Is Vulnerability a Sign of Weakness?

This question has been egging me the past month or so. 

As normal human beings, we all experience our ups and downs.  How we decide to express our mood depends ultimately on the individual.  Lately, when I have been feeling particularly insecure and sensitive, I have been struggling to maintain my resolve to find a solution.  It’s tough, and there are days when I can’t harness the energy to find the silver lining.  So what do I do?  I bury myself in my work, hoping for the benefits and serotonin release to come from that outburst of energy.  Energy that can be used to emote is used instead to focus on personal goals I want to achieve.  Well, yesterday I worked until the wee hours.  I solved an issue that I had been working on all day.  But instead of the usual satisfaction I would feel, I was worn out.  True, fatigue and lack of sleep factor greatly to create that morose state.  I tried to accept and appreciate the unhappiness due to my fatigue.  But yesterday, it did not succeed.  I felt that I achieved something and found absolutely no satisfaction.  I was lonely.  I wanted to cry, and yet I didn’t want to open up that part of me.  This begs the question…why?  I think it involves my perception that showing vulnerability is a sign of weakness.  But is it a misconception of mine?  I hear enough people condescending that it rings true with me.  I haven’t really heard much positive.  So is it a weakness?

Back in my guy days, I showed as little of my emotion as possible.  It was the typical aloof male behavior.  To show emotion was to cave in to illogical decisions.  I used that drive to excel in school, to play video games, etc.  In many ways, my current late-night work stints parallel those days.  And when I wanted to show some emotion, how do I talk about my gendered feelings to anyone?  I was trapped.

Then transition came.  Showing feminity was fresh and unfettered.  It purely elated me to behave in ways that I have been wanting to act like over so many years.  I did not give a shit about showing glee and other positive-associated feelings.  But I still hedged on showing negative emotions.  Sadness is more difficult to let go.  I did not want to affect other people with such negative emotions.  In addition, in the past half-year, my indignity at the stigma of being lesser to a male gave rise to strong feminist principles, which I never expected to manifest so brightly before.  I took my negative emotions, turned the internal sadness to external anger, and harnessed it to redefining my beliefs in women’s equality.  I must thank my mom a lot for those strong personality traits.  But now the anger has abated…

The pressure of acting *female*, i.e.  showing emotion, both positive and negative, strongly affects me.  Perhaps since I don’t have testosterone in my bloodstream anymore, I don’t have the drive to blindly ignore my feelings and just work and work and work.  I *need* to emote.  And in my desire/want/need for human companionship, this includes the expression of negative energy as well.  My feminist principles are partly prevently this.  But they are not important enough for me to inhibit my feelings, are they?  What is this stigma of weakness that I feel?

Everytime I hear a person speak of their hurt, I empathize.  Unfortunately, the hurt usually involves another person and the hurt person will lash out, and I often cringe for the other person.  Perhaps a misunderstanding here or there occurred months ago that finally surfaced to that surge of negativity.   I feel sometimes that it is presumptious for the denigrater to condescend the denigratee when that person is not present, but this usually arrives when I do not know the party involved.  I do think that negative expressions are fine in private conversations, because they are usually between people who share a level of trust and out of earshot of less intimate friends or strangers.  Still…I don’t share a lot of my negative feelings…why?

I think I still fear that the person with whom I talk will think low of me for denigrating another person.  I think I have a lot of guilt for denigrating another person, especially since my personal philosophy is that every human being in the planet is equal.  Sharing hurt feelings reveals unhappiness with the love that is expected from someone.   It begs for attention and shows of empathy or sympathy and love which I am unaccustomed to receive.  I grew up in a lonely family environment with very reserved behavior from family members and a lot of tough love from my mother.  Gender exacerbates that loneliness.  Probably most important, I never had a relationship before in my life.  My friendships usually lead to disappointment on some level.  Loving someone is easy, trusting that person with your own feelings is hard.  And through all that tough love mentality, I yearn for that empathy.  I do not want to ask for it, and I definitely do not want to be thought as inferior for doing so.  Having a relationship will help mitigate that trust issue.  Yes, I do think showing vulnerability is a sign of weakness.  But showing hurt is fine in a trusting relationship.  How does one define vulnerability or a trusting relationship?  That is part of the journey.