Talking about your problems with friends is some of the oldest advice given to people in distress. Women are often credited with being better at this than men, to the point that many bestsellers have been written about the differences between male and female communication styles. (Remember Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus?) Talk therapy has been around for a long time. At some point though, the Oversharing Monster may arrive.
In the digital age, “oversharing” and “TMI” have become shorthand for anyone divulging too much personal information, especially over social media. However, this is a new name for an old problem that recently resurfaced in my life.
Back in junior high, I had a few close friends with whom I shared some of the details of my dysfunctional home life. I even visited the school nurse on several occasions, looking for some kind of assistance. One day, as I approached one of those friends, she held up her hand and said, “I don’t want to hear any more stories about your family.” I then noticed a certain amount of eye-rolling and dismissiveness on the part of the school nurse, who, I realized, just wanted me out of her office. It was my first encounter with the Oversharing Monster.
It is not surprising to learn that talking about oneself is rewarding — biologically.
In Scientific American’s article about a study done at Harvard, Adrian F. Ward wrote:
“These results suggest that self-disclosure — revealing personal information to others — produces the highest level of activation in neural regions associated with motivation and reward, but that introspection — thinking or talking about the self, in the absence of an audience — also produces a noticeable surge of neural activity in these regions. Talking about the self is intrinsically rewarding, even if no one is listening.”
In fact, the article states that we may spend 60 percent of our conversations talking about ourselves, and that increases to around 80 percent of our communications on social media. However, Amy Morin in Forbes cautions that “using social media like a personal diary and treating acquaintances as if they were a therapist, however, can have serious consequences.”
Rejections of “talk therapy” in junior high with my close friend and the school nurse fall into that “serious consequences” category. Every few years I realize I’ve fallen back into that habit by picking up on subtle, and not-so-subtle clues from others.
Most recently, pandemic isolation and working from home has isolated me. My significant other is an essential worker, so he leaves the house every day and deals with a high-stress job. My work is also stressful but for very different reasons than his. People dealing with immediate needs surround him; I am alone but beset by many immediate needs that arrive electronically.
When he comes home from work, he wants some quiet transition time, while I am ready to babble on about my day and my frustrations.
I thought we were doing a good job taking turns at this, but again, some subtle and not-so-subtle clues told me otherwise.
First was the institution of not talking to each other right away, aside from general greetings. Missteps in this area have caused some of the most disagreeable feelings we’ve ever encountered in 10 years together.
Then came the interruptions, subject changing, looking at the phone, and leaving the room while I was in mid-sentence. Not so subtle there. And even though there have been apologies, I realized that this was more my problem than his. The Oversharing Monster had taken residence in my house.
Suddenly I saw that every email I sent to a work friend was becoming a novella of complaints. My outlook on certain areas of my life was becoming darker and more pessimistic. I was overthinking imperfect situations, and spending way too much time being anxious and irritable. I wondered if I was becoming (or re-becoming) what psychologists describe as a “help-rejecting complainer.”
In the Family column of The Atlantic, Lori Gottleib defined this personality:
“For help-rejecting complainers, complaining is a way of being. They find comfort in going on ad nauseam about their plight while giving excuse after excuse about why any suggested course of action won’t make matters any better.”
Considering the study that showed how rewarding it is to talk about yourself, it makes a lot of sense. And even if it hasn’t developed into a personality disorder, it is still a problem. In the New York Times article, “Why Talking About Our Problems Helps So Much (and how to do it), Eric Ravenscraft writes:
“Crucially, not every form of talking about problems aloud can help. In fact, multiple studies examining college students, young women, and working adults suggest that co-rumination — or consistently focusing on and talking about negative experiences in your life — can have the opposite effect, making you more stressed and drawing out how long a problem bothers you.”
Ravenscraft goes on to give suggestions on best practices for talking about your problems. He advises that choosing the right person to talk to is important. Perhaps someone who has had a similar problem and resolved it, is not a “co-ruminator.” He also reminds us (especially me) “… if you need a lot of talk time, try spreading your conversations out to multiple people. One person can get worn out, and having a broad social support system lets you distribute that load.”
He also recommends finding a therapist and considering that person as a personal trainer helping you get fit. His other important advice is to allow yourself time to vent, but then take a break from it.
In this he reminds me of the advice from one of my favorite books of all time, “I’d Rather Laugh, How to Be Happy Even When Life Has Other Plans For You,” by Linda Richman. (Yes, the real Mike Meyers’ SNL “Coffee Talk” inspiration.) She says to allow yourself a “pity party” where you can ruminate or wallow or just focus on something that is bothering you. The catch is, the “party” has a time limit, after which, you have to get out of your pajamas and rejoin the world.
As I write this, the irony of revealing my battles with the Oversharing Monster is not lost on me, even as I try to evict the creature from my brain. This, of course, is another opportunity for me to talk about myself, and get my brain to release some mood-enhancing hormones from my reward center — which is an addictive process in which the brain craves more of those reward hormones. The struggle is real.
What an excellent outlet you have found, Noreen, because you can get things off your chest, and if anybody rolls their eyes or close their screen down, you will never know. And neither will I when it happens because of my writing.
It is an interesting paradox that a story comes alive when we add a dollop of our own struggles vs just describing the problem “in clinical terms” – while at the same time going through the same litanies without forward motion becomes old hat.
The beauty of getting the thoughts our of the head and either into the written word or to tell somebody is that eventually we may have the insights that allow us to move forward. We figure out what needs can be met in healthier ways that they were met by our ruminations in the past.