Sharing our truth vs. TMI (too much information)

I share what many might consider TMI with some frequency. I’m going to explain why. First of all even when I do that most of my life remains private, just like everybody else. I am not an open book no matter what you might think about what I share and you do not know me based only on what I’ve shared.

I share for two reasons. The first is personal. I am limited in a multitude of ways that don’t make sense to most people. Invisible illness and all that. It’s real. Because of my limitations and also because of societies limitations I’ve not been able to get the care I need to heal from a severely crippling brain injury. What I’ve done is create my own methods for rewiring the brain and healing both the brain injury and accompanying post traumatic stress as well as a number of opportunistic infections that set in when I was bedridden and nonverbal.

One (tiny) part of that is to share personal details on occasion. I do this for many reasons. The personal one is trauma release. It’s also just one part of trauma release and certainly not everything I share has anything to do with trauma…but often the stuff that might be interpreted as TMI is about trauma release. I do it for myself but equally and sometimes more importantly I share as a role model for vulnerable people who might not otherwise trust themselves to do what they need to do in a world where not only have our needs never been met but we’ve also been harmed repeatedly when we’ve gone the route that the establishment tells us to go. We are on our own and we can still heal. Sometimes, really, I share only for this reason and not so much for me at all. I know that people don’t always like it and that I make people uncomfortable sometimes and that is my service to others who really need to see that we can do things in spite of those who do not and cannot understand us.

As a social worker I worked with people with far less resources than I had and given I have to be endlessly creative about how I go about getting what I need to heal, I know that it’s that much more difficult for people in radically less privileged places to get what they need or to do what they need to survive. And yes. I’m talking about survival because vulnerable and sensitive people are being shut out of society in numerous ways. I feel this on a personal level as well. I share that some people might be emboldened to also do what they need to do regardless of how scary and difficult it might be. My life is not at all easy and I know that the people I serve, many of whom have similar issues, have it much harder.

More related: When we are told our experience is too ugly to be heard…

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