Oversharing
What happens when you share with the wrong person?
Survivors of abuse, whilst in the acute stage of trauma recovery (which can last a very long time) can have a very strong internal drive to tell the story of what happened to them. A new issue can surface in the struggle - oversharing. We might commonly think of oversharing as being about dominating a conversation, revealing too much private data, or simply “too much information”. Oversharing can be a survivor reaching out for kindness, patience, care and understanding.
Right Time, Place & Person
Oversharing can be broken down into a number of simple mindful ingredients: - is this an appropriate place; is this the right time; and is this the right person. Telling your drunk work buddy at the office Christmas party after midnight might come back to bite you! You’ll have possibly read internet memes that say, “when you’re in trouble, you find out who your friends are”. Never was this old cliche truer than in the case of psychological abuse by a pathologically disordered person! For one thing, what happened is incredibly complex and difficult to put into words. For another, almost nobody wants to hear about or think about the very dark phenomenon in humankind that is sexual, physical or emotional abuse. This stuff is dark. Very dark.
The behaviour of people with pathological personality disorders is easily missed because they look normal, in fact are often more attractive and well-liked than your average Jo, occupying positions of power, authority or celebrity. When such a person is spoken of as a perpetrator, no one believes the target. It’s just too much of a stretch to believe someone so [nice, famous, smart, influential] could possibly be a perpetrator behind closed doors. This fact alone places survivors in a position where they risk being retraumatised if they tell the wrong person, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Family Blame Taker
Even oversharing to family who “should” care can be a mistake. Adult survivors often had a narcissistic parent and occupy the scapegoat role in the family system. Such families are more likely to capitulate to your storytelling with accusations and blame, thereby shooting the second arrow of injustice right into the vulnerable wound of the abuse itself!
Unless we had perfect parents, being kind to ourselves somehow gets left off the curriculum as we’re growing up. “Pull yourself together, get back in the saddle, fake it til you make it” are the more dominant tone in our society. Contempt for weaklings, blaming the victim, misogyny, survival of the ‘fittest’ are all strong undercurrents in our Western lives. A new awareness of all that is often implied in trauma recovery. Recovery from hidden abuse can be a very uncomfortable “awakening”!
Some wisdom suggests that self-isolation and reduced social contact after a traumatic experience are harmful. I beg to differ. It is SO important for a survivor to give themselves the time and space to lick their wounds and figure out what the hell just happened. Keeping calm and carrying on can quite literally be beyond reach for many, many survivors. Oversharing is a survivor reaching out for kindness, patience, care and understanding.
Irony in Recovery
Ironically, right when financial support might also be needed, some survivors have to pay professionals to get any compassionate support. But the right professional, in the right place at the right time could just be the difference between a slow and hideously painful recovery and a faster, less painful one.
So dear survivor, be careful with oversharing. One day, you’ll get the complex story down to an “elevator pitch” version that you can tell without hurting yourself in the process. Your aim is not to forgive the person who did this to you, but to make them irrelevant in your life. So, take a steady aim towards a self-compassionate full recovery, keep things as close to your chest as you possibly can and talk things out with someone who gets it. This is not about your personal flaws or failings. This is about what happened to you.
References
Shabahang, R., Shim, H., Aruguete, M. S., & Zsila, Á. (2024). Oversharing on social media: Anxiety, attention-seeking, and social media addiction predict the breadth and depth of sharing. Psychological reports, 127(2), 513-530.
Tomlinson, M., Carroll, F., & Sengar, S. (2025, September). Understanding the Complex Interplay of Social Media Privacy: Understanding Oversharing and Recommending Future. In AI Applications in Cyber Security and Privacy of Communication Networks: Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Cyber Security, Privacy in Communication Networks (ICCS 2024) (p. 125). Springer Nature.
