Oh I Heard the Stories Over and Over Again
Have you ever wondered why people keep repeating the same affair in conversations over and over? If you're annihilation similar me, you can't ignore the content of conversations because you know that language can be a window to the heed.
People repeat what they say for a number of reasons in a variety of contexts. I'm only concerned here with those instances where what they say over and over can provide clues to their psychological makeup.
Start off, I want to be clear as to what specific instances I'thousand talking about. I'grand not talking well-nigh instances where a person repeats something in a conversation considering they feel they've not been heard- a person repeating their point in a contend, for case.
I'grand also not talking well-nigh instances where it's obvious why the person is repeating themselves. An example would be a child repeatedly asking for candy when her mother clearly has no intention of giving one.
The incidences I'm talking about are the ones where you observe that someone tells others the aforementioned thing that they've told you. It's normally a story of an incident that happened to them.
Now my question is: Why would they, of all topics, proceed saying the aforementioned thing to the people they meet?
Before nosotros delve into the possible reasons, I'd like to narrate an incident from my ain life:
I and a few classmates were working on a group project in the last semester of my undergrad. We had two assessments for the project work- minor and major. During the minor assessment, our professor pointed out a shortcoming in our project work.
It's natural to feel bad (no matter how slightly) when you experience something like this. But what I noticed was that not all of us in the grouping were affected in the same fashion past that remark.
While most of us forgot near it soon after, there was this one girl in our group who was clearly more afflicted by it than the rest of us. How exercise I know that?
Well, later that incident she kept repeating what the professor had said to near everyone she talked to, at least in my presence. So much then that she even pointed information technology out in our major cess despite my warning of not revealing anything that may undermine our assessment.
This intrigued and frustrated me. I confronted her and said, rather angrily, "Why practise yous keep mentioning information technology to everyone? Why is it such a large deal to you?"
She didn't take an answer. She brutal silent. Since then, I've noticed many people, including myself, engage in the exact same behaviour.
The mind is ever trying to make sense of things
If someone tells you that your friend died in an accident and gives yous a detailed clarification of what happened, y'all're unlikely to inquire any more questions. You lot may immediately sideslip into a state of stupor, atheism, or fifty-fifty sadness.
Consider what would happen if they but told that you that your friend died without telling yous why or how. You lot'd desperately ask the aforementioned questions over and over till your mind makes sense of the incident (with the assist of relevant answers).
This example is pretty straightforward where you're repeatedly asking questions to get answers. But why would someone echo something that is non necessarily a question?
Once more, the answer is the same. Their mind is trying to make sense of what happened. The issue is unresolved in their heed. Past repeating the same matter over and over, they want to resolve it and do abroad with it.
Many things that we encounter on a daily basis get hands resolved (I barbarous because I slipped, he laughed because I said something funny, etc.). But some things are not and so easily resolved and leave deep impressions on u.s.a..
Consequently, our minds get stuck in this loop of trying to make sense of them because they haven't fabricated full sense to us withal.
Past traumas and repeating the aforementioned things
A person who has had a traumatic experience in the past may keep acting out these traumas in their dreams. Only by talking almost the trauma repeatedly, trying to make sense of information technology, can they hope to end these dreams.
When we hear the word trauma we tend to think of some major unfortunate incident. Just trauma also comes in other, pocket-sized forms. That remark our professor made was traumatic for the girl who went on to tell everyone near it.
When people become shut to each other in relationships, they often talk most their bad by and babyhood experiences. They may not overly express how those experiences traumatized them. They may endeavour to portray the instances every bit entertaining or interesting. But the fact that they're repeating these stories is a potent indication of trauma.
Adjacent time your friend says, "Have I told you this earlier?" say "No" even if they have, just to get a better agreement of their psychology.
Justifying yourself and repeating the same things
Often, the bad experiences a person is trying to brand sense of, by talking near them repeatedly, involve self-blame. On a deep level, the person thinks that they're somehow responsible for what happened to them. Or at least, they had a role in it or could have avoided it somehow.
So when they are telling their story it's likely that they'll effort to justify themselves. In doing so, they may even distort the story and narrate it in such a way that clears them of any blame and showcases them as victims.
Why practise they do this?
We're always trying to project a good image of ourselves to our beau humans, peculiarly those who matter to us. If there's something in our recent or distant by that has the potential to degrade our epitome, we make sure that they know we're not to blame.
This paradoxical situation of beginning blaming oneself and then trying to vindicate oneself usually happens on an unconscious level. And so it'southward no wonder that people keep repeating this behaviour without stopping to self-reflect.
Information technology's important to think that these instances that people repeatedly talk about may non necessarily be traumatic. It could be anything they haven't nevertheless made total sense of.
When that daughter in our project group repeated the professor's remark, it didn't traumatize me but it left an impression even so. At the time, I wasn't able to make sense of it.
Therefore, my mind kept replaying the incident over and over and I might besides have told the aforementioned story to others over and over but I didn't.
Lucky for them, I'm oftentimes self-reflective enough non to engage in behaviours that may reveal my psychology. So I spared them the boredom. I've finally told the story and attempted to make sense of it via this article.
How-do-you-do, I'm Hanan Parvez (MBA, MA Psychology), founder and author of PsychMechanics. I've published one book and authored 400+ articles on this blog (started in 2014) that accept garnered over 4.five million views. PsychMechanics has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Reader's Assimilate, and Entrepreneur. Feel gratis to contact me if yous have a query.
Source: https://www.psychmechanics.com/why-people-keep-repeating-same-thing/
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