Embracing Vulnerability
2025-12-21
Upon writing the date for today's entry, I realized that today is the first day of winter. That's a nice thing. Today, then, signals a transition of some kind. A transition into what? I'm not sure, but a transition nonetheless. That's something worth celebrating, I suppose.
As I was thinking about what I wanted today's entry to be about earlier this morning, I started to think about my older sister. She's two years older than me and has autism and an intellectual disability. We see her on the weekends when she stays with us. During the week, she stays with her teacher/caregiver who has been with her for several years now. When she's at home with us during the weekends, it can be a challenging experience. My parents are older and it's harder for them to take care of her. I don't do as much as I probably should, but it's tough to take that initiative when I've spent so long deferring to my parents and respecting their authority as her primary caregivers.
My sister is the epitome of vulnerability and innocence. As a result of her conditions, she doesn't communicate much outside of her wants and needs and finds herself easily overwhelmed at most situations. She exhibits many classical self-soothing behaviors for people with autism: vocal stimming, pacing, biting things, etc. The other day, my mom was lamenting to me about how hard it can be to see her when she gets upset. It's an oddly painful sight to see someone trapped in their own mind.
My mom and I have made the analogy many times before that my sister has to be cared for like a pet. An animal can't communicate when they are feeling sick or in pain, and so the animal's caretaker learns to observe when their pet might be feeling under the weather. The pet might not be eating or drinking, appear lethargic, vomit, or other things. For my sister, we've learned to observe her in the same ways. We know that when she's feeling sick, she takes multiple baths throughout the day or refuses to finish meals. We've learned to notice these things and then act accordingly to treat her.
It's easy for us to neglect our own self-care, but when dealing with someone like my sister, awareness and anxieties over quality of care become heightened. My sister wouldn't know how or when to do these things herself, and so it is incumbent upon us as her family to increase the standard of care. There are many lessons I've learned surrounding compassion and sensitivity not just with disabled people, but everyone I come across.
Dealing with ostensible vulnerability in others can be a hard thing, but this indicates a flaw in the average person to me. Most people are constantly concerned with appearing strong and capable, typically as a means of perpetuating status. Deeper than that, though, it's typically because we want to shield ourselves from getting hurt. If we appear strong, others will think twice about hurting us. But then I look to people like my sister who not only have no concerns about this, but couldn't posture like that anyway. Yet despite this supposed lack in agency, she instead becomes surrounded with care and concern.
To me, this sheds a lesson we all should remember. We shouldn't be afraid of the world or others in it. Yes, they can hurt us, but that doesn't give us the right to posture and try to appear strong when we don't need to. Perhaps if we all tried to be more vulnerable, it would inspire that same care and concern that people give for those like my sister. I remember when I went to a long-term treatment facility a few years ago for my bipolar disorder, one of the therapists there said something that still resonates with me to this day:
Sometimes, the strongest thing you can do is ask for help.
I try to remember this myself, particularly as someone who is almost the opposite of someone like my sister. It's easy for someone like me to posture because I am strong and smart, but to me this empowers me even further to embrace my vulnerability. If even the most capable-seeming among us need care and concern, that should indicate to everyone the constant need for compassion and drive us further to help our fellow man in times of need.
You don't have to be so strong.