The Power of Opening Up: How New Parents Gain Resilience in Self-Disclosure

Self-disclosure is critical for individuals with concealable stigmatized conditions, enabling them to gain recognition, understanding, and social support. While prior research has extensively examined whether and why individuals disclose, relatively little attention is paid to what, how, and with whom disclosure occurs. Leveraging large-scale support forum data, this study examined how new parents disclosed depressive episodes online, analyzing four dimensions of self-disclosure (amount, breadth, depth, and valence) alongside four facets of social support (quantity, positivity, responsiveness, and informativeness). The findings reveal nuanced gender differences that haven’t been documented in previous research. In the relative anonymity of online discussions, mothers tended to share a broader range of life stressors and discuss each in more depth, while fathers’ self-disclosures were longer and more positive but less personal. For mothers, the act of self-disclosure itself was beneficial for mental wellness. Fathers, however, appeared less affected by their own disclosure but more sensitive to the social support they received. Crucially, for both mothers and fathers, social support acts as a key mediator between self-disclosure and resilience, with a notable gender disparity in the impact of informational support. This research contributes a multi-dimensional, gender-sensitive understanding of self-disclosure, offering valuable insights for designing effective intervention and supportive environment for new parents’ wellbeing.