Trauma dumping is defined as unloading traumatic experiences on others without warning or invitation. It's often done to seek validation, attention, or sympathy. While some initial relief may come from dumping your trauma onto someone else, the habit actually does more harm than good.
Venting is a healthy way to share negative emotions and reduce stress. But with trauma dumping, you overshare in a way that makes the listener feel overwhelmed or ignored.
Signs of trauma dumping
sharing the same story repeatedly or sharing graphic details. constantly interjecting mentions of past trauma into casual conversations. not knowing much about the people you share your story with. intentionally choosing people who may feel more obligated to listen.
“Trauma dumping refers to the oversharing of difficult emotions and thoughts with others,” Dr. Prewitt explains. “It is not a clinical term used by mental health providers, but people who engage in 'trauma dumping' often share traumatic events or stressful situations with others during inappropriate times.”
Having social anxiety
Those who struggle with social anxiety are typically more prone to oversharing. When you feel anxious around other people, it can easily lead to rambling. You might also start oversharing because of low self-confidence or the need to please people.
Signs of Emotional Dumping
You feel like your friend or loved one does not listen to you or take your advice. Your feelings are ignored despite being communicated. You feel more like a therapist than a friend or member of the family. Your conversations feel toxic and weigh heavily on your mind.
Is trauma dumping a form of abuse? Most of the time, trauma dumping is not purposefully abusive or manipulative. It's more common for a dumper to be so involved in talking about their traumatic experience that they are unaware of how their story is impacting their listeners.
Lastly, it's important to acknowledge that trauma bonding isn't the same as trauma dumping, which is when we overshare overly personal information with friends, family, or strangers. Being a victim of trauma bonding is a state of emergency, not oversharing.
Remember: Over-explaining is a trauma response designed to avoid conflict. “The logic behind fawning is that if a person does anything and everything they can to please the person who is trying to hurt them, that person might not follow through with the abusive behavior,” says Fenkel.
Over-explaining is usually done unconsciously as a way to control anxiety. Most people want the approval of others and don't want to let people down, so they attempt to avoid judgment and/or disappointing people by explaining things in great detail to make them understand why they did or said something.
Mutual sharing for emotional support is one of the ways that people develop closer relationships with others. But, trauma dumping usually isn't a mutual interaction; it's a toxic kind of communication that involves one person getting their emotional needs met at the expense of someone else.
What is Toxic Venting? Toxic venting feels like an attack on someone's character. Whether you are the one venting, or you're listening to someone else do it, this communication makes the other person out to be “the bad guy.” This type of bad-mouthing becomes an intense form of gossip.
Trauma dumping is when someone shares traumatic experiences or feelings with another person without warning or consent. The only reason you should apologize for trauma dumping, is by obviously not having the proper resources to vent in another place. When a traumatized victim repeatedly talks about their trauma.
In short, yes, but their grief is going to be different because if the dumper is an avoidant they've come up with all these coping mechanisms to suppress how they're feeling. Think of it like a more agonizing process that on the outside might not look like they're grieving at all.
Oversharing doesn't create intimacy. Oversharing is self-absorption masked as vulnerability. This may also signal emotional neediness and/or lack of boundaries.
The Oversharing Habit Is a Way for Us to Cope
Oversharing is one of those coping mechanisms that falls in that gray area, sometimes helping us to release stress, communicate our internal struggles or joys with others, and to reach out in a time of need.
People with BPD often engage in self-sabotaging behavior. This can include: Oversharing. Misplaced anger.
Oversharing happens because of ADHD symptoms like impulsivity.
Trauma dumping, also known as oversharing – or its newest incarnation, trauma bonding – has become a cardinal sin. Defined as “the oversharing of difficult emotions and thoughts with others”, trauma dumping is not actually a medical term, despite how laced in mental health rhetoric the phrase itself seems.
“Your anxiety makes you talk uncontrollably [and] the more you share the more anxious you get but you can't stop,” she says. Lastly, the clinical psychologist says oversharing can also be linked to “a part of you that feels lonely and is looking for connection.”