Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Everyone is destined to trudge through difficult seasons of their lives, no matter how much we wish that weren’t the case.
As a result, people develop various coping mechanisms over the course of their lives. They can range from journaling and positive reframing to avoidant behavior, but all of them are born out of an effort to minimize the stress our mind has to handle.
One coping mechanism in particular has become more and more familiar, especially to high school students.
Venting is the act of expressing your thoughts, emotions or frustrations to somebody, often as a way of relieving stress or seeking support.
For many individuals, venting helps them get through rough times, when emotions boil dangerously close to the tipping point. Ideally, venting means having a safe space where they can let out their feelings comfortably, to someone they trust and can confide in — a completely healthy activity.
What many fail to realize is how venting gone wrong, which is the case the vast majority of the time, can result in disastrous consequences for themselves and those around them.
I don’t mean to accuse “venters” of being insensitive or of carelessly throwing their burdens onto a good friend. At its core, venting is a relatively innocent concept, as we are only seeking support from those closest to us.
But in practice, when emotions run high as they almost always do when people vent, it’s easy to lose sight of how our words impact the listener.
Venting shares a similarity to trauma dumping; it can place the other person in a situation where they feel obligated to shoulder your stress.
Rather than banishing our emotional burden into oblivion, we often transfer it instead.
Venting to someone automatically demands emotional bandwidth from them. When we vent about something particularly unpleasant, this demand is exacerbated.
In practice, a high degree of one-way communication is inherent to venting and poses other issues.
One such issue? It doesn’t fix anything.
Robert Biswas-Diener, a writer for Psychology Today, outlines these aspects of venting in his article: “… people who vent have an agenda. They tend to be focused on themselves and their own — presumably negative — experience… aren’t looking to solve anything; they simply want validation.”
Evidently, most venters are primarily interested in feeling heard and understood as opposed to receiving solutions and advice.
While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel validated, and there are certainly times when being presented with the most logical courses of action is profoundly unhelpful, the issue is bound to persist if it isn’t addressed at some point.
Nothing changes if nothing changes, and therein lies the problem.
Additionally, venting does an excellent job at priming you to be close-minded.
Rarely will the person you vent to ever stop and ask you to consider an alternative perspective.
As your close friend, the chosen confidant, most feel obligated to reassure you and reaffirm whatever strong beliefs or opinions you had coming into the venting session. It’s easier, more comfortable and if they’ve got tact, then they know it’s reassurance that you want.
In that sense, it’s remarkably easy to justify going along with your every word because they can always knock some sense into you later.
And it’s hard to make a sound argument that a “true friend” would tell you to stop and think things through sensibly. I assure you, even the truest friend to ever live wouldn’t entertain the thought of waving a red “STOP” sign in front of the raging bull that is an upset teenager.
As such, your opinions, which could very well be off the mark, biased or ignorant of other factors, will become reinforced.
It’s critical to remember that words hold power. In the same way constant self-affirmation can be helpful, venting regularly can shape your mindset to tunnel vision on an illogical point of view.
It’s a two-way street; if you say something enough times, you’ll end up believing it, even if it doesn’t paint an accurate picture of the truth.
If you constantly vent to your friend about how your parent, partner or another friend did something terrible, you’re likely to believe your own accusations and view them in an increasingly negative light.
The result is a toxic feedback loop, and it’s a kind that can shatter intimate relationships into a million pieces.
But for all the anti-venting claims I’m making, I understand how appealing it is. As mentioned before, venting can at times mean having a space to let your inner feelings out without fear of being attacked for them.
It’s easy to be turned off at the thought of working things out directly with the issue at hand — in instances where another person is involved, talking your feelings out with them carries a risk of being attacked for your feelings or having them invalidated. That’s a scary and infuriating thought.
There is no magic solution or perfect alternative to venting either, at least not one that I’m aware of. Life and its emotions are a little too complicated to navigate so easily.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s any less important to be aware of the ways venting can go wrong, and to closely reflect on the impact it has on yourself and others around you.
