Last week I talked about sharing, so I thought it only fit to talk about oversharing today. This can be a difficult concept to cover, and it made me wonder if I have been guilty of doing it in the past. To simply define over sharing, we are talking about opening up to the wrong people, especially regarding personal subjects or sharing about topics in the wrong setting.
There is always a time and a place to talk about specific topics, but there are many factors at play here. I have noticed that many people who aren’t fluent in English will not ask me questions and just continue to speak to themselves. I think that these people may be in danger of over sharing however, it may be that they are not confident with their listening skills, so they try to dominate the conversation.
When someone is making conversation and asking you questions, it is important that you also ask them questions in return after answering them. This is not always easy. It has been hard for me when I am using a language I am not fluent in, but it must be done. You don’t want to just create a monologue.
Oversharing can leave yourself vulnerable. At times when I am newly introduced to someone, I have a short conversation and then after the conversation I wonder, did I talk too much, or did I give away too much about my personality? I talked about this to a mental health professional and was asked if I thought I was oversharing. I said no, but I did try my best to open up with the person. I think we need to balance between opening up and oversharing. It is difficult to do, and we need to learn this ourselves.
Looking back into my experiences, I think there can be exceptions to the rules of oversharing. I once had a conversation with someone who I newly met. This person did not work with me and was not my friend at the time. We also didn’t have any mutual friends. This person decided to open up to me. She talked about some problems in her relationship that she really wanted to get off her chest. I listened to her and I think that I helped her to vent about her issues.
If we have something that we feel we really need to share, it may be better to share it with a person we trust, or a mental health professional. Being vulnerable can help you to open up with people around you, but you definitely don’t want to overdo it.
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