Remember that one summer when your favorite camp friend wouldn’t shut up about their parents’ divorce? Or the time that goth from your high school showed strangers in the library his hate list? Or freshmen orientation when the girl you’d just shared your favorite color with told you about her #sexual confusion? The individuals from these anecdotes all have something in common—something heroic. They are oversharers, otherwise known as trauma dumpers.
Right off the bat, I want to be clear that oversharers, generally speaking, have my full support. I will not be hating on oversharing, because I myself am an oversharing hot girl. What I will say is that there are right ways to overshare, and there are wrong ways. In this article, I’m going to walk you through the basics of the craft, and then help you to understand how the proper delivery can grant you access to the sympathy of others, all day, everyday.
What is Oversharing?
POV: you’re seventeen years old, telling your high school boyfriend that you’re sad but not to worry about it because it’s nothing important. After he tells you he wants to know what’s going on and calls you ‘babe’ three times, you ever so reluctantly list the top five most tragic events of your teenage life, in chronological order and in precise detail. You wrap up by explaining the latest tragedy, which is that your parents just put Life360 on your phone. Now, your boyfriend feels bad for you, and he wants to give you a hug and tell you you’re hot. As a seventeen year old girl with average social standing, this is by far the most effective way for you to get the attention you so crave. So what’s the catch?
You may have guessed it: oversharing, when poorly executed, can be really bad for optics. In childhood, the risk of oversharing is mostly that of boring your friends and associates. Friends don’t love to listen to other people’s problems for long, and strangers love it even less. As we get older, though, the immediate risks of oversharing become more severe.
The Dangers of Oversharing:
Pretend, for a second, that you’re on an elevator with a stranger, and you’re considering turning to them to say, “Both my parents are dead.” You run two risks:
- They may become uncomfortable. Why? Because they have never been prepared to explore themes of mortality, and now that you’ve shared your awkward news, they still aren’t. They feel pressured to participate in a conversation about something they can’t discuss casually. They do not know what you want from them, and they feel challenged, and poised to fail your creepy test. Given these circumstances, you are bound to get a brief, impersonal response from your target listener. The person who responds in this way is likely unfamiliar with the experience of whatever trauma you have just dumped. Telling them you’re an orphan is like asking an english professor to do algebra: they cannot and will not engage.
- They may detect your mental pain. The only thing worse than oversharing and being met with a blank stare is oversharing and being understood. If the stranger in the elevator is nice to you when you overshare, it’s not because they’re dying to hear more about what life is like for an orphan. It’s because they used to be you. No, not an orphan. Mentally ill. Before they started going to therapy, they too used any listening ear they could find to validate their emotional responses to trauma. They told their Uber driver about their neurodivergence, their dermatologist about their body image issues, and their coworkers about their sleep paralysis. But now, they are better–healed. They are content to keep the details of their personal lives private, because their own perspective is all they need. And good for them. But trust me, they’ll go home to tell their loved ones about you and your evident anguish, and they’ll be reminded to reflect on how blessed they are to be out of the deep dark place where you live.
Needless to say, oversharing is an extreme sport. If you expect to practice the sport day in and day out, with success, and without inviting criticism, you must be really damn good.
Now let us turn to the partition of practical knowledge. I am a seasoned trauma dumper, and in my time, I have learned that the worst thing you can do to your reputation is casually overshare without implementing a strategy. Your audience will get tired of you, and they will stop saying things like, “I really respect your bravery,” and start saying things like, “Wow, that’s crazy.” Do not let this be you. Before you get out there and talk about your troubles, study up on what not to do.
Oversharing DON’Ts:
- DON’T frequently target the same audience. They will start to hate you, and soon enough you will have garnered a reputation as ‘messy’. And would they be wrong to call you that? No, because you were tactless in your delivery of troubling personal facts.
- DON’T seek positive attention without offering something in return. Be it a good laugh, an interesting story, a relatable disclosure. You gotta give them something. Your reputation won’t survive your oversharing ways unless you understand that every interaction is an exchange.
- DON’T talk shit about your dad. Guys in particular find daddy issues weird and gross. Your vulnerability makes them uncomfortable, both with you and with themselves.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the oversharing lifestyle, don’t panic. Yes, there are a lot of rules, but there are also a lot of ways to overshare without tarnishing your reputation as a nice normal person. To wrap up this blog post I will share with you my tried and true oversharing strategies: how to trauma dump without looking unstable and sad.
Oversharing DOs:
- Aim to make people laugh. If you can make people laugh while you overshare, your crimes against social normativity may be forgiven. The targeted listeners will interpret your intention as being to cause laughter, not to garner sympathy. If you can make your tragic narrative funny, people will not only reward you with smiles, but they’ll also process the apparent depth of your character without subjecting you to the normal scrutiny.
- Keep things vague. The less info you give, the better. Let them build up your personal struggle in their imaginative brains. It’s the only way to make your truth universally palatable. Plus, if you ramble on and on, you’ll likely get less sympathy than if you casually drop your orphan status (for example). This gives you the illusion of stoicism and grace. It makes you interesting, but not a liability.
- Keep your oversharing to a minimum, if possible. Don’t let oversharing become your whole thing. If it does, people will stop respecting you and start avoiding you. I don’t make the rules, I just play the game.
At the end of the day, oversharing is a coping strategy that many of us use to fight our internal mental discomfort. Just like all symptoms of mental illness, oversharing is a little stigmatized. This is not to say that you should stop doing it. Be my guest! But please, for the love of god, be tactful. People will judge you based on what you ignore social norms in favor of divulging. Choose carefully. Lastly, I would like to establish, for the record, that I take mental illness very seriously. This is clearly satire and I am a good person.
Thanks for making it to the end of this article! I appreciate your readership. 😉 Now get out there, and make people understand the depth of your character, tactfully!