I believe one of the symptoms of religious trauma is oversharing. Of course, in this modern age of influencer marketing, oversharing feels like a lost cause. If it’s a sign of mental unhealth, it feels fully baked into our social consciousness–so normalized that it is perhaps not indicative of dysfunction anymore. But I see it often in deconstruction spaces, where people who grew up without any boundaries trying to wrest themselves away from fundamentalism, tend to overshare their trauma, sob stories, and relationship woes, which leads to even more betrayal and pain.
As much as I am conscious of this, especially as an online content creator, I found myself struggling with oversharing, not with the public, but with some of my most intimate relationships. I was raised to believe secrecy is always bad, and that intimacy means giving all of ourselves over to another person. And I interpreted this self-emptying to mean I tell the important people in my life everything I am doing, thinking, and feeling. Logistically, this is exhausting, and I’ve had to learn to speak quickly! But it was all I knew how to connect. In other words, sharing was my way of striving to be seen, known and ultimately, to be loved.
I didn’t grow up with the security of inherent worthiness. The love that was sold to me as unconditional was proven to me over and over again, as quite conditional indeed. The concept that I could do NOTHING and still be worthy of love and belonging is very foreign. I feel like I can tell that to others, believe in my bones for others, but find it difficult to embrace for myself.
So I tell stories. I try to be interesting. I use the one thing I’m fairly good at, my words, to explain, express and I overshare. I couldn’t believe that if I don’t do this, if I don’t empty myself into other people, that everything might still be okay.
I began to suffer vulnerability burnout. It started to feel like everyone in the world knows everything about me, and I am just out there to be judged, and I didn’t like it at all. But I also couldn’t imagine not continuing to be open about my inner world. It felt like it was inherent in my personality and inclinations, and at the same time toxic and unhealthy.
This is a continuing work in my recovery from religious trauma. At first, I would purposefully, intentionally withhold information from my loved ones. It sounds extreme, but it was the only way I knew to break a habit so heavily carved into the grooves of my being. And it was so painful. I had to fight every impulse within myself telling me I’m being deceitful, all that childhood indoctrination saying I was malicious to the core came roaring to the surface of my psyche. But I talked back, reassuring myself that I am worthy and loved without having to share everything.
And I survived. Whew! Which allows me to keep practicing.
I’m still a work in progress, but it is getting easier for me to keep certain things to myself without beating myself up. This work is at its root, the work of fortifying my sense of self. I am (still) learning that I can exist fully in a relationship with others without erasing the boundaries that keep me, me.
The stories, ideas, and feelings that I share with others need to clear the borders of myself first. Is what I am sharing coming from a boundaried self, a robust sense of self that feels worthiness, love and belonging? Is this sharing done with enthusiastic consent from myself, a sense of wanting to, and not having to?
After all, oversharing is a subjective term. Some people are comfortable sharing lots of things and others are comfortable being mostly private and sharing very few things. The bubbly, extroverted chatterbox can share everything from their favorite brand of toothpaste and the color of their underwear, but as long as they have that strong sense of self and are sharing because they want to–it’s a healthy and vibrant connection with others. And even the most private person can overshare if they are sharing out of a collapsed sense of self and doing so to seek worthiness from external sources.
Right now, I have to take a beat before I share, so that I can learn to distinguish between healthy sharing and oversharing. I hope that one day soon, it will become second nature, and I can learn to connect with others without trampling my own boundaries.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I identify with this so, so much. And I also feel like I was made to hold so much in secrecy in order to belong in Christianity - I think I swing to one extreme or the other. To know there’s safety there in the middle is extremely encouraging.
I have this too! It’s been so strange to realize especially with my husband that… being brutally honest all the time isn’t always the right thing to do. It’s been tied to boundary work for me… letting there be things that are truly just mine, and also understanding that other people may not have capacity to hold my problems for me and that I need to take responsibility for them. I also think oversharing was a way of having others manage my feelings for me, which I learned to do by being encouraged to always cast my cares on the lord.