How To Handle Over Sharers & Not Become Their Therapist

Ever find yourself stuck in the middle of a conversation that you weren’t prepared for? One that is triggering, intense, and wholly inappropriate for the situation? I have. In this episode of The Reality Check Podcast, I discuss how to manage these conversations, in a way that both protects your mental state as well as the relationship.

Transcript

Welcome to the Reality Check Podcast.

I'm Zachary Phillips.

So I want to talk today about not letting people use you as an impromptu therapist.

There's a real issue in the mental health community and people that are struggling.

There's a tendency for people to just come out and express and share their trauma and past abuses and issues with you.

Without prompting,

Without being asked or without sort of doing the proper due diligence.

So it's sort of like they don't give you a trigger warning for lack of a better expression.

They just sort of start sharing about stuff in their life and because you are a nice person,

Because you care,

Or because you're blindsided or because you potentially don't have the skills or the confidence to say,

Hey,

I'm not comfortable here.

You can get sort of caught or trapped by these people in these moments.

And you end up finding yourself listening to things that you simply weren't prepared for,

You weren't qualified to talk about,

Or you just don't want to hear for whatever reason.

The first thing I want to say is that's okay.

If you don't want to hear about someone else's traumas or issues or abuses or anything like that,

That doesn't make you a bad person.

It doesn't make you uncaring.

It doesn't make you evil or wrong or one of the bad guys.

The reality is that bad stuff happens and it happens to a lot of people and that sucks.

But unless it's your job to help the person that's talking to you,

It's not your job,

Right?

It's not your obligation.

So I express this because this has happened to me recently and it's happened in the past,

But I've also spoken to a couple of people online who this has happened to recently.

They were in a group and one member of the group just started dominating the conversation.

They just started sharing,

Expressing all of this stuff about their pasts and every attempt from everyone else in the group to sort of move the conversation on or to highlight the fact that we're at brunch right now or to sort of let it be known that we hear you and that sucks and that's sad and all that sort of stuff.

But now's not the time.

We're sort of not heard.

It was ignored or just it didn't quite register.

And they couldn't sort of hint at the fact that we're not comfortable right now.

So what I wanted to do with this podcast was to highlight a couple of things about this scenario and give you some tools that I found has started to help me to best address and best process.

Because the reality is that we will want to help other people and we do want to care,

But we can't always care all the time.

So what do we do?

Well,

Like I said,

The first thing is to acknowledge that it's okay to stand up for yourself,

To say,

Hey,

I'm not comfortable here.

It's okay to acknowledge that to yourself,

To recognize it.

The first step really is to look internally in the moment and go,

Oh,

I'm not comfortable with this.

I wasn't ready to have this conversation on such deep levels.

And from there,

It's important to realize that the person that you're listening to is just like everyone else in the sense that they've got problems,

But so do you.

And so does everyone else that you meet.

But it's not your job.

It's not your responsibility.

It's not your place to have to hear them all out.

And even if you do work in the mental health industry,

If you're a therapist,

If you're a life coach,

If you're doing something online like I am,

Unless you're operating in a professional capacity,

It's still not your job or your role to hear it out.

It's not your job or your role to do it at all times.

Only when you're on the clock,

So to speak.

I've had this issue with friends and family.

They'll come up to me and start offloading and I'll pull them up and I'll give you some of the tools that I use.

But they'll say,

Well,

But you talk about this stuff online all the time.

Surely it's okay.

And I'll say,

Well,

When I talk about it online,

I've prepared and prompted myself.

I've gotten myself into the zone.

I'm ready to sort of go down that path.

It's like if you're going to watch a horror movie,

Right?

You know what you're getting into.

If you're going to watch a romance movie,

You know what you're getting into,

Right?

You know where you're expected to have everything go.

But the reality is that when things are just thrown at you,

You haven't done that prior preparation.

It's like when you're doing an exercise session,

You get your body ready before you go hard.

In the same way,

Before I start talking to people when I know it's going to be a challenging conversation,

I'll get my mental state ready.

I'll do a little bit of meditation.

I'll focus on myself.

I'll sort of get myself prepared for what I know is going to come.

And then when it does come,

I'm not blindsided by it.

I'm not throwing for a loop because I know it.

I'm expecting it and it doesn't just sort of hit me and take me down that path.

So I found myself needing to have to explain that to people.

That's like,

Hey,

Yeah,

Yeah,

I do talk about it.

Yeah,

I am open and honest.

And yeah,

I am comfortable.

And yeah,

It's increasingly becoming my job to talk about this stuff online.

But that doesn't mean that I'm okay to talk about it right now.

And I suppose potentially I'm not necessarily okay to talk about it with you.

Because sometimes the people that will open up to you are people that have caused you harm or that you might have issues with yourself.

And if that's the case,

You might not be the best person for them to unload to because you're not an unbiased person.

You're not objective.

If you've got unresolved issues with that person,

You won't give them the best ear.

And this is part of the next thing that I'll suggest to say to people.

If I'm not in the best mental state,

If I don't want to hear it,

If for whatever reason,

It's just I don't want it to have happen right now.

I will say,

I'm sorry,

But I don't have the energy or the time to give this conversation the justice it deserves.

I'll say that again.

I'm sorry,

But I do not have the energy or the time to give this conversation the justice it deserves.

And obviously you'll continue to explain what you mean by that.

And what I mean by it is basically given my mental state,

Given my time constraints,

I don't have the resources,

Mental time-based,

All that sort of stuff to be able to hold space for you right now.

Because really the person's offloading because they want to share.

They've got something they want to tell you.

But if you don't give them enough of yourself,

If you're not empathetic enough,

They might end up being offended because,

Well,

They're in this emotional state and they just want to express it.

So if you can express to them saying,

Hey,

You know,

I'm sorry that you're struggling,

But right now I can't be the person to hear this out.

I can't do it justice.

I'm not in the right mental state.

What you're hoping to do is to say,

Hey,

You know,

Like,

I'm empathizing,

I hear you,

I care for you,

But now's not the best time for me.

And what you can do from there is a couple of things.

You can say,

Hey,

I will let you know when I am in a good head space.

I will let you know when I'm able to have this conversation.

And then obviously follow up and,

You know,

Check back in on them.

Or alternatively,

You can say,

Look,

This issue,

This topic hits quite home.

It's a bit too personal for me.

And although you feel like talking about it will help and it might help you,

I'm not convinced that right now it will help me.

I'm not in a strong enough place to be able to have this conversation right now with you.

You could say like,

I'm doing some self-care,

Some therapy,

Some personal work,

Some journaling,

All of these sort of things to sort of let the person know,

Say,

Hey,

You know,

I'm the least qualified person to have this conversation with.

I'm myself seeking therapy and,

You know,

Either subtly or overtly suggesting like maybe you should too.

Because that's really the reality of it.

If someone's coming out to you with a,

You know,

A really deep,

Challenging,

Emotional,

Traumatic experience,

They're sort of using you as a therapist.

And,

You know,

I get it like,

You know,

Friends and family and deep connections and all that sort of stuff.

There's this,

You know,

The deep and meaningful conversations and,

You know,

A lot of healing can come from that.

And I fully and strongly encourage that.

And if you've been listening to the podcast for a while,

You'll hear me talk about being a space to have people come to you.

But I'll always preface it with provided you can hold that space for the person,

Provided it's not going to cripple you.

I know some people have come out with stories of abuse and trauma and stuff that hits so close to home that it's knocked me out for,

You know,

A week or so in the sense that it's triggered me.

It's made me,

It's made,

It's put my mental state into a place that I can't afford to be in both from a financial perspective in the sense that it stopped me working,

But from like a family and relationship perspective.

I need to be in a certain place to,

You know,

Be the best father I can for my son and that sort of stuff.

But also in general,

It just made my mental state down for literally weeks.

Now,

Obviously that's not ideal.

But once again,

There's only so much of negativity and bad experiences that one person can be expected to hold.

There's a reason that psychologists and therapists and first responders and all those sort of people get regular therapy sort of imposed upon them by the very nature of their jobs.

You know,

Therapists have to have a therapist to offload to.

And I'm pretty certain that,

You know,

Ambulance officers and police officers and all of those sort of people that see potentially traumatic things have systems in place to sort of talk about it and decompress.

Because,

You know,

The nature of their work exposes them to challenging things.

But the thing is,

Is you being just a regular person don't have those things in place and nor should you have to.

So if someone comes out and says,

Hey,

And dumps on you,

You know,

You don't necessarily have the tools in place to deal with it.

So I encourage you to highlight that fact.

And,

You know,

There's a bit of nuance here to be had depending on the person that does it.

Because if it's a longtime friend or family member that you're close to,

You may feel more comfortable going down that path out of the blue than it is with a person you've just met.

I've had the experience of both.

And if it's a longtime friend,

I'm far more accommodating and caring and compassionate because I know the person and I know their experiences and they know me and all that sort of stuff.

But when it's a stranger,

Some people have this sort of oversharing tendencies.

They will come out and just start talking.

Okay,

That might just be what they're like.

They might be struggling.

But once again,

It's not your place to help to heal to fix the world's problems.

I know,

Given my own past,

I was put into a situation where I had to,

Or I felt like I had to sort of care for my brother and for myself and even for my parents,

To an extent that a child should never have to.

But that conditioning from my childhood past has led me to sort of want to help and fix and solve the world's problems.

And that has led me to sort of go too deep too quickly with too many people too often,

Leaving me to become burnt out.

So what I've had to learn to do is to step back and sort of just detach and go,

Okay,

It's not,

You know,

I feel sad.

I empathize with you.

I see that you're struggling,

But it's not my place.

It's not my role.

It's not my job.

It's not my responsibility to fix the problem.

And it may not even be my place to have to listen to it.

It sounds very selfish to even say it.

But,

You know,

Like it.

Ultimately,

You have to look after yourself.

This is one of the things that I've learned over the years of recovering from my own past is that everyone in a sense has to have their own best interests at heart.

Because you only ever see the world from your own perspective.

You only know what you're dealing with.

You only know your limits.

I like the spoon theory,

This idea that you've got a limited amount of emotional energy to commit to anything.

It's like physical energy.

You've only got a limited amount of cardio,

Right?

So if you've got certain jobs and tasks around the house that you have to do and someone asks you to run 10K,

You're going to be like,

Yeah,

But I've got these things that I've got to do for myself first.

Like,

I might do that if I can,

But,

You know,

I've got to do the house cleaning and all of the other stuff that I've got to do.

In the same way,

You've got to make sure that you're in your best mental state to do the things that you've got to do before you take on the responsibility of other people.

I have to make sure that I have the emotional energy to keep doing what I have to do to remain functional.

I have to guard my mental state at all times.

I have to make sure that I don't let the emotionality of other people bring me down with them.

Despite the fact that I feel like it's my duty to do so,

Despite the fact that I'm pulled,

Despite the fact that I feel an immense sense of guilt at not putting other people before myself.

This is something I'm working on and I know that a lot of you guys are too.

But I encourage you,

Start setting some boundaries and,

You know,

With both the people that are in your life in general,

But also with the people that you randomly meet.

It's okay to say,

Hey,

Sorry,

I'm not in the best headspace.

I'm not in the best headspace to have this conversation.

Or,

I'm sorry,

I don't think I have the time or the energy right now to do this conversation,

The justice it deserves.

I'll get back to you when I can.

Or,

Hey,

I'm not really qualified to even broach where to begin this topic because I haven't had those experiences.

Or even if I have had those experiences,

You know,

I'm not,

You know,

It's triggering to me.

Stand up for yourself.

Draw the line in the sand and only do what you feel comfortable doing and start during these sort of challenging conversations looking inwards and saying to yourself,

How am I feeling right now?

Am I okay?

Is this going to impact me moving forward?

Is this worth it?

And both is it worth it to you,

But is it worth it to the other person?

And this is the last thing that might be the most controversial thing,

But there is a tendency for people that aren't getting therapy,

Aren't getting professional therapy.

They're not doing,

You know,

Psychologists,

Psychiatrists.

They're not on medication.

Not that you have to be on medication,

Of course,

But they're not doing the professional work.

They're not meditating.

They're not doing the journaling.

They're not taking action to these sort of people to be in this constant sort of state of unloading onto other people.

What they're in fact doing is using everyone and anyone and everyone that they meet,

Every opportunity,

Seemingly,

To act as a pseudo therapist because they find some benefit in expressing because of course there is.

But they've not learnt the appropriate place to do so.

They've just,

Something bad and traumatic has happened to them and,

You know,

Very terrible and I'm very sorry that it has happened.

But they've not realized that it's not socially appropriate to express it all the time,

Everywhere,

To everyone.

It's like their past wounds.

It's like they're bleeding from their past wounds.

Like if you walk past someone and you see that their limbs been,

You know,

Cut off and they're spurting out blood,

Whatever,

Right?

You're going to take action because it's clear that someone's in a state of immediate emergency.

They need help or something bad is going to happen.

But that person in 10 years doesn't deserve the same immediate response from you because their wound will have been mended or healed or addressed.

Now they will probably have emotional and physical ramifications,

Right?

You know,

Phantom limb injuries and the mental trauma and all of that sort of stuff.

But if that person has taken the appropriate steps,

If they've seen the therapist,

If they've done the physical rehab,

If they're working on it,

They will have approaches and methods and ways to get the help that they need when they need it.

Without sort of dumping the fact that they had such a thing happen to them on every single person all the time.

And once again,

In a social setting,

In a casual setting,

In any setting other than a therapy room or related sort of approaches,

It's not really appropriate to just sort of come out and express it and say it.

The caveat here is that people that have suffered like complex post-traumatic stress that do have personality disorders that cause extreme emotionality feel like it's constantly happening to them all the time.

They feel like that the world is against them,

That they need to express it,

That it's part of the condition.

And I'm speaking from personal.

I can see both sides of this because I have been guilty of this fact of oversharing of doing this because I've felt hurt and it's like,

Oh my God,

The world needs to.

.

.

No,

It doesn't.

I need to make sure from my perspective that I'm going through the right motions,

That I'm aware of the situation,

That I'm reading the room before I just open up and express myself to anyone and everyone.

Okay.

I suppose I should end it with basically saying like,

If you do feel the need to express it,

Make sure you've got consent.

Okay.

Make sure you say,

Hey,

You know,

Like I've got a couple of things that might be a bit deep,

But I would love if I could talk to them about you.

I completely understand if you're uncomfortable,

You don't feel like it.

And if they do say yes,

If they say no,

Respect that.

And if they say yes,

Let them know as well.

Say like,

Hey,

If at any time this is uncomfortable or you want to stop or anything like that,

I fully understand that.

I get it.

It's challenging.

This is exactly why I'm reaching out to you.

So please let me know if something I'm saying is too much.

If you want to stop,

I get it.

Okay.

And you have to respect the person when they say,

Hey,

I'm tapping out now.

I can't anymore.

Okay.

So with all that in mind,

I encourage you,

It's the same thing,

Open and honest communication and all of that sort of stuff.

So anyway,

Thank you for listening.

I just want to give you a little bit of a heads up on a project that I've just released.

I've recently put out a new course on Insight Timer on creative writing for healing.

So,

You know,

It sort of leads into this topic.

If you've got a past history of trauma or neglect or issues,

Emotionality,

Mental illness,

Stuff that you're dealing with inside your brain,

A great approach,

One that I've used quite often and regularly is creative writing.

That's poetry,

That's journaling,

That's free writing,

Getting the thoughts out of my brain onto the page.

I like to use it as one of the pillars of my mental health.

I meditate,

I see therapists,

I exercise,

But I also write.

And writing is great because the page listens.

It doesn't judge.

It can be thrown away,

But it can also remember perfectly.

Right.

And,

You know,

Like I've had some issues with therapists in the past.

You know,

They're just a person like anyone else.

And they're trained,

They're amazing,

And if you find a good one,

They'll help you a lot.

But sometimes there's things that you don't yet feel comfortable expressing to them.

Some things that you might feel embarrassed or shy.

Or sometimes you haven't yet found the right therapist.

So what I like to do in those situations is to write it out.

It's basically like using a page as a way to express.

Now,

Back to what we've talked about in this podcast.

You can write whatever you like on the page.

The page has no feelings.

It just absorbs and takes it.

But what I express in this course is that the idea that writing,

Like writing it,

Getting it out on the page,

The act of talking,

Is itself a form of healing.

And in this course,

I give you activities to get you writing poetry,

To get you journaling,

And to get you sort of acting as your own therapist in the sense that you'll write down and then you'll work out ways to review,

To sort of correct it.

Not for mistakes,

But to sort of step back and detach and to sort of give yourself the advice that you need to hear.

So in a later episode of this podcast,

I'll probably play for you the introduction and the first session.

But if you're interested,

I think there's about,

There's over 300 students in the course so far.

And that's within,

I think,

A couple of weeks of it going up and online.

So I'm super,

Super stoked with the reception that's already received and the amazing five-star review.

So thank you to everyone that's already joined in there.

But if you want,

I'll chuck a link down below.

Sign up.

It's on Insight Timer.

If you do sign up,

I get a little bit of a kickback.

So it helps the podcast.

It helps support what I'm doing here.

But ultimately,

It will be of good benefit to you.

If you've stayed with this episode this far,

It's clear that this sort of approach will be of benefit to you or potentially of benefit to the people that are offloading to you.

So like I said,

Check it out.

Creative Writing for Healing on Insight Timer.

It's already well received and I can't wait to see how it's going.

Anyway,

With that in mind,

Cheers.

Reviews

Thank-you. I found this podcast really helpful and insightful in helping me to think about how to set my boundaries. Your story resonates. Namaste 🙏

Excellent talk! Thank you for your sage advice 🙏

Thank You, I like the supportive options !

Our subconscious knows what we need to hear even when we don’t. I quickly realized I am the one who shares too much and have done so here on Insight Timer in my attempts to heal. Yes I meditate daily almost 4 years, I exercise at my gym, I have a counselor and eat a plant based diet 99% of the time and all these things have helped tremendously! ❤️❤️❤️

I’ve tried journaling on a few occasions but was not committed to a daily practice. I now understand there are benefits to daily journaling and I will attempt to start and continue. ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you for sharing this important subject today. Beverly