Ever notice how many people choose to suffer in silence?
Ever notice how society today bonds over shared gossip and dislike for other people?
What’s the difference between healthy support and gossip searching for validation?
I have been thinking a lot about this. Jessica Anne Pressler made a reel discussing friends that share your vulnerable moments, secrets, or dark times and it really got me thinking.
I myself struggle a lot with trust.
When I think about healthy support I think about discernment. Healthy support protects a person’s dignity while you process whatever you need to process about that person. Without disclosing too much of their personal stuff to another person.
Talking is a great down regulator for some of us. It really is, but when we are hurting, mad, or just upset we may cross lines with how much we disclose about another person while we are upset.
Sometimes something happened in a friendship, marriage, or relationship, and we need another person to help us make sense of it. But there is a difference between processing your experience and turning someone else’s private pain into entertainment as an easy way to collect validation.
When it comes to gossip. That consumes a persons vulnerability. It takes the thing somebody cried to you about, the thing they trusted you to hold, and turns it into something you use to connect with somebody else. I see this A LOT!
I feel so many people don’t know how to connect without having a shared dislike for someone or sharing information about somebody else’s pain.
There is actually research showing that people can feel closer after discovering that they share a negative opinion about another person. Shared negativity can create this quick feeling of, Oh, we see things the same way. You’re on my side (Bosson et al., 2006). That becomes highly addictive.
It may explain why gossip can feel like intimacy, even when it isn’t.
Something I think about is if our connection requires another person to be discussed, exposed, or picked apart, how emotionally safe is that connection?
Many people keep things to themselves not always because they don’t want support, but because they learned they could not trust it when they received it.
Maybe they’ve learned that the people around them don’t know how to handle their pain with care. Maybe they’ve already watched those people talk about everyone else in the room. So they know that eventually, their story will probably become the story being told when they’re not around. There’s something else I’ve noticed, and I want to know if any of y’all have noticed it too.
Have you ever noticed that some people appear way more invested when your life is collapsing? There’s a breakup. A divorce. A job loss. You’re grieving. You’re struggling. You’ve hit rock bottom.
Now they’re constantly checking on you. They want every detail. They want to know what happened, what was said, who did what, and what you’re going to do next.
But when you’re winning? When you get the new job, get accepted into graduate school, move into your own apartment, get married, receive a promotion, or win an award that same level of support becomes a whole lot quieter.
I feel like I’ve been able to emotionally detect that shift my entire life. I could feel the incongruence, even when people told me it was all in my head. This isn’t me complaining about people supporting me when I’m struggling. That’s not what I’m saying. We need people when our lives are falling apart. I’m talking about noticing the difference between the way some people respond to your suffering and the way they respond to your growth.
Research on something called “capitalization” shows that when we share good news with others, their response matters. When someone responds with real interest, excitement, and enthusiasm, it can strengthen both our well-being and the relationship. But passive, dismissive, or destructive responses can have the opposite effect (Gable et al., 2004).
In other words, being able to celebrate someone is also a form of emotional support.
I remember that I started losing friends when I got into graduate school and got my own apartment. My life was starting to move forward, and I wasn’t able to be as available in the same ways anymore.
But when I was dealing with crisis at home, needed somewhere to stay, was going through heartbreak, or had hit rock bottom, people were ALWAYS there.
And because I had sat in rooms and watched some of those same people discuss other people’s private struggles, I couldn’t help wondering what was being said about me after I left the room.
Sometimes we assume the people who rush toward our pain must be the ones who care about us the most. And sometimes they are. But sometimes a person feels more comfortable with us when we need them, when we’re “beneath them”, or when our lives give them something interesting to talk about.
Then when we start growing, the relationship changes because the role we played in their life has changed.
So now I find myself asking different questions.
Not just: Who checks on me when everything falls apart?
But also: Who can stay connected to me when I’m no longer collapsing?
Who can hold my grief without consuming it?
Who can hear about my pain without turning it into social currency?
Who can celebrate my growth without minimizing it, competing with it, or becoming distant?
And who knows the difference between helping me carry my story and making my story theirs to tell?
I don’t think healing means trusting everybody, no way. I think healing also has to include discernment. The ability to pay attention to how people handle other people’s vulnerability before giving them access to yours.
I always feel it as an honor when people share something vulnerable with me. It’s a sign they trust me with something so tender and I don’t want to take that for granted.
I think we need to talk more honestly about the different forms of betrayal that can happen inside relationships. People often act as if cheating is the only way to betray a partner, but betrayal can also look like sharing your partner’s most vulnerable information with your friends.
Their trauma, insecurities, private struggles, sexual experiences, mental health, or something they disclosed in a moment of complete emotional exposure. There’s a difference between seeking support for your own experience and giving people intimate access to a story that was never yours to tell.
When your partner trusts you with the tender parts of themselves, they’re trusting you to protect their dignity, even when you’re frustrated with them. Turning those disclosures into group-chat conversations, jokes, or evidence for why your friends should take your side is a profound breach of emotional safety.
You may never touch another person and still create a relationship in which your partner feels exposed, humiliated, and unsafe with you. Betrayal is not only about where you put your body; sometimes it’s about what you do with the parts of another person they trusted you to hold.
I don’t want my experiences to turn me into someone who is completely closed off because I distrust people, but I also know I have to use discernment more heavily. I’ve been around too many people who used my vulnerability as a weapon against me or as a bridge to connect with somebody else. I think we live in a world where so many people are silently hurting that consuming someone else’s ache can become a distraction from having to sit with our own.
We can disappear into another person’s pain as a way of avoiding what is waiting for us in our own lives. So I’m learning that healing doesn’t mean giving everyone access to me; it means remaining open without abandoning what my experiences have taught me.
I also believe it is a skill when you can be heightened and still filter how much you disclose to your support team.
I was always told don’t speak on what you don’t want repeated to someone else. I believe that is good advice, but I also feel an undercurrent in that. That undercurrent can unconsciously become a protective strategy that may keep us from safe connections. We do need community. They don’t say it takes a village for no reason.
I just think many of us have learned early on in our life that we couldn’t always trust the village.
But, if you have people in your life whom you can fully trust—people who protect what you share, don’t convince you that the incongruence you feel is all in your head, can sit beside you in your grief, and are just as present when you win, please cherish them.
Some of us are fortunate enough to find that safety in friendships or partnerships, and some of us are lucky enough to have it in our parents.
Wherever you find it, don’t take it for granted. Being deeply known without being exposed is one of the rarest forms of love.
Till next time
—Sav
References
Bosson, J. K., Johnson, A. B., Niederhoffer, K., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2006). Interpersonal chemistry through negativity: Bonding by sharing negative attitudes about others. Personal Relationships, 13(2), 135–150.
Gable, S. L., Reis, H. T., Impett, E. A., & Asher, E. R. (2004). What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 228–245.