Does telling your personal issues to others make you feel better?

[Winter Song]

In my own case, I don't tell other people about my problems, for a couple of reasons.

First, I don't get the point of just "venting" or "dumping" (airing all of one's grievances while seeking uncritical sympathy and "support"), and I don't enable people who do it. Whenever somebody starts to tell me about their problems, I stop them and ask, "Do you really want to examine this and work out a solution, or do you just want to vent? Because I'm willing to listen and give you a different point of view if it's the first, but I'm not going to be your dumping ground if it's the second." And I refuse to use other people as my dumping ground, too.

Second, I had to learn how to deal with my own problems at a very young age, rather than relying on adults to understand my situation and help me in ways that were actually helpful (because they tended to fail badly on both counts). Was I always good at it? Did I always make great decisions? No, but I did learn from my mistakes, and come to understand that the ability to solve my problems (or at least solve them well enough) was in my hands. There was always something I could do to make a bad situation just a little better, even if it was only changing how I felt about it.

When faced with a problem, I'm going to work it out on my own. Should I need specific information or practical advice from someone else, I'll ask for it, but I rarely do.

Originally Posted by SlayerOfLight

I'm also recommended plenty of times to see a psychologist, but I don't like the idea of paying a random company money just so I get to tell a random stranger a sad story, which isn't their business to meddle with.

A psychologist is not a mere passive listener to sad stories, but it's also not their job to "meddle" with your story by telling you what to do. Their job is to get you to examine your own thinking about yourself and your life, and help you see how your thinking about yourself and your life is keeping you stuck in misery.

If you're trapped in a dungeon of despair, their job isn't to open the door and carry you out of it, or sit and listen to you go on about the wretched minutiae of dungeon life. It's to gently prod you into seeing how you're the one who keeps re-building the dungeon, keeping the doors locked and the chains fastened. Since you're the sole re-creator of that dungeon, you're also the only one who can tear it down. A good therapist can help guide you in that process, even if you have to do it brick by brick.

I also convinced myself that showing sadness and emotions to others is a weakness that can and will be used against me, should I wear my emotions so casually on my sleeves. I admit that it is sometimes very tempting when a charismatic person or especially a girl approaches me about it to spill it out, but usually in the end I still overcome those temptations.

I created this thread because I just keep encountering people, sometimes even complete strangers when I'm at bars and clubs who ask me what is wrong, why I'm very quiet and not dancing and enjoying like they do. Almost as if it's God somehow sending these people (unbeknownst to them) to try and convince me of my error of not talking to anyone about my mental well-being or that I need to cheer up or something like that.

God's not sending them; it's the fact that you're so unhappy that your distress is clearly visible. You may think it a weakness to show your emotional state to others, but that's exactly what you're doing through your facial expressions and body language, and your distress is so obvious that it makes even total strangers approach to express their concern for you.

So what is your stance on this one? Do you think it's better to keep everything to yourself in order to hold negativity and 'bad energy' at bay, or is it a necessity for the better?

The thing is, are you actually "keeping it at bay"? Because it doesn't seem to me that you are; instead, it seems to me that it's devouring you, and right out in the open where others can see it happening.

Talking about your problems just to "vent" isn't going to help you. You might feel a little bit of relief at first, but once the idea that you've shown "weakness" in front of another person kicks in, you'll probably just engage in more self-flagellation. If you're going to talk about them, it would be far more helpful to do as part of actively searching for solutions (whether that's with a therapist or not). And to do that means you'll have to be willing to question the worth of all your favorite bricks in your dungeon walls, and at least entertain the notion of tearing them out.