“I don’t want to be vulnerable anymore.”
I said it out loud today, right in the middle of a therapy hour that suddenly felt far too short. The words surprised me, but the feeling behind them didn’t.
I finally noticed — and can’t un-notice now that I have — you open, you unravel, you let the soft parts show. And then sixty minutes later, the door clicks shut.
And there you are — still tangled in everything you just laid on the floor.
I wasn’t afraid of honesty itself. I was afraid of honesty’s aftertaste — the silence that settles once the witness leaves. The risk isn’t in the telling. It’s in the cleanup crew that never arrives.
In one recent session, I said something that I’d worked for weeks to even put into words. It was about being misunderstood — and how that, more than anything, makes me feel broken at the core. I didn’t say it dramatically. I said it quietly. Almost like I was scared to interrupt the air with something that raw.
My therapist asked a question in response — something that sounded neutral on the surface, but landed in me like a disconnect. Like I’d opened a door and instead of stepping through it with me, she handed me a clipboard to explain why the door was there in the first place.
I know she didn’t mean harm. But I’d just risked telling someone where it hurts. And instead of being met with presence, I felt a clinical pivot. A kind of professional containment that made the silence afterward feel even colder. And then — like always — the hour ended.
And I was alone again. Alone in the most exposed version of myself, wondering why I ever opened up at all.
Safety, then, isn’t just what happens during the session. It’s what happens when the talking stops and the weight remains. It’s the difference between being heard and feeling held.
And right now? I feel heard — plenty. I do not feel held.
Therapy runs on clocks. But healing doesn’t. Trauma doesn’t schedule itself in tidy 53-minute installments. Grief doesn’t pause when Telehealth says, “Your meeting has ended.”
I hang up and stare at the Zoom splash screen, stunned by how fast vulnerability turns back into solitude. There’s no handler for what just happened — no one walks the secret to the car. I’m left on the curb, watching the taxi pull away, wondering whether I just paid good money to be cracked open and sent home with the mess.
Sometimes I wonder if my real wound isn’t the aftermath of openness, but the belief that I have to manage everyone else’s comfort the moment I start to feel. That I have to preemptively draw boundaries on their behalf — to shrink my expression before they have to flinch. I do it even in therapy. I censor, soften, translate, and tuck things back in before the hour ends so no one walks away carrying the weight I thought was mine. Hyper-responsibility shows up like care, but really it’s fear dressed as control.
And even when I’m offered space, I’m already halfway out of it — trying not to take up too much, speak too long, feel too loudly. It’s not that people won’t hold me. It’s that I’ve convinced myself they can’t.
And now, I keep asking questions with no polite answers.
Is it worth it to bleed in front of someone who can only hand me tissues, not transfusions? Is courage still courage if it leaves me more exhausted than before? Can vulnerability heal if it keeps reopening the same wound — loneliness — every single time?
I don’t have answers tonight. Just the throb of the question marks.
What I wish would happen instead isn’t grand. I don’t need a savior. I don’t need a five-point plan. I don’t need a Pinterest quote about resilience. I need somebody — anybody — to sit in the debris field with me long enough for my nervous system to stand down. I need the relational equivalent of staying on the phone until I’m safely in the house and the lights are on.
Not because I’m fragile. Because I’m human. And humans metabolize pain better beside other humans.
Maybe the honesty of “I don’t want to be vulnerable anymore” is itself a form of vulnerability. Maybe saying no is what makes space for a truer yes later. That feels thin tonight, but thin hope is still hope.
So I’m keeping the door barely ajar — just wide enough for someone to prove me wrong.
And if you, too, are staring at a closed office door or a blank Zoom screen, wondering why courage feels like a solo sport, know this: I’m out here on the other side of the hour, breathing through the same echo. I haven’t figured it out either.
But naming the ache is the best first aid I’ve got. And for tonight, that will have to be enough.
Tyler August Wren
is a writer and emotional voice consultant who helps individuals and organizations articulate their deepest truths. Her work focuses on translating emotional complexity into compelling narratives that honor the full spectrum of human experience.
Get in touch
info@tyleraugustwren.com // tyleraugustwren.com