First, I want to explain ( lol ) that there's a difference between : over sharing, verbal processing ( repeating stories that are complaint in nature ie: venting ) and over explaining ...which is what I do constantly.
Over sharing is saying too much. TMI. Giving out too much personal information to strangers, telling your life story etc. I've done this too....but it's not my issue. I generally don't tell strangers anything about myself and share very little. Unlike, a person who, assumes, once they have you as a captive audience....they corner you with a presumptive attitude...as if, you actually want to hear what they are saying...and usually...it's of a highly personal nature. TMI
Verbal processing is when, something gets stuck in your mental processing ( usually ...unprocessed negative emotions ) and gets retold over and over in a loop...regardless if it's been heard before. ( to you or anyone else )...repeatedly, over and over. It appears to be from a high need to get rid of this unresolved negative emotion , by using someone else as a sounding board , and to just nod and just say "uh huh" and hear it again. To be heard.
Over explaining ( giving people too many details ) comes from a need to be understood. Not necessarily emotionally, just understood in general. This is like....if I throw enough examples and references in...they're bound to understand. Just throw more words at them, and eventually they'll understand?
Today at the doctor's office...the Dr summed this up concisely when I told him about having panic attacks, why I have them...and why it's important to know...so I can simply tell my SO what's she's seeing because, what she thinks she's seeing...is not what she thinks it is.
And he said: "yes, because if a person doesn't have panic attacks they can't relate to someone who does because they've never had one."
I thought to myself.... Wow, that really explains alot.
Comments
What is this ?
I think I know, but I'm not really sure?
Was over at my SO's kids this weekend to see the babies. Both her son and daughter in law have ADHD.
But her daughter in law does something I've never really witnessed before. Not exactly at least? Which is why I'm asking ?
Two examples:
Yesterday, I asked her son a question about his work. He begins to answer, and his wife will finish the thought for him. This isn't...finishing his sentence ( impulsively ) by adding the correct word at the end. This is actually....jumping into his stream of thought...and finishing his thought for him. She doesn't work...or work at his bussiness so she can't know what he's about to say...but she fills it in for him anyway.
She's mostly correct ( in a general, knowledgeable kind of way ) but she actually takes over the sentence for him...sentence by sentence. It's the wildest thing I've ever seen. As I was sitting there listening to him first....she'd just in...and conplete the thought for him. Something like:
Him: Well normally were so really busy right now,
Her: That they have to work 10 hours instead of 8.
Him: And since I have to come home and take care of the babies,
Her: He hast to pull double duty at home now to.
Him: And since corporate is so messed up with all the tracking theyre doing,
Her: no one knows what they're doing because the head office is so backed up with paper work.
Him: It just makes it really hard to work there anymore,
Her: because the tracking paper work takes as long as the regular job duties.
Him: which just adds so much more work,
Her: and he's just dead tired when he gets home.
This is an amazing seamless process. The conversation flow goes hardly interrupted as if one person is talking instead of two. He literally pauses for a micro second ...as in a comma....and she jumps right in without missing a beat and completes the thought process. It's so incredibly choreographed...it's almost like they've pre-planned it to the point...it looks rehersed. Quite incredible to watch and listen too...but also, really odd. I've never seen this done in such a flawless way. When I interrupt...I'm actually barging in a pause between sentence to put my two bits ( adding my own thoughts to the conversation ... which is done awkwardly and I say...oops, I'm sorry.
This is done half way into a sentence at the comma point....and completely his train of thought entirely. About a subject, that's specific to him and his work, that she has no expertise or experience what so ever. She's actually never worked a real job in her life either...and has no real job or work experience.
Or....
I'll be talking to her son from two rooms away from where she is in the kitchen...asking him again, about his work...at his work at home desk. She'll hear the conversation from the kitchen, stop what's she doing....come all the way into his office...and complete the story he's telling. Basically, hijacking the conversation from him...leaving him there in silence...while she finishes what ( she thinks ) he's going to say. About his work, his experience, and something that happened there. But she wasn't there.
This is a different kind of interrupting that I'm not exactly familiar with ? Not sure what this is all about, but it's very strange to observe.
But I've never witness two people telling a story or relating events so flawlessly as when one starts a sentence...and the other finishes it....in a completed form...with no breaks in the continuity of the story...sentence for sentence.
Sometimes...he'll get aggravated and just say....go ahead, finish it, since your already doing it.
It appears, she has absolutely no control of stopping herself in any way. And he's just given up...and let's her do her thing....pausing as he needs to in order to finish the story. He's so good at pausing...it just flows right along, because his timing is perfect.
PS The reason Im asking is this feels vaugly familiar. Familiar ..in something my own mother use to do. She had an incredibly bad habit of saying: " say.....( tell you something to say ). This was extremely annoying...even as a kid. "Yeah yeah...what ever mom " Was my usual answer. Mostly, I just ignored her. But she would never stop, no matter how many times you told to. By the time I was a teenager....this was no longer just annoying.
I'm thinking, there's a relationship to these behaviors between my mom and my SO's daughter in law.