For a long time, I thought vulnerability came from weakness.
From not knowing enough. From being careless. From making poor decisions. That was the story I had absorbed over years of being capable, responsible, and dependable. Vulnerability, I believed, belonged to moments where you had failed to hold yourself together.
What I did not understand was how exhaustion changes the landscape entirely.
There is a kind of tiredness that rest does not touch. It comes from carrying responsibility for too long without support. From staying steady while absorbing pressure that never truly lifts. From being the one who adapts, explains, smooths, and holds the line.
You do not collapse under that weight. You continue.
And that is precisely the problem.
I reached a point where my body was moving forward while something deeper in me had gone quiet. I was still functioning. Still delivering. Still managing. But the internal reserves that usually protected my discernment had thinned.
Nothing about me had become reckless. I was not chasing escape or fantasy. I was simply depleted.
When you are that tired, kindness feels louder. Consistency feels safer. Being listened to feels like relief rather than novelty. Your nervous system responds not to excitement, but to the absence of pressure.
That is the part people rarely understand.
Vulnerability does not always arrive through naivety. Sometimes it arrives through endurance.
I connected with someone who was not real. What I responded to was not illusion. It was attention that felt steady. It was presence that did not demand more from me. It was the experience of being met without needing to perform.
When the truth surfaced, the pain was not embarrassment, it was grief.
Grief for how tired I had been. Grief for how long I had carried strength without being supported. Grief for the way exhaustion had quietly lowered my defences without my consent.
What followed was not self blame. It was recognition.
Recognition that judgement often misunderstands context. That trust extended at the wrong moment does not make someone foolish. It makes them human in a system that rarely allows rest.
Exhaustion narrows your field of vision. It makes relief feel urgent. It makes safety feel precious. It does not announce itself as risk. It disguises itself as coping.
That is why shame does not belong here.
What belongs here is honesty about how depletion affects decision making. About how strong people can still be vulnerable when they have been strong for too long without reciprocity.
I did not lose my discernment.
It was simply overworked.
Recovery did not come from hardening myself or becoming more guarded. It came from rebuilding support, restoring rest, and allowing myself to name how tired I truly was.
Vulnerability did not disappear.
It softened into awareness.
If you have ever looked back at a moment and wondered how you missed something that now feels obvious, I want you to consider this gently.
Ask yourself how tired you were.
Not how careless. Not how trusting. Not how foolish.
Just how tired.
Sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do is recognise that exhaustion is not a character flaw.
It is a signal.
And listening to it is where real strength begins to return.
Copyright © 2026 Lynette Diehm.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without written permission of the author.
