Healthy relationships require empathy, investment and honesty. Whether platonic or romantic, it’s hard to nurture a true connection without being completely truthful. This means honesty about who you are and how you’re actually feeling. However, it’s a difficult distinction to make between opening up or trauma dumping. Here’s how to discern between the two.
What Is Trauma Dumping?
Trauma dumping refers to the act of sharing your traumatic experiences or emotional burdens with someone else. What makes trauma dumping unique is that it’s often done without considering their capacity to handle such heavy information. It can happen in friendships, relationships or on social media.
While sharing your innermost emotions is therapeutic, trauma dumping can often feel one-sided and overwhelming for the listener, who might not know how to respond or support you effectively. It can burden them with the task of solving your issues for you, making them associate the time they spend with you as draining or a chore.
Signs of Trauma Dumping
Being self-aware enough to recognize when you might be trauma dumping can help you course correct and communicate more healthily. Here are some signs of trauma dumping:
- One-Sided Conversations: You find that you’re mostly talking about your trauma without checking in on the other person’s feelings or experiences.
- Overwhelming Details: You share graphic or intense details of your experiences that might be too much for the listener to process.
- Ignoring Cues: You notice that the listener seems uncomfortable, disengaged, or overwhelmed, but you continue sharing anyway.
- Frequent Sharing: You often bring up your trauma in conversations, even when the context doesn’t call for it, making it a regular topic.
- Feeling Unbalanced: You sense that your conversations leave the other person feeling drained or burdened.
- Lack of Boundaries: You don’t consider the emotional state of the listener or the appropriateness of the time and place for sharing.
- Discomfort from Others: Friends or loved ones express that they feel overwhelmed or unsure how to support you after your conversations.
How To Open Up
If you notice these signs when communicating, then it’s crucial to practice more balanced ways of sharing your feelings. This includes going to therapy, so that some of your emotional load is alleviated and checking in with friends before diving into heavy topics.
It’s important to create a safe space for emotional discussions and ensure that both parties are willing and able to engage in conversations that may be triggering or heavy. Balancing vulnerability with consideration for the listener’s emotional capacity is key.
It’s important not to place expectation on the other person to solve your issues. They can hold space, offer mirrored experiences and plant seeds of guidance, but it’s an emotionally laborious task to feel they need to fix your issues for you. Preface by saying you’re only looking for them to listen rather than advise, and make sure to do the same for them. Conversations are a two party choreography, and you want to make sure you’re holding as much space as you’re taking up.