Vulnerability as Strength
What forced me to take stock was a death in my family.
Before that I saw myself as the ‘strong one’ and pushed myself hard.
I liked taking responsibility and driving things forward. When I worked, I ran at capacity and when you run at capacity, there’s nowhere to go when something happens. Look at the NHS.
When my brother died, I had year-old twins and knew only one way to operate.
So I kept being the strong one, because I didn't know how to be anything else.
Except I didn’t have the capacity to be strong. On top of grief, on top of small children. But stopping felt like failing at the one thing I'd always been able to do. And being with my feelings would have been to stop being me.
It took time to find another way. To accept that being overwhelmed sometimes isn't a failure of character. It's just being human.
Looking back I can see what I’d done. Being the one always holding it together, meant I never built the muscle of being held. I’d trained everyone around me not to offer help, because I always seemed fine.
Then when the thing comes that you genuinely can't carry alone, you find you've no idea how to ask. And the people who would gladly have helped don't know you need them.
Strength isn't the problem, of course. It's a good thing to be able to carry weight. But a strength you can never put down stops being a strength. It becomes a yoke that holds you back.
Who holds it together for you — and when did you last let them?
Vulnerability as Strength.
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