Self-Disclosure, Educational Illustrations... and Having a Pity Party

"Personal Blogs."

It's ultimately what most of us keep, here. Whether you call it a "U-log" or personal journal or even just a series of random thoughts and opinions presented as "posts," we're publishing some version of personal blogs.

OK, sure, maybe you're posting investment analysis or something and want to stake your claim to being "completely objective." 

Fine.

Here's your hall pass; now you don't have to read this post. Or relate to it.

As for the rest of us, pretty much everything we share is colored by our personal lenses of perception and experience. That's neither a good or a bad thing... it simply is. We — and our opinions — get to be part of the picture.

In a sense, it's a core part of what creating community and forming connections is about.

Self-Disclosure... and THEN?

Authentic self-disclosure is a nifty and often quite cathartic thing. Although we're in a public sort of setting here, we end up with some version of "confessions" and "telling secrets."

Back in "another life" I was part of a group that was researching the psychological effects of this new (at the time) frontier called "Cyberspace." Among other things, we were studying this idea of "self-disclosure" and how free people felt in the confines of the online environment... along with the more fundamental question of how the human brain was parsing the idea of "here." 

We are here on Steemit, but where IS that, exactly? In your living room? On  a server somewhere? Inside a construct in your mind? Inside your computer.

As it turned out, we never got the book published; Sherry Turkle and her crew at MIT beat us to it with the well done "Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet" in 1997. 

But I digress...

However, with a purpose: See what I just did there? I self-disclosed. You now know something about my life you didn't, just ten minutes ago.

...and THEN... Pity Parties

Self-disclosure — and the opportunities virtual space offers to do just that — can be very positive and cathartic, as I mentioned earlier. Here, we can find an engaged and sympathetic audience... as we "tell our secrets."

And some people get very personal with it.

I can get pretty personal with some of the experiences I share... but my intent is typically to use any horrible/awkward experiences as points of illustration. Hopefully, I manage to further the effectiveness of telling a story by inserting myself as a "central character" in that story.

Some people, however, go a little overboard and turn their disclosure into a giant pity party. Suddenly, we have crossed a line, and now secrets are being shared with the intent of not "confessing," but eliciting sympathy, pity, support or something else.

And this is where "cathartic" can easily become "toxic."

There's a difference between using the statement "I just couldn't get a date!" as an illustration of how geeky you were as a teenager, and using it as a pity party invitation to get people to agree with you how unfair and unjust the world is.

Illustrations — including when self-deprecating — can be colorful, entertaining and effective in the telling of a story. Pity parties? Not so much. Not that people don't deserve empathy and sympathy... it just gets old, after a while.

So... know the difference!

How about YOU? How do you feel about self-disclosing online? Does it make you uncomfortable, or are you pretty at ease with it? Or is it a "non-issue?" The latter is more common with technological "natives" (born after 1995-ish). Do you understand the difference between cathartic self-disclosure used for illustration purposes and having a pity party? Do you think it matters? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

created by @zord189

(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180721 16:48 PDT