When Venting helps…and when it keeps you stuck
Why do we Vent?
As a therapist to young adults and people with OCD and multiple forms of neurodivergence, I know that the need and urge to process and vent can be enormous at times. Life is often happening too fast, relationships and communication moving at a speed and complication level where processing can’t keep up. The learning demands of adulthood are higher than we might expect. So we work hard to make sense of what happened, express feelings, gain perspective, identify needs, and come up with plans of action. And if interactions are confusing or leave us feeling hurt, then we may also need validation and to be heard and understood, for our intentions to be seen, and to have a corrective experience after being misunderstood. Processing out loud with a partner and putting our experience into words, and hearing our own voice and the response of others is an emotionally regulating process at its best.
There are times when I can tell that venting or processing is not working for someone. I can observe it with me in the therapy room or playing out with a partner in couples therapy, or I hear the process reported to me and it sounds like it is making things worse. Rather than the process leaving a person more clear, connected and able, I watch as telling the story works a person up, leading to overwhelm and hopelessness. Venting can also lead a person to be disconnected, in their own thought bubble, recycling thoughts and feelings that feel familiar but have become more distilled, more certain, less relevant. A frustrating repetition or entrenchment can happen, creating further problems rather than leading to emotional regulation or solutions. So what is venting doing, and why is it sometimes so helpful and sometimes over-activating or disconnecting?
One key function of venting is identifying and moving through feelings. Feelings give us information about ourselves, including our values and our needs. I have a firm belief about feelings that comes out of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, an evidence based treatment modality) and has yet to be disproven to me. Feelings are a temporary, non-toxic event in and of themselves, even when they are incredibly intense, unwanted, and uncomfortable. That does not mean that we all have capacity, all the time, for all intensity level of feelings, or can handle them skillfully without support. But it does mean that feelings don’t go on forever, and they don’t have the power on their own to destroy us.
Another function of venting is more cognitive - it can help us put our thoughts and experiences outside of us so that we can observe events from a distance. From this distance, we may be better equipped to reflect on what happened, put our ideas together, make a prediction or a plan, and understand our thoughts and emotions.
When Venting goes wrong
Venting or processing should help us move through our feelings or reflect on our actions and needs. When venting is making things worse, there may be a few things at play:
A capacity issue - which can also be a timing issue - the capacity of the speaker at the time they are venting is especially low - this could be due to poor sleep, a cascade of depleting events, high dysregulation due to a very recent stressor, sensory overload, or any number of factors. With a capacity issue, the person doesn’t have the energy they need to tolerate the discomfort of feelings.
An audience issue - the person being vented to isn’t up for the assignment, doesn’t understand what is being asked, or is too close or too far from the issue to be impartial or track what’s being said.
A communication issue - the venter is struggling to put their experience into words, causing a secondary frustration on top of the feelings already present. Or they may be unable to clearly convey what kind of listening they need, which can lead to misunderstandings and frustration.
Pressure - If the person venting has very specific expectations from the experience (for example, expecting perfect listening, or unquestioning opinion validating, expecting the feelings to pass quickly or stay static), they may put pressure on themselves or the listener. This can create constriction, rigidity or reactivity that make it difficult for feelings to flow and states to change.
Scary stories - the venting does not describe events but rather interprets them. It is not grounded in what happened but what could have happened or will next possibly happen. This opens up too many possibilities and keeps the story from being grounded in the here and now, sensations, and felt experience. The story feels too general and too big to get a grip on, quickly overwhelming the speaker and possibly the listener, or leading the person to enter an imaginal state that is no longer present and connected.
Feelings, when identified and expressed, can be moved through with manageable discomfort. But it requires capacity, communication with a willing audience up front, a willingness to experience feelings and the skills to manage them, and an ability to see when thoughts are amplifying feelings and creating overwhelm. Venting can actually build these skills in the right setting, and there’s no need for it to go perfectly to be helpful.
The venting checklist
Below is a post-venting checklist to help you decide if venting has been helpful, or if you may have one of the issues above at play.
Helpful Processing
I feel more clear over time
I can see more than one perspective
I feel more connected to myself and others
I understand my feelings better
I become more able to tolerate uncertainty
I can think about what I need or value
I feel more able to move forward
I can stay connected even without full agreement
I feel more able to respond intentionally
Getting Stuck
I feel more worked up over time
I become more certain there is only one explanation
I feel more focused on proving who was right or wrong
I keep replaying the same details
I feel like I need more reassurance or certainty
I stay focused on the unfairness of what happened
I feel more emotionally stuck
I feel like people must fully validate my opinions or agree with me to feel okay
I feel more reactive or defensive
What to do if you are stuck
Reset - engage in movement, the senses, and the environment to step away from the process. Go for a walk. Do push ups. Color. Listen to music. Swing in a hammock. Splash cool water on your face. Get creative, but keep it simple and safe. The actions will help build capacity, and the space and time will help reduce the intensity of the feelings.
Notice the story - You can give the scary story a title and write it down. You can say, “I’m noticing my mind telling me the story that…”
Use structure and present moment awareness in your venting - “I felt X when Y happened.” Describe the scene as if captured on camera, without any inferences or opinions. Describe the feelings happening in your own body. If feelings are hard to name, then explore sensations, or use metaphors, or describe urges that arose.
Get permission - Ask the person you are venting to if they are up for it, and let them know what kind of listening would help.
Practice being open to something unexpected happening when you vent. Be clear about how you want to communicate, but let the experience unfold. Feelings can take new shape. Listeners may be able to offer perspective or comfort in ways you didn’t expect. This can be vulnerable, but it is worth it.
More about scary stories
For my readers with OCD or anxiety about relationships, this section is for you. Your feelings can be completely real without every conclusion your brain makes in that moment being fully accurate.
You can feel:
hurt
rejected
embarrassed
misunderstood
angry
excluded
without it meaning:
the other person intended harm
you are completely wrong
they are completely wrong
certainty is possible
you can’t move on until you have a perfect solution
Stories give us coherence and meaning, but they can be deceptive or can oversimplify. The more inference and assumed certainty in a story, the more it can keep you stuck. If your story has “never” or “forever” in it, or expands into a catastrophe of the future, you have reason to doubt the story’s effectiveness for emotional regulation. Stories like that inevitably create present moment distress and confusion.
Keep Trying
If you are realizing you might be using venting in a way that keeps you stuck, there is no need to be hard on yourself or stop talking about how you are feeling. Talking with others about what’s on your mind or getting help for a tricky situation is a natural, social, and relational thing to do. Every relationship has its own capacity, cadence, and practices that build between people over time. Remember that you are holding this process as one part of a whole, and if you are unsure about how something is going with another person, you can always ask.
