I've Never Been This Bare
on vulnerability, ability, bodies.
Many people I know have been discussing shame. I have survived on fear and shame (and envy and spite). I’ve been doing it all wrong. I assumed the answer to all my problems would be to fit in, but plenty of people do that better. To try to be less so that people would love me more, but it doesn’t work that way at all.
Alexander Technique and the things I fought against in grad school are sticking now, same with pelvic floor PT, and all the other therapy, I’m learning to open up, and be vulnerable, and I don’t know why yet. It’s very scary and hard to trust. It hurts less and more.
I don’t know about you, but the message “be yourself” has gotten more and more confusing in a time when being myself is very not in demand, and being a few different fonts of hot is. We owe it to ourselves to find our own truth.
Being authentic doesn’t require as much effort as begging for approval does, and people-pleasing rarely pleases people.
The musical Bare that I’m referencing in the title of this article with a lyric from the eponymous song is about the dangers of shame and secrecy around sex, particularly gay love, and I am proud of being gay, and I am proud of other gay people, and frankly, jealous of the ones who have love and the ones whose stories are told more frequently, who are told they are beautiful and worthy of that love. I have believed for far too long that in my life, I am not worthy of love. Not from a partner, not from friends or family. Not unless I willed and fought myself into a better person than I am. Not good enough yet, have to earn it.
It took me 5 years to share a life-changing diagnosis with a loved one (do the math based on context clues) because I was ashamed. I was scared. I hesitate to tell him anything, from my job stuff to my sex life, and that I’m having surgery… and even freaking diabetes. Out of fear that he will reinforce the meanest things in my head. I didn’t even say the word, but I spoke more openly about it today. I am ashamed to be fat and disabled, so I hide and apologize for it. I feel a lot freer than I have in a minute.
I am ashamed that I am trans… more accurately, I’m ashamed that I feel like a bad trans person for not fitting the boxes nor fighting them enough, and also that my body is illegible to others.
I am ashamed to be human. To have a body that lives and breathes, with flaws and wants and needs. My body being hungry or tired or horny or any state of need bothers the shit out of me… and yet those things are unifying.
I’m scared of what happens when people see me vulnerable. When people see me naked, or afraid, or not at my best… and frankly, I’ve never been my best yet, or I’m always doing the best I can with what I have.
You have to be willing to fuck up to grow; you have to be willing to accept that of others, too, which is really hard.
In the coming weeks, I’m gonna be so vulnerable. They’re literally doing surgery on me, and I will be healing in some very sensitive spots. I have to let go to get better.
Lastly, a plug for BROADWAY BARES. I am ashamed to be too disabled temporarily to work it this year, to be too anxious and fat and trans to be cast likely ever (not just Bares, probably in general)
But the thing I can do matters more. I can fundraise to help people live freer, safer, and with less shame.
https://donate.broadwaycares.org/fundraiser/7219993
More on its way… surgery soon!!
I’m so sorry. I don’t know if you do hugs, but I wish I could offer a hug.
I relate to a lot of this, the fear, the self-criticism, the feelings of inauthenticity, the shame about being afraid and self-critical and inauthentic, and shame about my body and my failure to take better care of it and make it more feminine.
The shame about sharing with my friends, being vulnerable around them, even coming out to them. I developed a persona that I inhabited around the friends I grew up with, and now that I’ve realized how much of a performance that persona was, I don’t know how to interact with any of them any more. I don’t know what their boundaries are, I’m not around them in person to gather context any more.
For some reason, the phrase “people-pleasing” never felt accurate to my experience before, but after reading what you wrote and thinking through what happens with me, I think it does in fact apply to me to an extent. I think OCD has shaped parts of me into being very concerned about there being some kind of inherent, universal Right Way To Do Things, some Correct Path that i should follow. And these parts believe that, yes, if I follow the correct path, then naturally everyone will be pleased, but if someone isn’t pleased, that’s a sign that I’ve done something fundamentally wrong.
Anyway, thank you for writing and sharing this.
I hope your surgery goes smoothly.