I (F22) have recently noticed a habit of mine that I think could be considered asshole behaviour and would like to get more opinions on. Nobody has ever confronted me with it or said that it makes me a bad person, it’s just a personal worry of mine.
I have 4 very good friends (F21-23) that I all know from different places/occasions, e.g. school, uni, work, hobbies. They know each other from parties and very irregular get togethers but are not friends or in any way close with each other. They only know each other through me.
During the last year(s) one of those friends went through a very toxic and abusive relationship that I mainly helped her to get out of. I listened to a lot of heartbreaking and traumatising stories, I talked her through it and helped her gain the strength to get out of it.
Another one of my friends has been struggling with her mental health, family and smaller relationship issues and on top of it also with a sexuality crisis during the last years. I have also been there for her and supported her through these issues.
While I am happy to help and be there for my friends, both of these processes were very re-traumatising and triggering for myself and I found it hard to deal with all of it on my own, so I got into the habbit of sharing my two friends’ trauma which they shared with me with my other friend (in much less detail). She is a social worker and thus knows a lot about how to deal with these situations and was able to help me deal with it and gave me pointers on how to help my friends better. The other friends don’t know I’ve told someone else about their issues.
So, is it bad I’ve been telling someone else about personal stories of my friends, even if it was just a matter of coping for me? Even if my friends have never specificly asked me to keep anything of it a secret? Or is it fine, especially considering they don’t really know each other? Thank you.
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TL;DR: In order to deal with traumatic stories that I walked my friends through I told another friend about it. Even though I was never asked to keep it a secret I do feel bad about sharing intimate details with someone else. Is it?
2 comments
Are you prepared for the backlash when they find out that you shared their personal traumas with someone they don’t know? Why couldn’t you get a counselor referral and talk it through there?
Since when is it fine to gossip or talk behind people’s backs? Have you never seen a teen film? Mean girls comes to mind.