FYI

[wispfox]

I have begun to notice myself being overly paranoid and moody, and that I tend to try to give people too much information about my motives and reasoning (in an attempt to prevent myself from not talking to anyone about anything).

As such, I wanted to mention to people that my ability to determine what information is needed, what is enough, and what is too much, is starting to go away. As is my ability to determine how alien my actions might appear to others (with me being likely to expect that *everything* I do/say/think is alien).

(Yes, this is a regular, seasonal, occurance. Doesn't make it all that much easier to deal with)

Therefore, even more so than normal, feel free to say something if I'm explaining too much, or if you feel left out of my thought processes. I don't *think* there is anyone for whom this is likely to be a huge problem, but wanted to say something anyway.

Comments

[ladytabitha.livejournal.com]

I'll be up on that.  :)

[beowabbit]

I’ve never understood people who would voluntarily turn down information. In my own personal estimation, no amount of information is too much.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

no amount of information is too much.

I disagree. Let me try to explain why:

There is information which obviously relates to a specific topic, there is information which might relate, and there is information which does not. The difficulty lies in the middle type of information.

If I give an excess of information of the middle type, it is entirely possible to overwhelm whomever I am talking to, and completely lose whatever my original point was. (Indeed, I, myself, might lose it as I'm struggling to find the words with which to get the point across)

Or, if I am in a state where I am not sure that my point is getting across (even if it is), I can overwhelm by trying lots of different phrasings to illustrate the point. Again, possibly losing or confusing my point.

Especially if I decide to try to use specific examples to illustrate the general case, because people might get stuck on the specifics and think that *that* was my point. And not that that was an attempt to illustrate my point more concretely.

As well, it's entirely too possible for someone to take my explanations personally - even if I'm trying to explain something about myself and how I work. And trying to explain them to death may feel like I'm accusing them of something and not giving them a chance to explain.

It very much is possible to have too much information. Especially when talking to someone who is somewhat poor at filtering out useful info from unrelated info.

All, of course, IMO. :)

[beowabbit]

Especially when talking to someone who is somewhat poor at filtering out useful info from unrelated info.

Ah, gotcha. As a listener, though, I take it as a sign of trust and respect for the person I'm talking with to for them to let me do some of that filtering myself (i.e., not censor themselves). I suspect this is a total tangent from what you're talking about, though. :-)

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Sorta tangent, sorta not.

With people where I have reasonably good reason to believe that they *can* manage to filter out what actually matters when I'm at a point where I can't do that terribly well, the initial problem of my giving too much information matters less (not willing to say that it doesn't, because I suspect everyone can be overwhelmed with information, it just varies on how much is too much).

And, if I'm less worried about overwhelming with too much information, I'm much less likely to get to a point where I don't talk enough.

So, it may be a tangent, but I think it relates. :)