help or favors. For me, on the other hand, it’s like chewing glass. I struggle with asking my friends to hang out on a Friday night, speaking candidly with my counselor or texting to see if anyone wants to walk over to a basketball game together.
All the discussions I’ve had about my struggles with these things have looped back to the concept of vulnerability. I’ve been told that vulnerability is key to fostering meaningful relationships and showing others that it’s okay for them to be vulnerable too. But it’s so hard.
I avoid being vulnerable for a myriad of reasons, but the strongest one is the fear of what other people think. I’m not even worried that someone will reject my request to walk to a game—I’m worried they’ll think less of me for depending on them.
My counselor gave me a trick for combating this. “You have to ask yourself: Do I have any proof that people think less of me when I ask for something?” she said.
As I listened, I thought about my fears and whether or not I had proof of their validity. I could think of a few times when opening up yielded results that hurt me rather than comforted me, but for the most part, asking somebody for something was not as big of a deal as it was in my mind.
So even though it’s difficult, I have to try to be vulnerable.
In the spirit of trying, I told one of my most embarrassing stories that related to what we were talking about during a first date. I stopped saying “good” as a default when people would ask how my day was going. I am working on accepting parts of my personality that I don’t like such as my introversion or my unconditional fear of risks.
Throughout the years of working on my mental health, I haven’t had any breakthrough discoveries, but I’ve learned what doesn’t help: refusing to change my situation. I don’t have a magical pill or mind trick that will automatically make me willing to be vulnerable with people, but staunchly refusing to open up does no good. It may take a while and there may be some instances of failure, but the only way to make progress is to try to express vulnerability.