Oversharing Chronicles

A while back I had a conversation with a friend and I was oversharing as usual, and we laughed it off as we started talking about my oversharing tendencies. I was telling her that I found something amazing in this tendency of mine. Most people often talk about oversharing in such a negative way that there is even stigma around it. It's like oversharing is so wrong, it's something to be done away with. Well, I beg to differ. I spent most of my life bottling things up because I had no one to talk to, or I didn't even know how to talk about them. I then spent my whole life being tough and growing a thick skin, moving on with life regardless of these things. But the problem with this is that, as much as I bottled up and moved on, these things were piling up inside and a breaking point was inevitable, which eventually came.

As I began therapy though, as much as there were days I didn't wanna go or even talk, I soon discovered something, how freeing and soothing talking was. It was like the weight I had been carrying for years became lighter with each word I uttered. Each word went with a lot of processing and with that processing came healing. Each word I uttered came with this refreshing feeling, more like a feeling of freedom from the chains that had chained me for years. Once I discovered this I did not want to stop talking. It felt like talking to my therapist on Tuesdays wasn't enough, there was something that was boiling inside me and I just wanted to release it in every turn. It was more like these flood gates were suddenly open and I just couldn't keep the waters from rushing out. I overshared like nobody’s business. My husband would be invited to give a talk somewhere on art and some people would come after just to have a conversation and oh boy I would just go and go without stop. If someone at church dared to ask how I was, the floods would come rushing without fail. Everywhere we went, stranger or not, I would just share. Then when we get back home I would cringe at all that oversharing I did but I would do it again tomorrow, I just couldn't help myself. Sharing was so good, it felt even more healing with strangers, which was weird on its own. It was so therapeutic, so freeing, so healing, it was Liberty.

Another thing I enjoyed most about my oversharing was that as much as it felt like freedom, it also gave me something to talk about with other people. I have anxiety issues which make having conversations with people difficult. I never know what to say, I spend most of my time in conversations trying to figure out what to say, when I’ve figured it out I them spend more time trying to figure out if that won’t sound dumb and stupid. If I conclude that it will sound dumb I then refrain from saying anything which also leaves me feeling dumb and stupid by the way. And if I conclude that it wont sound so stupid, I end saying something which also leaves me feeling stupid and beating myself up for saying something and wondering without stop why I decided to say something. It's a never ending cycle that always leaves me exhausted at the end of the day. For this reason I end up fearing social situations, I end up preferring solitude. But now here I was, I had something to talk about. As much as it was my painful story with depression, it was exciting at the same time. All the realizations, the things I was figuring out, I couldn't wait to share them. It felt like all these things just wanted to come out and I was very happy to oblige. And the most amazing this about this story was that it was mine, no one could correct me or say I was telling it all wrong. It was my story and I knew it better than anyone and only I could tell it like I did. For the first time ever I had something that I could be confident talking about and not feel like people were going to think I was dumb. It was freedom and it was my story, so I told it where ever and whenever I could. This blog is also part of telling that story, it is also part of embracing that freedom and healing.

However the most amazing thing I realized about my oversharing was how it helped others. As much as I healed with every word I uttered, I also touched and helped others. The more I realized this, the more I wanted to keep yupping about my story even more. There was freedom in yupping, not just mine but others’ too. God has given me an amazing gift of being able to articulate myself and putting my feelings and experiences into words. And the more I did this, the more others found words to their experiences and feeling, and this on its own felt so therapeutic for me. It gave me a new sense of purpose, it made me happy. Eventually I stopped cringing over my oversharing, I embraced it. There was power in it and it definitely wasn't something to be ashamed of. How is it such a bad thing? How did it get all the stigma around it? Now this is not me saying we should go around yupping, obviously some people out there are not kind and I’ve come across my own lot. But there are more who want to listen, the are more with kind hearts and it's in those we should never be ashamed of oversharing. I have found my own, and I know that with them I am safe and I can overshare as much as I want. One thing I won’t do is to keep quiet. Talking is healing and for that reason I am never keeping mum, in my oversharing I’m releasing, in my yupping lies an unspeakable sense of freedom.