Published on 12, July, 2020
I watched this video today and found it very interesting and useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYCJ9pvQJhA
When I was a young grasshopper, I used to wear my heart on my sleeve and overshared a lot. In hindsight, I realise why this caused problems for me, pushed people away and made me vulnerable to people who took advantage of me. These days, I'm a lot more guarded and careful - I don't feel the need to overshare with people I've just met or random acquaintances for example - but NT rules of oversharing seem to be quite complex, I find.
I am normally quite a closed off person irl, but every once in a while, if I'm in a bad place or if a topic is brought up that I feel strongly about, I do have the tendency to rant/vent (so when the bottle overflows, basically). I've had incidents where I've been friends with people for quite a while, but when I was in a bad place and overshared about something, those friendships ended abruptly. I realised retrospectively that this was my fault for incorrectly assessing the friendships. I noticed that many NTs have friendships that are solely based on superficial/light-hearted "banter" - even if they have known each other for many years and hang out all the time. Personally, I don't see the point of such "friendships" but hey ho, each to their own!
I've also had incidents where friends have opened up to me/vented to me about something on several occasions, and I listened and gave advice, but when I opened up to them about something, it wasn't well-received and they distanced themselves from me or were dismissive of me. This has usually been involving "cool" NT people, who would never dream of showing themselves as anything other than permanently happy and successful to their "cool" NT friends, who pretty much used me as a therapist, but didn't really give a hoot about me. I've had one-sided friendships like that that have lasted for years, because they would occasionally be super nice and generous towards me (when it was convenient for them or when they needed something from me).
Similarly, I've had one or two incidents with people I've known for a long time and spoke to regularly, and we were pretty open with each other about life and its tribulations, and then they would make excuses not to talk to me like "I'm busy" etc. If I would reach out to them about something (I usually always ask beforehand like "can I talk to you about something? I'm really struggling at the moment", instead of just offloading, because I'm polite and don't want to annoy my friends) and they would straight up tell me "I don't have time to hear about your problems". Later it had transpired that they were annoyed at me for some minor transgression or social faux pas, but didn't tell me, so I'd been downgraded from friend to acquaintance.
When the tables are turned and people "overshare" to me, I've also been known to cause upset. While I do feel uncomfortable if a total stranger offloads on me (due to bad past experiences mostly), I'm always there for my friends and always happy to help them. However, if someone I care about comes to me with a problem, my immediate instinct is "how can we fix this?" but if I give advice or come up with solutions, people sometimes get upset and defensive. Sometimes, some people just want to hear something like "oh, that must be awful, poor you". I do say such things to my friends who are more emotional and sensitive, but it feels inauthentic, and it takes me a lot of willpower to repress myself if I have potential solutions to their problems, because I hate seeing people I care about suffer... I've also had incidents where someone would vent to me over and over again about the same problem, I would give them the same solutions, which they would completely disregard, and carry on venting about the same problem...
What are people's thoughts on oversharing?
Thank you for being so open about this, in a way which feels both honest and very far from over-sharing. I could relate to much of what you said very strongly: I also used to over-share a lot, and I have also lost friendships because of it. and it really hurts when that happens, because like you describe, the friendships I gravitate towards are usually close and intense, the kind where you can have emotionally intimate conversations about things that really matter to you. I think I used to trust people automatically, like not even question that they may not have good intentions, and this has got me into some vulnerable situations in the past. now I find it much harder to open up, except as you say when I’m really struggling. At that point, I overflow, and I tell people everything. For me, opening up now feels like an act of trust – and yet some people still seem to see it as pushing away, including people I felt extremely close to for a long time.
You’re not alone. Here’s hoping we can all keep finding ways to navigate the strange and complex rules of the world in ways that work for us.
It takes me a while to trust people irl - on this forum, I find it easier to share my thoughts because it's anonymous, lol.
I have indeed had long-term friendships end because I overshared or vented when I was depressed. Which feels unfair, because I was there for these friends when they were having a hard time and spent hours listening to them.
Part of the reason why I am so selectively social these days is because throughout my whole adult life (pretty much since age 18 up until before the lockdowns started), I seemed to have a habit of forming close, intense but short-lived friendships/relationships with cluster B personality types. I guess they see me as easy prey/someone who is patient and "easy to talk to", and up until recently, I've been quite blind to red flags - they feel familiar because my mother is a narc. Of course, narcs and ASPDs will discard you once you're no longer useful, or if you don't agree with them on everything and don't jump through their hoops/see through their BS, and untreated/malignant borderlines do the idealisation/devaluation thing (so one moment, you're their favourite person in the world, and the next moment, you do something cringey or disagree with them on something or say something wrong by accident that wounds their fragile ego, and then you fall off the pedestal). To an autistic person who doesn't like sudden changes, this has always been a shock for me, I would always blame myself and work my ass off to get back into their "good books"... and then of course the cycle repeated itself. Some of my past "close friends" sometimes were super nice and supportive, and other times would "not want to hear about my problems", which was confusing as hell. In the past, some of these cluster Bs would succeed at chipping away at my self-worth and getting me to change for them... never again!
I have met many, many NTs (both with and without personality disorders) who have serious issues, but are in deep denial about their issues - partly because of social status/pride/shame, and partly because they see going to a therapist or taking medication as "weakness". Cluster Bs especially are very concerned with status because of their ego, pride and superficiality. So they suppress their issues with alcoholism/drug abuse/compulsive shopping/excessive social media use (overhyping how fun and glamorous their life is, of course), which can't be good in the long run. So I guess if someone else opens up about their issues, it makes them uncomfortable, because it reminds them that they have issues too, from which they are running.
I'm not familiar with all the terminology you’ve used, (Cluster Bs, narcs, although I assume the latter means narcicist?) but again I really relate. It's so hard when you've offered your time and energy to someone and grown really to care about them and feel that maybe you're finally forming a close friendship that will last, only for them suddenly and harshly to reject you, with no explanation. I’m so sorry you’ve experienced this too.
I think spanking children is wrong. Surely positive reassurance and making a child understand that they're doing something wrong is better than them not doing something out of fear of punishment?
And yeah a lot of people have traits of narcissism, doesn't necessarily make them a narcissist. I don't use the term lightly. The people whom I consider narcissists have a long history of treating many people badly and manipulation. Craving approval doesn't make you a narcissist.
I find the term Narcissist used excessively. Though I've been that way in the past, it was because I always craved approval as I felt like s**t.
I think it's just general disrespect. If you ask me, then I'm grateful to have been spanked as a child. Appreciation for what our parents did for us takes time.