Immediately after opening up and sharing some very personal information about myself with a new acquaintance, I immediately regret it. They didn't ask me to share and weren't expecting me to share what I did.

So...why'd I do it?

I forget that my achilles heel with social relationships has to do with my boundaries. I am really good at setting up my boundaries with other people verbally. But when it comes to sharing personal information, I don't like to.

When I do, it almost feels like I do it when I'm triggered which stems from the emotional abuse and neglect that I grew up with from my parents, I think? Like, we were discussing a conflict between us, and I blurted out this tidbit of personal information because i felt triggered to do so; that if I shared that irrelevant information about myself, it would pacify them.

Instead of a previous bad-habit I had from my childhood of over-apologizing (I have since learned how to stop doing that), now I just concede when there's conflict, even when I've done nothing wrong, if that makes sense. I really wish I could unlearn that trauma-learned behavior response to conflict. It's so detrimental to my well-being.

Instead of just telling the other person what I was really thinking - that I was just distracted - I immediately handed over some very personal information about myself, that I still feel vulnerable about which is why I don't share it with anyone. Now, this person can use this piece of information that I gave her about myself, against me in the future. "Oh, you're acting this way because of..."

For some context; this person made a value judgment about me which was 100% wrong, because they were 'projecting' their life experience on to me instead of just viewing the situation objectively. This person tried to label me as ADD b/c they view my flighty personality as impulsive, when I'm just flakey. Flakey and impulsive aren't even the same character trait. You know? Their adult children have ADD and instead of defending myself, telling this acquaintance, "Hey, don't project your kids diagnosis on to me, I"m just flakey," I inadvertingly enabled her label as correct, by revealing a trait I have that fits her ADD label.

Why do I do that? I don't have ADD. Never did. Never will. And I let this person's judgment about me control my self-perception thanks to past childhood trauma I experienced, where I didn't know how to defend myself or failed when I did try to, with my abusive parents.

I wish I could fix that need to erase myself to please others. That's not a good coping skill.