Preface To A Private Show: A Private Person?

When I was younger, I wasn't a terribly private person.  In the 90s I found myself in a Usenet group & posted enough that, when they did a "who's who" of regular posters, my name was there & I was labeled a "confessionalist."

Part of me thinks it's because of my mother.  My mother was an inveterate liar, but it's not entirely clear if she lied to protect herself or to promote herself.  Almost certainly she lied enough to start to believe the lies she told.  At the end of her life, she'd recall some story in as close to a way that she could to be somewhat truthful & also make herself the hero.  I spent a lot of times telling her, That's not the way it happened.  She would say, No?  & then tell the same story to me a few weeks later.

But more than that, my mother loved to reveal things about herself that were just embarrassing.  Maybe not entirely embarrassing to her, but they didn't necessarily speak too well of her.  For example, as she got older, it became difficult for her to cut her own toenails.  That in & of itself is a weird thing to want to tell anybody.  My mother would tell me that, & then inform me how lucky she was that she had my sister to cut them for her.

Who's more pitiable in that story?  My mother?  Or my sister?

She must have been doing this her entire life, & I must have noticed it, because I told people some incredibly personal things when I was young.  It would be a terrible idea now to give examples; you'll have to take my word for it.  By the time I made it into college, I suppose I had become more reserved, but somehow the internet brought that awful side of me back.  Although I do imagine I stopped doing that once I was labeled a "confessionalist."  That stung.  My last posts on the group were my awful poetry.

As for oversharing: I can't be entirely sure if I saw the sneaky reasons why my mother would do that.  By appearing to be somewhat open, revealing perhaps some personal issue, she might convince you that she was actually an honest person.  & you might ask, "If she told me this thing about her ailments, why would she lie to me about other things?"

Was that something I had absorbed & was employing for my own sake?  I wish I knew.

What's true is that I'll probably talk to anyone about anything if they just ask.  But if they don't ask, these days, I am not going to be forthcoming.  I don't tell people when I feel wronged or hurt, I don't air my insecurities or jealousies, I don't offer unsolicited criticism.  In that sense I feel like I am a much more private person than I used to be.  Than I ever really was.