I Am Just a Girl That Is Scared to Be Vulnerable: I Hate Disrespect

I do not think I have it in me for pleasantries. I have had this newsletter marinate in my head for weeks? Months? Honestly, I do not remember. Every day is morphed into the day before and 2025 just feels like one long day. As a result of that, this newsletter has taken many forms. In fact, it was supposed to be two different titles, but the more I thought about it and the more sleepless nights it caused, the more I realised they are one and the same. I do not like being vulnerable, I hate disrespect, I am one proud motherfucker. 

When it comes to love, relationships and friendships, I have constantly held myself back. Anything that will lead to me being open about my feelings and expressing hurt, I try to stay as far away from it as possible. Why? Because I am proud. I am not above going on my knees and grovelling. I am not above rolling in the mud for forgiveness. I am not above throwing stones at the windows of the people you love in the hopes that they can join me to beg for your affection. Think of the most embarrassing thing a person can do because of love, I am not above it. I believe that love is work and to love someone, sometimes you need to fight them, fight for them, fight the people around them, and fight yourself. Because I know the things I am not above doing, I grasp unto myself tightly, and beg myself to not let a person see all that I am. Why? Because I will embarrass myself, and I hate disrespect. 

If I tell you that you have hurt me, it means I am giving you power to hurt me even more. If I sit with you and narrate my experiences with pain to you, it means I am telling you how exactly you should stab me. If I go on my knees and beg for forgiveness, it means that I am relinquishing all the power I have ever had to you. Power over the relationship, power over my emotions, and most importantly, power over myself. Now, why the fuck will I do that? 

You may think to yourself, “But Es, you are always vulnerable. You tell us about yourself and you shout to the high heavens how honest you are.” Ask yourself, have I ever truly discussed what mattered? Have I sat you down and retold to you the reasons for my sleepless nights? Have I cried to you about the things that cause my episodes? Have I been honest about what causes the bleeding in my heart? I have not. I have not sat you down and explained the intricacies of my emotions. Not because I do not love you, not because what me and you have is not special, but because I do not like disrespect and being vulnerable gives you the chance to disrespect me. 

Once upon a time, I fell for a person. I do not want to call the decision an unfortunate one, because it taught me so much, but it was a decision I will never make again. No matter what and no matter when. But since in this life we are currently in, I already acted a fool and fell in love, I will tell you something the person told me. This is a lesson, one that cannot be taught in school, but one I hope you pay close attention to. They told me one day “My biggest issue with you is that you never open up. How do you want me to care for you when you are not vulnerable with me?” Now, you hear this and think I fucked up, How do I claim to feel so much for a person and not let them in? Surely,  this lesson I am talking about is how lack of vulnerability will make me lose the person I love the most? No, it is not. It is about how I tried, many times, to tell this person how I felt hurt, ignored, unappreciated, unloved, and they dismissed me. It is how I told them how to care for me and they disregarded it. It is about how they asked and asked and when I tried to give, it was spat on and thrown on the ground. It is about disrespect, and how vulnerability breeds it. About how people do not know what to do with love. How they do not care. Walk with me, I am not done. 

I hate being vulnerable because it means letting you see me for who I am. Who am I? Insane. I am obsessive, I am crazy, I am caring, I am needy, I am clingy, I am a liar, I am a cheat, I am a horribly amazing lover who needs help and love and care. I am a friend with expectations. I am annoying, I am a giver, I am a girl who will cross mountains, I am a fighter, I am strong, I am tired, I am me. So why will I let all of those versions of myself out and about to a person? You cannot handle it. I can barely handle myself and I have had to deal with myself for many years. The problem with being self aware and in love is that it allows for you to forgo common sense. So as I know who I am and I am sure of my insanity, someone will come to me under the umbrella of love, they will tell me to fall, they will sell me dreams and make promises, they will tick all the boxes and ask, on one knee, that I should be myself. It will seem perfect, it will seem too good to be true, and I will fall. Maybe not completely at first. I will try to hold on to the railings that my fleeting sense will afford me. I will be cautious, dipping my toe into the pool to check the temperature, to gauge the depth, then they will coax me and fight me for not meeting them where they are. They will accuse me and berate me and I will let them. I will see the truth in their words and I will dive head first into the water, and do you know what they will do? They will watch me sink. Do you remember? The opening sequence of the popular show, This Life? Where Father asks of the son to jump from the roof of the building? Yes, I remember. I am son, and they are father and even in my doubt, I will look at the sincerity in their eyes and the love we had shared. I will remember the bread we broke and the words we spoke. I will be overcome with emotions and love and I will jump, but they will never be there to catch me. I hate disrespect. 

I do not like to be treated in a manner that I will never treat a lover or a friend. Friend I add because my friends in some ways are also my lovers. I will demand things of my friends because I expect them to demand things from me. My time, my energy, my money, my love, my care, my consideration, MY MOTHERFUCKING LIFE. What is a community if I can not lay my life on a cross for them? Jesus did it for people he valued less. I am no better than Jesus, but I learn from him. So, if he can give his life for the people that scorned him, who am I not to give my life to the people I adore? It is my destiny, my desire, my calling. Now, when I ask my friends for their life, it is because they have mine. So, I demand. I ask, I expect. “You do not owe people anything”. WRONG. My friends owe me everything, because they are my everything. My sun, my moon, my stars, my universe. I will ask of their life and I expect it on a silver platter with a thank you note. “Thank you, for giving me a chance to give you my life”. I HATE DISRESPECT.

I do not like feeling hatred. I feel like I was called to this life to love and show care. I believe all I am is purity and joy. I believe in the words of the mouth of the people of the Earth because belief is spiritual and I am a very spiritual person. So, when I forgo all the lessons I had learnt in my previous life, when I look at the words my brain is forming and pretend to not know how to read, when I look at God and he tells me to leave and I choose to stay because stubbornness was the first gift my Father in heaven granted to me, I become vulnerable, and I suffer for it. Not everyone is me. It is the first lesson I learnt and the first one I forgot. It is the one I am supposed to hold tight, but the first one I disregard when I am shown even a fraction of care. I have had a tough life, and I am having a very tough year. In fact, since all the days are morphing into one and I do not remember when Sunday starts and Monday ends, I am having a very rough day and when days are rough and episodes creep in and my life is like the tower of babel– incomplete and full of confusion, I lose it. I lose it more than I have ever lost it. Well, no, every time I lose it is a new experience, a different tale, it is pain in forms I thought I had conquered, it is reimagined and it feels anew every morning. It is crying into my breakfast and being unable to eat lunch. It is watching your family members watch you disappear. My grandma says I am lost. She is not wrong. My mother says they are trying to break me, she is wrong. I am already broken, but broken things can be fixed, amended, converted, repurposed. Kintsugi, that is what I am. I am broken, I accept. It is because I hate disrespect. 

When the feelings are slowly fading and I think back to all the things you have said to me, all the ways you had chipped an already broken vase, I am irritated, mainly with myself. Why? Because I was vulnerable. Even when I should have known not to be, even when my brain rang bells that told me how to be, I was. I chose it because I chose you, but you looked at everything I had said and told me I was unfair, unkind, unjust, unappreciative, unreciprocative, un un un un un un and more fucking uns. You called me names my mother would be aghast to hear, because they were never mentioned at my naming ceremony. I know who I am, and I am someone who does not like to be vulnerable because I hate disrespect. I hate to feel less than. I hate to think back to situations and pause at a supermarket parking lot because my heart is heavy and my body is not processing and my brain is glitching. I hate it. Yet, I do it. Because I want to be sure I did my best. I will never want to miss out on a feeling because I felt like I never did enough, but I am afraid. Should I make them work for my vulnerability? Should I make them prove without reasonable doubt that I will jump and they will be the net I require for my safety? Maybe. Maybe I should act in a manner that is sensible, but I am not sensible. I have tried vulnerability recently and the way and manner in which it has backfired has shown me that I am not healed. No, scratch that. I am healed. I am myself, and I will not bend to the whims of people who do not know what to do with me. I will not hide or play mind games with you fuckers because you do not know what to do with me. I will be myself, but I have learnt that people demand vulnerability without knowing how to treat her. She is not a mistress you can play with behind the back of your wife. She is not a cool, fun time you can disregard. She is everything. She is deserving of warmth and peace and patience. She requires you to choose her, chase her, protect her. She is everything I have in me to give and you will treat her with the respect she so deserves. Why? Because I hate disrespect and you will respect me or get out because I am a proud vulnerable person who HATES disrespect.