Embracing vulnerability
when i was 18 years old
something happened to me in a school
hall
a bit like this one
i was sitting my a-level english
literature exam
when i started to feel unwell
the symptoms were quite mild at first a
bit of breathlessness
sense of nausea i felt a bit dizzy
so i put my hand up and asked for some
water
and taking small sips i started to think
what was wrong
had i not eaten enough i thought
and then i remembered that i’d eaten all
of my lunch at about 10 a.m
i’d also eaten my friend’s lunch because
she was too nervous to eat
well in which case perhaps i’d eaten too
much then
i looked at the question and it was a
dream
i’d even practiced a similar question
the night before
it couldn’t have been more easy but
i just couldn’t shake the nausea
and that breathlessness was just getting
worse
so this time i put my hand up again
and i asked to leave i could feel the
eyes of all my classmates on me as i
left that exam hall
now as you all know news travels pretty
fast at school
and no sooner had i been escorted
outside of that example than my english
teacher was right there by my side
consoling me it’s okay she kept saying
don’t worry about it you’re not well
we’ll just tell the exam board it’s fine
it’s fine
but it was unfortunate timing
and she knew that because my place at
oxford depended
very much on getting an a in this
subject
now much of that day is a blur but the
next thing i remember
is being sat in the school medical bay
with a thermometer in my mouth my
english teacher still very much there
she hadn’t gone but now
the scariest teacher in the school
stood lurking in the doorway we’ll call
her mrs
s so
they read my temperature and it’s normal
well that surely can’t be given just how
odd i was feeling
my heart was beating at such a pace i
thought it would
i thought i wouldn’t be able to control
it okay but it comes back
normal and it’s at this point that mrs s
pipes up
have you experienced panic attacks
before
well not only had i never experienced a
panic attack before but
i really had no clue what one was
in fact i’ll be really honest with you
i’d always just dismissed them i thought
there was something that
wasn’t really real but
what was happening to me in that moment
could not have been more real
and it was then that mrs s explained to
me exactly what a panic attack was
and i was in no uncertain terms
experiencing one
and she even had the humility to tell me
that it was something that she too
suffered from
now many parts of that deal that day
sorry
are completely surreal to me
but perhaps the strangest moment of all
was the realization
that scary mrs s was a human being
and that she had weaknesses and
vulnerabilities
and she was willing to share those with
me
so five hours later
and that’s no exaggeration five hours
later
i went back into that exam hall and i
finished what i started
i should have felt really proud
that i was able to do that right that
after that ordeal after five hours i
went back and i finished that exam
but i didn’t and for the longest time i
viewed what
happened to me that day with real
shame but where had that shame come from
because it certainly hadn’t come from my
teachers particularly not mrs s
who turns out wasn’t as scary and
and as unfeeling as we all thought
ultimately i think the shame stemmed
from this one
question that bounced around my head all
summer
and i never shared it with anyone how on
earth
was i going to cope at oxford how on
earth was i going to cope with life
if i had faltered under the pressure of
an a level
but when i got to university my new
friends
shared similar stories poor mental
health
stress anxiety even panic attacks
and i admired that openness i think it’s
why i chose them as friends
but i wasn’t going to share similar
stories of my own so instead
i would sit there nodding empathetically
and sometimes i might chip in
and i might say yes you know i’ve heard
a similar story that has happened to
someone else or something that i have
read
somewhere suggests a similar thing
but i never wanted to admit any similar
feelings of
shame or fear because for me
to admit that would be to admit weakness
and that very admission would make me
vulnerable
but in hindsight
i really wish i’d approached that
situation differently
and here’s why
researcher and professor brene brown has
spent two decades
exploring ideas of courage shame
and vulnerability and she defines
vulnerability as risk
uncertainty and emotional exposure
well what on earth does that mean in
other words
it’s that uncertain feeling we get when
we start to loosen our control
when we go outside of our comfort zone
now in her ted talk brene brown argues
that
in an anxious world and that we do live
in very much an anxious world we
naturally cut ourselves off from things
that make us feel vulnerable
we try to reduce that emotional exposure
in any way and that’s exactly what i was
doing
when i went to university by not opening
up by not sharing how i felt
but what she argues is that
vulnerability is at the root of feelings
of shame and anxiety really horrible
feelings
it’s also the birthplace of creativity
and joy
it’s how we build meaningful connections
it’s how we live wholeheartedly
and that rather than shutting ourselves
off from these things what we really
should do
is develop more openness and allow
ourselves to feel vulnerable from time
to time
so
in preparation for this talk i was
speaking to quite a few people
and i had a conversation with a male
friend
and i spoke about brene brown and some
of the things that she was saying about
vulnerability
and shame and mental health and he
nodded along
quite knowingly and said to me
oh she’s speaking specifically about men
right now i was a little bit confused
because to me
it seemed pretty obvious that she was
speaking quite generally
but the more i thought about what he
said
the more sense his comments made
because the truth is there are some
forms of vulnerability
that society doesn’t really care
about me showing so for example i can
say
with pretty much no shame that i cried
that day when i was 18.
it’s deemed healthy for me to explore my
emotions
but my male friend might feel the
pressure
to appear strong strong very much being
in inverted commas there
and these gender expectations do
translate into some pretty grim
realities
so men are far less likely to open up
about how they feel
they are far less likely to seek help
and as a result they are far more likely
to suffer from poor mental health and
addiction as a result
they are quite shockingly
three times more likely to take their
own life and their female counterpart
so speaking to an audience of all boys
and as someone who works in an all-boys
school i feel that the story
is a particularly important one to share
what i’ve learned is that vulnerability
is simply an inevitable part of life
you cannot avoid it forever and rather
than shutting ourselves off from things
that make us feel vulnerable we should
embrace it
as an opportunity to learn as an
opportunity to be open
and to build resilience
it is actually quite nerve-wracking to
stand up here and talk to you all
so openly and so publicly about a memory
that i have buried for so many
years and just as i’m sure it was the
case for mrs
s it makes me feel vulnerable
but i’m finally happy to embrace that
thank you
[Applause]