01.27
You go to the therapist, the psychologist, the Reverend, or your lawyer and give them your undying trust. You talk about whatever it is you talk about, and at the end of the day the knowledge that they will not speak about whatever it is you discussed with them is golden. The understanding that if you just spilled that you beat your wife, neglect your kids over alcoholic binges, or discusses a social disorder that stems from the time you were sexually abused when you were 9 is a sacred one.
Why is it though that you are willing to give that trust to someone you don’t know? You don’t have regular, daily, social interactions with your doctors or priests, at least not generally speaking. The only time most of us talk to lawyers is when we need them, and even then that’s at $300 an hour. Regardless, you’re giving the kind of sacred trust to someone you don’t know.
Giving the people in your own life that kind of trust should be easy, but it’s not. Think of the times you’ve shared your secrets with someone you just met. What about them do you know gives them the right to handle the kind of potential explosiveness you bestowed upon them? How have they earned the right for you to share something that you can’t even tell a best friend? Family is sacred, but look at it yourself: Aren’t you more willing to tell someone a secret about yourself if they aren’t related to you? In fact, the further the bond to you, the better. Or maybe worse.
Odds are, you trust people that come to your website better than you people you live with in the real world. Some of you write about things you could never find yourself discussing with anyone else, treating your website like a private journal, open about every tiny detail in your life. In the twelve years I’ve been online, I have seen some of the wildest things in personal blogs. Fights. Stories about abuse. Pregnancies. Drugs. Name it, I’ve seen it. And I wonder if they were written for the sole purpose of sharing or for shock value.
Why else would you trust someone with the knowledge that you have done what you’ve done? A parent using foreign objects to clean their child’s bottom. Rancid and uncontrollable drug abuse. Multiple abortions; for birth control rather than for the health of yourself or your child. How far can you really take it before someone just stops and thinks about the sanctity of your own personal and mental health?
I trust that you don’t know.
I’m that way myself. There are times when I’d like to tell my friends or family something, but I’m scared of their reaction or what they’ll think of me afterward. But if I wrote down the problem on my blog or told someone I haven’t met in real life, those problems don’t exist for me anymore. It’s not that I trust those people more, it’s just that I care less about what they think of me or their reaction.
Well some of the time, people in such occupations are bound by law to doctor/patient confidentiality. And usually people don’t just immediately open up to their therapist and what not, takes many, many hours/sessions in many instances before the patient begins to open up.
But you do have a really valid point concerning how much detail personal bloggers expose about their lives online. Sometimes I see blogs and think – gee what a poser, they’re just making up stuff or are exaggerating. But other times, I think, wow, the blogger is really leaving nothing to the imagination. I think it’s easier to “open up” online because you’re not in a traditional face to face situation and one can hide behind their website/computer. Less threatening I guess.
I can’t really relate to the whole, therapist/reverend dealie. I don’t trust those people, the way I see it they’re paid to pretend to care… I’d rather tell someone who would actually care. I can understand why people do though because sometimes its just good to have a 3rd party observer look a situation over.
You make a fair point here. I always wondered myself, why is that I feel a lot more comfortable sharing my “business” with individuals I don’t even know when I can call up a friend/relative and confide in them. To me, its a judgmental thing. Usually your friends or family are quick to tell you what to do, how to do it, or whether to do it at all but with strangers all they can do is listen and possibly testify to what you’re saying. Most people have “been in that situation” that you’re discussing or can relate in some kind of way. Its just EASIER. Especially when you can share your secret and know that youll most likely never see or meet the person you told it to-ever again :)
My mantra these days has been “The Interweb is Forever and I’m speaking to Everyone.” Its prevented me from writing piles of stuff that I would later regret.
I suppose wanting to open up to a person (who is practically a stranger) has something to do with distance, that is that a therapist, a doctor, etc. are detached from your family and friends. I find that it’s comforting at times to talk to someone outside of one’s social circle because they cannot judge in the same way someone you know would; at the same time, how much can they illuminate you on your problems?
As for opening up online, there are boundaries to be considered. What a blogger posts about their personal life is their responsibility and choice; they must be prepared to deal with the consequences (good or bad) of making that choice to reveal very personal details.