Its quite the contrary, growing up, I learned really quickly not to show any vulnerability, because it would be attacked. As an adult, I can't even imagine who invented that. The only thing I can think of is, way back when, someone couldn't handle their own vulnerability so when someone smaller than them expressed it, they beat it out of them. .
Sometimes it's not so obvious, meaning they don't beat it out of you physically, they try to shame you emotionally. Like with the phrase "you're too sensitive, my response to that now is "yes I am not respect it."
I have found that the better my boundaries, the kinder I can be and the kinder I can be, the further I get. we think that protecting ourselves from showing our vulnerability is keeping us safe , but what it's really doing is making out lives smaller and smaller. Because, vulnerability is the key to love and love is the key  to freedom.
I used to think "Oh my God how am I going to make it in the world? I cant' be kind, because if I am, someone will take advantage of it and use it against me. Or it will make them feel bad about themselves and they will hurt me.
That used to happen all the time. I have an innate pureness to me that I have been shamed for my whole life. I would respond to a situation and someone sitting at a table would respond "we're not all like you Sue!" And I would get scared and shut down because of shame and fear.
Not anymore. I have read about some of the most successful people in the world and you know what they all have in common, they are innately kind people.
But that kindness is not to be mistaken for weakness.
You see, people flock to the kindness, but people who have not found their own purity, try everything to not have to look at themselves.
They try to kill it, they try to take it, and you can try to give to them or hide your own to try to make them feel more comfortable, but, the truth is you can't give a grown person feelings, they have to find it in themselves.
For me, it used to be noone is to be trusted until thy give you a reason to trust and now it's trust everyone until they give you a reason not to.
That doesn't mean give your whole soul to them . It means open you heart as well as your eyes.
There really is no other way, otherwise we sit in fear and never do anything for fear of getting hurt.
Well, getting hurt is part of life and I have a secret, the more you get hurt the less it hurts............... if you continue to grow though it... and stay kind.....
You can't let other peoples hate bury you alive ... you have a choice... let that choice be to be a kind one with boundaries...........