Sharing about myself... what are the social rules here?

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What are the rules about sharing about yourself to your friends?

I have one friend with whom I felt like it was the right time to tell her a bit more about myself. We've known each other for a little over a year and have slowly been becoming better friends. Over the course of about 2 weeks lately, I've shared some of my life in two separate conversations:

Mentioned in passing that I had anorexia in the past, and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That was the first conversation, and I didn't just announce it out of the blue. We were talking about how life only gives you what you can handle.

A week and a half later, we ended up talking about family and I talked about how I didn't get along with my mom and basically got kicked out when I was 19. At that point she asked questions, and I answered them, like "Where did you go?" When I described where I went I mentioned I had been in a car accident that resulted in a settlement, which enabled me to go to school - where I developed the eating disorder and consequently spent all my money on getting better. And I ended with a joking sentence that basically said "And that's why I'm a university student at the age of 27. "

She asked questions and reacted to that part of the story. Then she said something about how our own reflections in other people help us to grow and I mentioned that I used to ignore other people, didn't have friends, couldn't read people, and that it had been suggested that I may have Aspergers. My last sentence was something like "It's only been in the past two years that my social skills have started to develop and I've started to let people help me grow". She replied to that, but didn't say anything about Aspergers so either A)She doesn't know what it is, or B)She does know what it is, and it's not a surprise to her.

But at one point during our conversation she talked about herself a little bit. I felt like it was even, until I started going on about myself again.

She doesn't seem to mind that I talked about myself (because I asked her if she minded), and this entire conversation was over facebook chat so I didn't have to deal with nonverbal signals. I just feel the need to have at least one person who I am in regular contact with, who knows who I am. I'm sick of having this big huge story that no one knows.

But what are the social rules here? Because I have even more baggage to unload, and I'm not going to tell her any of it, because last time I did that it seemed to be too much, and the friend I told has backed away and I don't know what I did.

I am not so worried right now, because A) She asked questions, which means she was interested, and B) She shared her own thoughts about herself too.

But I don't understand people so well, because in the past, after I've talked about myself it eventually self-destructs the friendship. Why?

If you are sharing information and the other person is sharing information too, that's a conversation. What you need to watch out for is when you give too much information at once and when the other person is not reciprocating.

How much information to give out, when, and what to tell someone is something that I struggle with too. But if the other person is talking about themselves and giving out personal information, then I will do the same. When in doubt, follow the other person's lead.

If they don't seem to be sharing anything at all, drop a few tidbits of information about yourself here and there and see how they respond to it. If they start giving out information too, then that's probably a signal that you're on the right track.

Is this an online friend or a friend in person. I think you have to be careful about perhaps unloading too much baggage, it maybe more then she can handle. If its in person, id say take your time more with the person and don't tell them too much all at one time.

And whats best, (I rarely adhere to this rule) is to keep the sharing mutual. If she doesn't share stuff about her life, don't continue to reveal. I do think one exception to that rule is if shes really interested in learning more and you want to share then its ok to do so.

Id say if its online, depending on how you met her, it maybe ok to unload more baggage because a few reasons.
1) If its off of wrongplanet or another messageboard about psychological conditions. See we come onto these types of sites to find people we can relate to that is likely waaay more difficult to find in real life.
2) See online, taking in this kind of info is not as intense because its all words. When you taking in this type of info in person, the situation can be way more intense due to the situational context this is often in.

This is a friend I go to university with. Our conversation was online, but we are friends in real life.

I hope the sharing was mutual. She shared some really deep thoughts about herself and that encouraged me to share more about myself. I do feel this weird drive to have people to share my full self with, and in order to really be myself around my friends, they need to know what I've been through. At least, in my head they do. I can't seem to just not share that part of me. It took a year with this friend, but I did share this stuff pretty quickly and all at once.

I will give it time. We're not constantly hanging around with each other, and I'm not expecting her to help me with anything, which are two things that were present last time I shared about myself with someone, and that person ended up backing off eventually. Not at first, but eventually. So with this friend, I'm not constantly sharing glum things with her. So it should be okay, right?

It sounds like you did just fine.

And the baseline is that a certain percentage of relationships, even when initially promising, just don't work out.

Just generally alternate the more serious conversations with the lighter ones, but you probably already know this (some of this took until my 30s to figure out!)

She posted something to cheer me up on my facebook last night, but then today we passed each other as she was exiting a classroom and I was entering, and I said 'hi' and I attempted eye contact, but she wasn't making eye contact with me. Ha ha, it felt like a reversal.

I hope it doesn't mean anything. It did make me realize that that's probably how other people feel when I greet them but don't make eye contact. I'm torn between letting myself just be myself, not forcing eye contact, and making a bigger effort to look people in the eye when I'm saying hi to them.

And that last point, Aardvark, about alternating serious conversations with light ones, it took me until very recently to figure that one out, and even still I have trouble doing it.

That is my problem sometimes. I try to have too many serious conversations for most people. I also find it hard to keep that balance of sharing information.

It sounds like everything went ok though.

What exactly did she say back and how did she react? If it was too much information she may have made a polite excuse and stopped the conversation or she may not know what to say back as it is a difficult conversation. She could avoid you if felt awkward/uncomfortable.
She might not have found it a big thing and felt the need to comment. I've told 2 friends over facebook and they said nice things back, but didn't really react to it, it was like a bit of a let down which made me wonder if they even understood.

I might have phrased the aspergers bit differently or said less. Just saying one thing about an eating disorder might have been enough rather than the aspergers and car accident as well. People quite often don't want to hear something that is too negative or could sound like self pity and that's quite a lot of negative difficult stuff in one go. Of course I'm guessing as I wasn't there and tend to overcompensate and overanalyse to try to cope with this stuff. It is hard to gauge. As a rule you would have to be talking to someone regularly and having quite intimate 2 way conversations about other things comfortably before giving this much detail - or be drunk! Maybe she felt depressed talking about a lot of this stuff?

And between light and serious conversations, it's not a strict alternation and that's a little tricky, too. Maybe it's light, light, serious, a couple of light, then serious, a couple more light, and then a couple of serious in a row, light, etc. And it's all good. I'm learning it's inherently imprecise and that's okay.

I'm also learning, if someone needs space, go ahead and give them space, without preconditions, without needing to know why. And then later on make a gentle respectful overture to invite them back for continued interaction.