when oversharing was being used against me | musing no. 61
and why refusing to become bitter was the real victory
before you read this, i shared the wire frame behind how it came together —
the notes, the structure, the decisions that didn’t make it to the page.
it lives in the red room, if you want to see the thinking underneath the finished piece.
house keeping note: podcast drops tonight due to unforseen events. musings this week will drop today + wednesday for everyone! happy holidays.
i used to think oversharing was honesty.
that if i laid everything out—my fears, my wounds, my history—it would create closeness.
it felt brave.
it felt real.
what i didn’t understand yet is that not everyone listens to connect.
some people listen to inventory.
they take notes.
they log patterns.
they remember the soft spots.
and when it serves them—when they want leverage, control, or an exit without guilt—
they use your own words to hurt you.
that lesson came at a cost.
a painful one.
for a while, it would’ve been easy to let that pain harden me.
to become guarded to the point of bitterness.
to mistake cynicism for intelligence.
to call it “growth” while quietly shrinking.
that’s how horrible people actually win.
not by hurting you once—
but by changing who you become afterward.
yes, it hurt.
but i refused to carry their damage forward.
i refused to become colder, smaller, or suspicious of everyone who came after.
shitty people are going to be shitty.
that’s on them.
not on you.
the real work was losing the victim mindset that followed the betrayal.
not excusing what happened.
not minimizing it.
but refusing to orbit it.
i stopped asking, “why would they do that?”
and started asking, “what do i want to preserve in myself?”
the answer wasn’t naïveté.
it was integrity.
oversharing doesn’t make you open.
discernment does.
privacy isn’t dishonesty.
it’s self-respect.
you don’t owe everyone access to your inner world.
especially not people who haven’t earned it.
trust slowly.
share deliberately.
observe how people handle small truths before offering them bigger ones.
and if someone uses your vulnerability against you?
that tells you everything you need to know about their character—
and nothing about your worth.
i’m proud i didn’t let them turn me into someone i’m not.
staying open without being careless.
warm without being foolish.
soft without being weak.
that’s the real victory.
— author
if you want to stay with this,
there’s more waiting inside.
if this musing landed, the podcast adds another layer.
that’s where i talk through what doesn’t always make it onto the page —
the pauses, the edits, the moments i almost hardened and didn’t.
follow + listen along if you want the thinking behind the writing,
not just the finished words.
if this musing resonated, the cuffed toolkit holds the tools behind it —
books, objects, and references i actually use to stay clear, grounded, and intact.
it’s there if you want to build the same kind of discernment,
without hardening yourself in the process.
I messed up earlier in life and let bitterness befoul too much. Eventually I got to change that, and I’m grateful I wised up. Bitterness and victimhood are deadly poisons. It takes strength and courage to bear them back.