On Feeling Like “I’m Too Much”
This podcast is for anyone who has felt as though they were too much. I'm going to talk about examples of when feeling like you're too much comes up, how society participates in this insecurity, and how I navigate this limiting feeling myself.
*You can listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
the prevalence of fear of being “too much”
What prompted this topic for me is that I can almost guarantee that if I'm meeting with someone as a therapist, if I'm meeting with a client who is a member of an oppressed group, it typically will come up in one of our sessions. They'll look at me and say, “I just feel like I'm too much.” And I hate it. I hate hearing people describe themselves or describe their needs as being too much. Because what I really am hearing is: when they feel like they're too much, something else is happening, right?
They are living in or in community with or in a society that really is not enough for them, for their needs.But instead, it becomes internalized. It becomes this issue with myself. It becomes, “I am the problem,” right? Rather than something is at play here. Something is a problem out there.
being “too much” in the dating world
I hear it with friends too. The worst is when I hear mainly men talk about, “Oh, I don't know if I can date her. She's too much.”I hate that one. I hate it so much. I resonate with it. In high school, I was a theater kid, theater girl. I went to a small private Christian high school and because of that, I knew everybody. Or rather everybody knew me because I was very flamboyant, I guess you could say. I was an extrovert in high school, and I remember talking to one of my friends. He said, “Oh yeah, guys don't want to date you, Caitlin, because you're too aggressive.” Which is so weird because I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't dating. I wasn't making my feelings or crushes very known. And somehow I have the reputation that I was too aggressive.I was too much.
And looking back on high school Caitlin, really - she was wonderful. She was so bold and creative. And she let her humor speak for itself. And she allowed herself to take up a lot of space. But that really sat with me for a while. You know, what does it mean if I'm straight and I'm considering the people that I want to date, and all these men say I'm too aggressive or I'm too much.
being “too much” & “not enough” with a marginalized identity
I get angry about it with clients. I feel for them when they bring up this topic of feeling like they're too much. I get angry about it when I hear different conversations or news stories. And recently it was women in Iran who are fighting for basic human rights. Some of what the issues could be boiled down to in my perspective is that their request for a choice and whether or not they want to cover their hair has been considered or deemed too much. And it's brutal.
I think about it with clients or friends or people who I meet with, who are able to talk to me about their experiences of being in a brown or black body. And this feeling comes up of being too much and being misunderstood. And they are because our society, specifically the Western U.S. society, is so entrenched in white supremacy that, of course, they feel like too much. Because our society, white supremacy, and this oppression is so large and overwhelming that really the message continually being put out from the ground-up is, or should I say, top-down, is that: if you are not white, you are not enough.
being “too much” according to beauty standards
Also, let's talk about beauty standards. God, this thing of being too much, that is fat phobia, right? Taking up space. Having a body that is not thin or skinny. You get deemed as undesirable. You get deemed as too much. You also aren't provided suitable fashion options because your body is too much and therefore requires too much fabric.
It's BS. There is such an issue with how we portray people in society - the representation that we have is still so, so limited. And I really, really hope that we continue not to settle for the crumbs of representation that we are starting to get.
We need more.We need representation that allows for the complexity of life. And if we don't see ourselves in the media, if we don't see ourselves in everyday life, if we don't see ourselves on our feeds, then it can really reinstate this fact that I'm too much. Or I'm different. Or I'm not enough.
For me, some of this comes up around my past from growing up in a conservative Christian home school and church.
being “too much” in relation to purity culture
I've done a lot of work on deconstructing my faith, and deconstructing my spirituality, and figuring out what feels good for me, what feels safe to talk about, what feels safe in my body. And a lot of it, I've had to reconstruct a spirituality and a practice that includes pleasure.
With that, that's so important because the way that I grew up, women (And of course how I grew up held a lot of binary around gender. So when I say woman, it is limiting, because that speaks to how I grew up - like it was just man or woman.) And so for those that were socialized female, there was this idea that our bodies are not our own. They're just for our husbands.
Purity culture - that's a movement that started in the 90s and took on a world of its own, and a world of pain for those that participated. Purity culture taught that women, again those socialized female, were to take on this burden to ensure that men, that boys, did not “lust,” which is so, so ridiculous. Like, we, as in prepubescent children, were somehow holding the responsibility of “luring or helping men not to lust.” That's gross. That's really gross. And that is so huge.
And really for me, there was so much, so consciously working within me around like, “Oh, well, my body is too much. It's too powerful, in my body.” And what I choose to wear, what I choose to put on my body, has the power to “make men stumble.” Wow, what's going on down here? I don't know. That feels scary, so I'm not going to invest in or explore or do very like regular developmental things. And that is hard to reset. To be able to make a home within myself. To feel safe in my body. To become aware of my body. To say to my body that you are enough. You have needs.It's okay to pay attention to these needs.You're allowed to talk to me. I had to create conversation between my body and my mind because so much was disconnected.
being “too much” or “not enough” relationally
And then it comes up too like with the work that I do now - this fear of being too much or not enough.
I was talking with my husband the other day about some relationships in my life, some friendships where I'm feeling like I am not giving enough. I'm so glad to have friends now that are social justice activists who are very involved in naming, acknowledging and fighting for a more equitable society and community. I feel both encouraged by that, and I also feel constantly like I'm not enough or I'm never doing enough. And to me that gets translated as white guilt and shame, and I'm not saying that it's not some of those things. And as I was discussing it with him, he said, “Well, yeah, that's the thing, Caitlin, you feel like you are too much of a “radical or liberal” for your family. And you also feel like you were not enough for the friends that you get to call family now.”
And that really hit. (He didn't know also that I was thinking of talking about this on the podcast, so props to you, Joey.) It hit me in a big way because that is a spectrum that I feel like I'm constantly moving in between, that I feel as though I need to censor myself in a lot of ways because I do love my family. I do love the people who raised me. I love my siblings. I love my cousins. I love everyone, even though our beliefs vary a lot. And so I fear sometimes pushing the boundaries and maybe losing some of that connection or relationship.
And on the flip side, I fear not being enough for the people who are encouraging me to grow and to continue learning and relearning. And that's a place that I find myself often. I feel it in doing this podcast. You know, is this enough? Am I naming enough? Because this topic of feeling like too much - I know it resonates with so many.
And I know my perspective is limited to my lived experience, how I am a white cisgender, able bodied heterosexual woman who has a lot of privilege - privilege in education and marital status. And that feels both liberating because I know I have a lot of ability and platform to stand on. And that feels limiting at times because I know there's always more that I can do.
finding your community
So this was a little peek into this spectrum that I am swimming in from time to time. And my biggest hope and help has always been being able to reach out, making friends that you are able to be vulnerable with, choosing partners that push you and serve as a mirror - a mirror for you to see your most beautiful parts in a mirror and a mirror for you to see your shadow self as well.
I say all this very vulnerably because it's also a piece of accountability for me. I get to do more and I want to do more. And so if you were listening and this resonates, I hope you can sit with it. Sit with the discomfort. Sit with the hope for something different. Sit with the creative imagination of building a community that supports you, all of you, that allows you to bloom and blossom and grow. Because we all need that.
Life is too short to be bogged down by the limitations that the oppressors have put on us because I refuse to be put back in a box. I can't. There's too much. (Sorry, just got caught up in the irony of me saying there's too much.) But there is too much at risk if I don't, if I stay in my box. And if you stay in this box, there's way too high of a cost here.
So what you just listened to were some thoughts around this insecurity or this feeling of being too much. There were some examples in there of what this looks like. Also some pieces of how society participates in this feeling and how I myself am navigating this limiting feeling. Before we go back into session, I am going to bring you to our community highlight and a social media account to decolonize your feed:
The Avenue 50 Studio is an arts presentation organization grounded in Chicana / Chicano and Latina / Latino culture visual arts in the Northeast Los Angeles area. We seek to build bridges of cultural understanding through artistic expressions. We develop programming to inform our community through innovative projects that connect artists, students, academics and members of the community.
Follow @fiercefatfemme, or Angelina, on Instagram, TikTok, and FaceBook. Angelina’s whole work is about unpacking internalized fat phobia and normalizing fat people in all aspects of life. They are a model, lecturer, consultant. They also have PCOS and talk a lot about their experience with PCOS. I love their feed and everything that it stands for, so I highly recommend that you check that out.
Caitlin Harrison is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, social justice advocate, and a feminist. She works with individuals, intimate relationships, and families. Caitlin is a sex positive therapist with a special interest in the integration of sexuality and spirituality, women’s empowerment, and eradicating narratives of guilt and shame. She is passionate about working with couples because every partnership can be deepened, stretched, and more pleasure-forward.
Utilizing the relationship between client and therapist, Caitlin embodies hospitality and humor in her work which allows an inclusive and collaborative space to share all of life’s ups, downs, and in betweens. Overall, her work is focused on ensuring that you feel safe coming home to yourself. Caitlin feels at home with a cup of coffee in her hand, a bouquet of flowers nearby, and music at the ready to dance to.
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