Posted by lucie lu on December 7, 2008, at 17:32:32
In reply to poster's remorse, posted by turtle on December 7, 2008, at 14:48:14
...but I thought turtle's thread, following up after witti's thread, was more about self-disclosure. I thought the question was more about when does openness and sharing become TMI? And what are our worries about that?I think that many of us are trying to balance trust and shame. We reach a point of trust, which is often a good thing and a sign of our growth, when we decide to share intimate details with others here. But many of the things we share come with a measure of shame, from the things we have had to live with. We hope that our peers, the people we care about, will say, oh yes, I have felt the same thing, and we (and they) will feel some comfort in not being alone. But at the same time we fear that others will say "Ugh, that is even yuckier than yuck! Isn't (s)he ashamed to post about that stuff?" We are afraid, understandably, to bare our souls and receive either deafening silence in response or have others be disgusted or rejecting or whatever. We take a big risk when we post things about ourselves. And it takes a lot of trust in the goodness of other people on the board. And I think that in the vast majority of cases, the disclosure *does* touch other people and is helpful both to the poster and in terms of reaching out to others. It is hard to know what can be done to ease the anxiety of self-disclosure, other than to have others acknowledge it and appreciate the effort and risk it took. But I think that at least one of the functions of this board is to provide an opportunity to be open and real on this board and to help ourselves and one another to grow through our difficulties with kindness and supportiveness. And you don't have to agree to be kind and supportive.
Just my two cents. I think this is a great board, and it has helped me a lot.
Lucie
poster:lucie lu
thread:867274
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081205/msgs/867330.html