The habit of over-explaining comes from the anxiousness of not feeling important enough. When we constantly feel that we owe something to others, at all times, we feel the need of over-explaining ourselves so as to paint a clear picture for others. However, this may make us come off as needy individuals, who are not capable of functioning by themselves, without help. However, the habit of over-explaining ourselves also creates the void of not feeling important or secure within ourselves. Addressing this, psychologist Nicole LePera wrote, “Saying no or having boundaries felt like a physical threat in my body. When we’re direct and honor or limits, people truly do respect us. Healthy people will even celebrate it.”
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Nicole further shared a few instances how the habit of over-explanation develops:
Emotional abuse: When subjected to constant emotional abuse, we feel the need of becoming people pleasers in order to give our body that sense of safety. This can develop into over-explaining.
Being invalidated: the feeling of being invalidated by our parent figures in childhood create in us the void of not feeling important enough. Hence, we always have the fear of offending others and losing them.
Threat: The nervous system creates a sense of threat while over-explaining. Hence, sometimes we go beyond control and are unable to stop ourselves.
Limitations: Many of us in childhood have learnt that we need to be liked by others, instead of having our own boundaries and limitations in place.
Comfort: Often, to stop over-explaining, we need to be reassured or comforted by the other person, to sense safety.
In order to control over-explaining, we need to learn to practice – with this, or window of stress tolerance starts to get wider, and our habit of over-explaining ourselves decreases. Another way is to start speaking shorter and crisp sentences and test the response of the other person with time.