Oversharing Syndrome – the Truth About Too Much Info
Dr. Sheri Jacobson
February 2, 2021
By: Richard
by Andrea M. Darcy
Oversharing can feel good in the moment, but can have not so great consequences. So why do we keep doing it?
Compulsive vs intentional oversharing
Yes, we can all purposely overshare when we are outraged or upset, and want people on our side. And you just have to look at social media accounts to see oversharing being used as a calculated tool for attention.
But brushing off ‘oversharing syndrome’ as simply a form of selfishness is often way off the mark.
Oversharing can all too often be a smokescreen for a serious psychological issue, including things like anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder. And the first hint can be whether you can control your blather or not.
If you compulsively overshare before you can stop yourself, and are left feeling ashamed afterwards? It’s time to take your oversharing seriously.
What is driving your compulsive oversharing?
So why can’t you stop giving all the goss?
1. Oversharing and anxiety.
Talk impulsively when nervous in an attempt to seem normal? But the more you overshare, the more anxious you become, the less you can stop blathering?
Social anxiety leads to what one set of research studies calls “self-control depletion”. The more anxious we are, the less control we have over impulsive behaviours. [1]
Or social anxiety can mean you feel you ‘have to’ share things to fit in. But it makes you uncomfortable, so you try to talk your way out, only making things worse or sharing even more details.
2. When you overshare to avoid, not create, intimacy.
A common assumption is that we overshare to try to force people to like us. But chronic oversharing can also be a way to push others away.
- Is your oversharing creating a ‘persona’?
- Is it like you are watching yourself talk from a distance?
- Do you find you embellish some details and hide others?
- Do you overshare more around people you don’t really like?
Then you are using oversharing to create a wall between your real self and the other person, in a complicated form of avoiding intimacy.
3. Good old loneliness.
We tell ourselves we are fine. Of course we aren’t lonely. We love our own company and we don’t care that we never talk to our family anymore and live alone.Then we get out to a social event, open our mouths, and it’s one big overshare.
Loneliness can leave us connection starved. And our brain knows connection is important to our survival. Our own need to feel connected can override our social skills.
Research from the perspective of evolutionary psychology suggests that loneliness “may have evolved as an aversive state that, like hunger, thirst, and pain, promotes behaviour change to increase the likelihood of the survival of one’s genes”. [2]
4. Low self-esteem and talking too much.
Do you find that the more you like someone and want them to like you, the more you blather? Like to that cool new colleague from New York? Or the attractive barista at the local coffee shop?
It can be an unconscious way to try to prove you have value, hiding low self-esteem.
5. Intensity addiction.
Do you fall in love quickly? And make instant friends that you call ‘soulmates’? And does this involve immediately sharing all your intimate details and thoughts through hours of talking, that you see as ‘bonding’? Only to fall out of love just as fast, or cut out those same friends when you see ‘the real them’?
Yes, relationships require being open. And bonding can involve telling our dark secrets. In a research study looking at whether people prefer those who hide negative secrets over those who are open about them, 80% of participants preferred to date a ‘revealer’. [3]
But sharing is one thing. Rushed oversharing, where you share your whole life story in a matter of days and use it to block out the world and mesmerise the other? And show a total lack of personal boundaries? It’s being too intense, which is often linked to borderline personalty disorder.
6. Oversharing and the victim mentality.
Overshare the same story to whoever will listen? About how hard your life was, and who did you wrong? Have the details changed over time, but you’ve convinced yourself that it’s still a fair portrayal of all you suffered?
The victim mentality means you gain your sense of power and agency by making others feel sorry for you.
It’s not to say you didn’t suffer bad things. Many people trapped in the victim mentality did indeed have childhood trauma. But it is to say you are not facing up to the fact that you are an adult now with free will, and you have to choose to take responsibility for your healing.
How can I stop oversharing?
It helps just to recognise your real intention for oversharing, and the root cause. Journalling is useful here, as is mindfulness, a practice that helps you recognise what you really think and feel.
With things like low self-esteem, or conscious oversharing to win attention, self help books and courses can help you work through healthier ways to feel good about yourself.
But if your oversharing hides pretty serious issues, support is highly advisable. You might want to start with forums, online support groups, or in person support groups. But, particularly with things like severe anxiety, BPD, and childhood trauma, working with a counsellor or therapist is highly advisable if you want to see real change.
Time to stop talking and start listening to yourself? We connect you with some of London’s most highly rated psychotherapists and counselling psychologists. You can also find UK-wide registered therapists on our booking site, as well as online counselling you can book from anywhere.
Have a question about oversharing? Or want to share how you got yours under control at last? Use the comment box below.
Andrea M. Darcy is a chronic over sharer, author, and consultant helping people save time and money by finding the right therapy and therapist for their exact issues. Find her @am_darcy.
Footnotes
[1]. Blackhart, Ginette & Williamson, Jessica & Nelson, Lyndsay. (2015). Social Anxiety in Relation to Self-Control Depletion Following Social Interactions. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 34. 747-773. 10.1521/jscp.2015.34.9.747.
[2]. Cacioppo, J. T., Cacioppo, S., & Boomsma, D. I. (2014). Evolutionary mechanisms for loneliness. Cognition & emotion, 28(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.837379.
[3]. John, Leslie & Barasz, Kate & Norton, Michael. (2016). Hiding personal information reveals the worst. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113. 201516868. 10.1073/pnas.1516868113.
Wow! Thanks so much for sharing this post. Very insightful information! I used to overshare some details in my life inappropriately when I was a kid/teen. It wasn’t until I was a well-adjusted adult that I was able to identify this problem and solve it. You put it all in words beautifully. And also, I appreciate you citing your sources in a very professional manner!
Hi Adri, glad it resonated, always happy to hear our articles are useful. Best, HT.
This is so well done and informative. I just read another article about why people should “beware the oversharer” and it just implied that people who overshare only do so to manipulate others into revealing personal information. Which clearly is not always the case. Thank you for working against stigma, because there is too much false information out there, especially when it comes to BPD!
Oh dear! Unfortunately there is a lot of terrible ‘information’ on the internet designed to turn people against each other and encourage self righteousness. Most people are doing the best they can with what they have, and oversharing is more likely to be connected to anxiety or attachment issues. Best, HT.
With the idea of journaling am too bad at writing things down. Therapists seem to quit after less than 2 years even if only 1x a month. Friends when they have enough leave. Even family blocks rather than saying that they had enough hearing about issues. So I am trying to break all of the talking to anyone other than polite exchanges.
Hi D, what sort of therapist offered you one session a month?! That is not really going to help anyone. Therapy is a relationship, you can’t build a relationship and trust seeing someone once a month and that is never done, unless you’ve done years of therapy and these are just check ins. Are these registered, professional therapists? Very odd. What we’d guess is that you are focussing on oversharing as the issue but that in actual fact the problem is far more complex and about relating in general. Some of us just never had healthy relating modelled to us, or have a different brain. We see the world and ourselves differently, to the extent that sometimes we might have what is referred to as a ‘personality disorder’ (we aren’t diagnosing you, we don’t know you, we are just suggesting possibilities, for example, borderline personality disorder often leads to oversharing and often feeling rejected). This can mean we simply don’t naturally understand ways of relating that others take for granted. So things are really hard for us, we constantly feel rejected, no matter how hard we try. It’s a lonely way to live, and understandably you can be left feeling quite despondent. There are certain forms of therapy that are perfect for this sort of issue, in particular schema therapy and dialectical therapy. CBT therapy is a short term therapy that could also help as a start, as it would help you notice where your thoughts are assumptions, but we think you’d benefit more from a longer term, weekly, committed therapy with a therapist who specialises in those who are sensitive, think differently, and have confusion about personal boundaries and communication, so again, schema or dialectical. As for journalling, you can also make audio journals. As in, find a private place and rant out loud. You can record things if you want but seems you already judge yourself harshly and that will just lead to listening in and judging more. Just set a timer to 5 minutes, and try to talk all the way to the timer going off, letting yourself rant and say anything, no matter how ‘crazy’. It might be harder to fill those 5 minutes than you think! Finally, consider learning and practicing mindfulness. It’s a super helpful tool that many therapists now use with clients and is free and easy to to learn. Best, HT.
I’m a hybrid between an oversharer and someone who enjoys talking. Maybe there’s no difference. When speaking I am giving my opinion saying something funny, having a theory, being a Critic or talking about something I love. I listen as well as I talk, because I learned over time if you don’t listen to people people don’t listen to you. So you got to give as well as you get. I wish people in my area would talk more. I feel like I’m surrounded by deaf-mutes who have no opinion regarding anything and if they did they wouldn’t or cannot be bothered to state it, which is anathema to me. But I’ve had a number of people in my life shout at me “For the love of God please shut up just shut your mouth!” I recall clearly walking with my uncle down the street in Jersey City, NJ when I was about four years old. I was holding his hand and yapping and yapping away. I was happy. He said after some time: “Jesus kid, you don’t shut up do you?” (In Jersey City that considered polite) His didn’t bother me all he was doing was stating a fact
My mouth has got me into more trouble than anything else, but has also got me into more success I would have found being too quiet.
Also, I stuttered badly between the ages of 5 and 15. I didn’t talk for 10 years basically. Since I grew out of it I feel like I have been making up for lost time, including oversharing in response to an article on oversharing.
I feel regret for oversharing to two or three (or five or twenty) friends. But I often stop to thank them (on a weekly basis) for their friendship, patience and the ability to put up with me and my motormouth, which starts the moment I wake up.
I hope there’s no typos thank you for the great article I think you’re beautiful
Thanks for the share Rocco! We are all unique, and often it’s just a case of finding our tribe, the people who get us as we are. Best,HT.
I tend to overshare and tend to slip things I shouldn’t have said. I feel embarrassed after that and my partner and I have troubles because of it. I need to stop it but I don’t know how.
Hi Amy, this raises a lot of questions. What things are you supposed to not say? Is it a question of secrets? Has your partner made you keep secrets? If so, are those secrets healthy? Is it really fair to be forced to keep secrets? Or, is it a question of being too frank in public? As that is a different situation. And can be connected to things like being on the autism spectrum or having ADHD. Both difficult relationships as well as ADHD and autism can all be helped with counselling. Best, HT.
I talk over people and it’s hurting some relationships as I come across as not listening
I’ve been shut down most of my life
Struggling to find balance on communication
Hi Jen, therapy could actually help with all of this. Talking over others can be related to anxiety and things like ADHD, a therapist could also let you know if you had these issues. And you could learn new ways of communicating and relating practise them in the therapy room. We’d bet that once you felt more at ease and confident with your relating and communicating, your anxiety would lower, and you’d talk over people less. Finally, people who really know you and see you won’t care if you talk over them. But you need to have the confidence to believe you deserve to be seen and cared about, and therapy also helps raise low self-esteem, which we sense is a real issue for you. we’d suggest you also read our article on talking too much which explains all this further https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/why-you-talk-too-much.htm Best, HT.
Hi there I have been doing some research since I identified quite clearly that my medication wears off around the time I begin to overshare again. It is one of those symptoms of my BPD that I can identify and use to remember that I need my medication.
People tend to respond very positively to my oversharing. My life has not been boring; but the problem is that I go from topic to topic very rapidly and have a hard time staying cohesive. I have had a very interesting life, and people find it interesting to listen to- Air Force experience, mutual video game experience at high competitive levels, coaching and teaching I have done, etc. I have had a lot of incredible experiences in my life and it is hard for me to not want to use that experience to empathize with people because I love people. I don’t get angry or mad or accusatory like some stereotypes of BPD. I just love people so much I want to share my heart. Too much.
I take Lamotrigine now. I had to up my dose quite a bit and a psychologist approved it. It nearly instantly stops my oversharing. I had to start taking it twice a day- for whatever reason, unusually, it works fast on me, and the difference is palpable. I go from ranting on for so long and telling stories that I forget that the person listening may not have anything to say about them, and I keep going. I do this mostly with close friends, and sometimes I end up doing it with strangers, and my friends understand it is an mental health issue and tolerate it. I say tolerate, but they really just understand and are willing to be there for me.
I will end up telling my entire life story in one conversation. There are things I leave out, the worst trauma, but it still goes too far. When I began journaling, and noting what the differences were in times where the medication wore off (7-9 hours on the dot) the ranting and oversharing began more. This impacts homework and coursework too; I can knock out a 6 page essay in 1 or 2 hours. Then have to edit it down or properly cite things. If the minimum word count for a homework assignment is 800, I can write 4000, easily.
Once I tied the two together, I began to take the medication twice a day so that, in the evening when I usually interacted with friends or family, I stopped doing this. Sometimes it takes too long to realize, especially when I am having a particularly interesting conversation with someone I care about. If I stayed cohesive, it would be fine; but topic to topic, on loose threads that hardly tie them together if at all, and sometimes jumping to entirely different ones, was the problem. It overwhelms people. An unfortunate side effect of people finding my ranting interesting is that I can’t tell when I’m just sort of ‘wow’ing someone who wants to learn about me, or if I am taking up their time, even if they do want to talk to me.
I found that identifying it, and realizing it, was one of the best ways for me to remember if I needed to or hadn’t taken my medication. It was only today I decided to actually do research on the ties between oversharing and BPD, and now it makes complete sense why it is such a clear symptom after some digging.
Unfortunately, I don’t always catch myself. I will often just stop a conversation and go “okay, I think I have been talking too much, I need to go take my medication”, and ten minutes after that, I am suddenly much more measured and eloquent, rather than random and compulsive. Even if I do rant, it would be cohesive.
I don’t know if anyone will read this, but if you do, I suggest the same for others with medication for bipolar/BPD/whatever that is non-scheduled (not adderall or the like) to use oversharing as a cue that you should medicate. Be as aware as possible when you start talking at length or writing long messages to friends. Even if they are receptive or interested. It takes up your time and theirs, and will go on for too long.
I took my medication a few minutes ago so even this post is likely a result of this. It is not embarrassing to me; I think it is good that I found a way to self-identify my issues. Journaling also helped a good deal, in writing when I began oversharing at night, catching it, and medicating.
Thanks for this share FC! Have you also tried therapy? As oversharing and borderline personality disorder respond very well to therapy, even without medication. Oversharing with BPD comes from the buzzy anxiety social situations create, linked in to our need to be liked and not rejected. For example, dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) was created by someone who actually had BPD herself. And schema therapy is also very effective for BPD. If it’s trauma related, EMDR and BWRT can help calm down the overthinking that leads to oversharing. BPD can often come alongside ADHD as well, which also causes a lot of oversharing, and CBT therapy can be extremely useful in this case. And mindfulness, which many therapists now use with clients, is perhaps one of the most powerful tools of all for oversharing if you really commit to a daily practice. In short, we always recommend that medication only be offered in tandem with therapy, which is the protocol here in the UK for BPD. Best, HT.
Good article but I know some people who have no idea that’s why they do it. I shall share this with people I know who seemingly suffer from this unknowingly.
Thanks Neil. Although do share with tact, sometimes people who overshare from things like anxiety can be quite sensitive about it, and very few people overshare to intentionally annoy others. Best, HT.
My biggest problem that I have is oversharing. I experienced extremely childhood traumaand also , sexualy abuse from family members. I was a late speaker as a child. I felt very letdown from ALLthese adults that neglected me.
I ended up destroying my first real relationship because of my outbreak.
I need help.
I appreciates all the comments. I can relate to them 100%. Feeling ashamed and guilty after sharing is quite unnerving, to say the least. However, I’m determined to overcome this unpleasant habit of mine and hope the best for all who are trying to do the same.