Emotional Dumping: What It Is And How To Stop

Comments · 521

• AL

  @allisonlargo7605 · 4 years ago

  If you need to emotionally dump, do it in a journal, and emotionally share with actually people. I love it!

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• AP

  @appletree6898 · 4 years ago (edited)

  Great distinction. There is one little piece of nuance in this that I would like to mention. Sometimes, if people grow up in abusive environments that are always rationalized away, there is a period in their development when they need feedback and validation that the treatment they experienced then --and similar treatment they may still be allowing to continue in other relationships now--is harmful, not okay, and something they shouldn't be expected to endure. Seeing other people get mad on their behalf shows them, for the first time in their lives, that it is safe and valid for them to have boundaries and standards and to protect themselves. It's a stage of development where people need support, modeling, and guidance, and although not everyone is going to want to sign up to provide that (a therapist is most qualified), it can't be skipped. Then, over time, as you said, we need to develop the capacity to make sense of our own experience and set boundaries for ourselves.

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• JB

  @jblueberry1122 · 2 years ago

  I have learned that for someone who’s in chronic victim mode, no amount of empathizing, supporting (emotionally or physically), talking, affirming, etc is going to help that person. If you have to recover from being around a certain person, choose yourself and set boundaries.

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• TH

  @themaggattack · 3 years ago

  &quot;Don&apos;t share details, share your feelings.&quot;<br><br>You are speaking pure wisdom. THANK YOU SO MUCH for breaking it down like this!<br><br>Sorry this is so long, but I hope it will add something helpful for someone.<br><br>I wouldn&apos;t have been ready for this a couple years ago. I had a lot of detailing to do. I was that one year old looking to my parent (aka: my partner, my friends and my counselor) for confirmation on my own feelings. I was just that lost. There&apos;s no getting around that stage in the process. I wish there was, because I lost my partner due to all the trauma dumping I did. Constantly bombarding him with details of how my mom was emotionally damaging me and constantly looking to him to tell me how to feel about it and what to do about it. Then spiraling into hypervigilant anxiety leading to depressive crashes when he wouldn&apos;t or couldn&apos;t mirror my emotions. It was exhausting to both of us. All this constant &quot;my mom did this&quot; and &quot;my mom said that.&quot;<br><br>I was using him as a sounding board and a shield. I needed to draw out HIS feelings about MY mother issues in order to get the nerve to set boundaries with my mother, because I was so afraid that MY feelings were invalid. I was afraid to share my own feelings without all kinds of back-up validation from him. I was afraid of harsh criticism, judgment, rejection, and being ignored, gaslit, smeared, and manipulated- having my own emotions used against me, like I&apos;d experienced so much in the past. As a result, being vulnerable was just something I could not do properly. I thought trauma dumping was the same thing as being vulnerable. Now I see it wasn&apos;t. If it was just pure vulnerability I don&apos;t think it would have pushed him away. There is a lot of projection that goes on in trauma dumping. That&apos;s no fun for the person taking the brunt of it.<br><br>I regret putting him through that but I can&apos;t change the past. I can only be grateful to him for trying to endure my trauma dumping for as long as he could. <br><br>I&apos;ve done a lot of counseling and DBT over the past few years. I think I&apos;m finally getting to the point where I can listen to and trust my own feelings and intuition. And share appropriately. Or at least catch myself if I&apos;m slipping and stop trauma dumping.<br>I&apos;m more aware now and more mindful about it.<br><br>I think at first it&apos;s nescessary to give details if you have been so gaslit that you don&apos;t know which end is up. Ideally a counselor would be best to share the details with, but unfortunately counseling isn&apos;t always accessible. In any case, detail sharing is a nescessary phase, but the ultimate goal is to get past that phase. <br><br>&quot;Don&apos;t share details, share your feelings&quot; is a perfect rule to remember, for me at this stage. There does come a time when we need to stop focusing so much on the details of other people&apos;s offenses and allow ourselves to explore and honor how we feel about it. Also just how we feel about regular things in daily life. I use to walk through life as if I was pleading my case and collecting evidence to defend myself at all times. But I don&apos;t need to document everything anymore. When it comes to how something or someone is affecting me, <b>how I feel and what I think matters.</b> What a revolutionary concept to someone whose feelings have been systematically belittled and invalidated. <br><br>I don&apos;t need to keep receipts on everything to prove anything to anyone. I know what I know, I feel what I feel, and that&apos;s basically good enough for me.<br><br>I think this actualization is what my counselor has been patiently trying to draw out of me this whole time. (The old classic: &quot;How does that make you feel?&quot; 😂) It&apos;s such a process to get there! &nbsp;But so worth it!!

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• MO

  @monikaseidenberg5403 · 2 years ago

  For me, there is also this kind of emotional dumping, when a person just complains about something or someone again and again and after some time you realize, that she uses this complaining as a way to find relief and does not change anything about her behavior nor tries to talk to the person who was actually involved with the problematic topic. This person does not want to find a solution only pitty and confirmation for her/his victimhood and powerlessness. This person does not want to recognize his/hers response ability in the whole problematic topic.

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• H2

  @H2OIsWater. · 2 years ago

  Man... I thought I was being vulnerable by giving facts about my life to people. Turns out I was trauma dumping. Who knew. I actually shared so little of my emotions.

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• SH

  @shulamay · 3 years ago

  Now think of what it means for people who were emotionally neglected in childhood and couldn&apos;t learn to do this ego function themselves. It&apos;s building this skill from scratch.

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• MA

  @Mako-L82 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Emotional dumping is actually just called venting. It’s necessary but I think it’s best done on Reddit or a forum where no one knows who you are. You dumped it either anger or resentment you can let it all out but you aren’t burdening anyone with your negative energy in particular, you release them to the space. <br><br>Like dumping rubbish, you don’t dump it in someone’s back yard. You do it to a legal space where everyone can dump rubbish.

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• FI

  @FightYourSorrow · 3 years ago

  This is FASCINATING. I made a personal &apos;rule&apos; a few years ago that I wouldn&apos;t let people emotionally dump on me, but I had no idea what it was and I thought it was just a way that I, personally, am not able to support people. What kept happening - I realize now - is people would tell me this one-sided story, just like you said, and then expect me to go &quot;that b*tch!&quot; or some variation of that. Instead, I would inquire about what the possible motives might have been for this other person&apos;s behaviour, and wonder if maybe the person telling the story was making faulty assumptions. Basically, I would try to get the full, balanced story, leaving my friend feeling as though I&apos;m defending some stranger instead of supporting my friend. Eventually I started cutting people off when they emotionally dump on me, and telling them that I can&apos;t give them the response they&apos;re looking for, but if they want to tell me how they FEEL about what&apos;s going on, I&apos;ll listen to that. Never had anyone take me up on that offer, and it still leaves people feeling like I&apos;m not supporting them, but I&apos;ve found they accept that boundary and move on pretty quickly.<br><br>Watching this video, I&apos;m realizing that when people do this, I feel manipulated. And apparently that&apos;s for good reason! But I&apos;m EXCEPTIONALLY sensitive to even the slightest whiff of manipulation and I react really negatively to it. So it&apos;s no wonder I don&apos;t like it when people emotionally dump on me like this. Moving forward, though, I think this video has given me some tools to better navigate these scenarios and maybe communicate with my friends better about what I can and can&apos;t provide for them. I guess it&apos;s not some failing in me after all, but an intolerance of someone else&apos;s unhealthy behaviour. That&apos;s a pretty incredible realization. <br><br>Thank you for explaining this so clearly.

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• DA

  @daniellewalker256 · 3 years ago

  This has basically ruined my closest friendship, along with a lot of other unhealthy things going on within that dynamic. It’s sad to lose someone so close but like, I actually feel a lot better now that we’re no longer talking. That relationship was literally taking up every single bit of mental and emotional energy I had. We were on the phone CONSTANTLY and she had an anxious attachment style that I was trying to accommodate so I ended up having no social life at all bc I was always on the phone with her and it was just a never ending cycle of back and forth emotional dumping. Very exhausting.

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• DA

  @DaeSayuki · 3 years ago

  I thought the title said “emotional dumpling”! Thought it was cute and I wanted to be one! 😂

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• GA

  @gayu28 · 2 years ago

  1. Talk about ur feelings not the facts <br>2. Notice the feeling you are trying to illicit in the other person - that is the feeling you are having . Own it. <br>3. First figure out how u are feeling then share it .<br>4. Leave out dramatic details as much as possible. <br> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;What ive realised is when i emotionally dump my feelings.. im only trying to make the person feel something And validate me .<br> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; I am trying to avoid feeling those emotions. This results in me completely walking past those situations without feeling anything , without any lessons learnt .<br> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Instead i should feel those emotions. Work through them , i can ask for help here or share it after i figure out..

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