Let Me Tell You About Being Someone Who’s ‘Too Much’

Let me tell you about being too sensitive.

Swollen feelings of other’s words that were once directed at you never diminish. When you read what someone writes or hear what someone says, you feel it in your chest – whether it’s a change of pace in your heart, a tight suffocating clench, or a mix of something impenetrable. Words build you as if you’re the alphabet.

When someone says, “Get over it” that doesn’t swim on the surface and leave when another phrase enters your life. It swims in your stomach and lurks in the deep end of your mind. When you hear, “It doesn’t even matter” or “Why do you bother?” the previous phrase isn’t ignored. You have a graveyard of words living inside of you.

Tears don’t flirt with the rims of your eyes, gravity rightfully claims them. Other people don’t ignore you, but they refuse to validate your feelings. They make you feel crazy for feeling. They make you feel like a liar of your own emotions. Like your world is a lie. Like what’s going on in your mind and heart is wrong, as if there is a correct way to feel.

Let me tell you about being too weird.

Consistent stares of perpetual judgment crowd your path. You have to hold back because you’re afraid that someone will comprehend you with skepticism. Forget about the way you string a sentence along. That’s irregular too.

Instead of recognizing that different isn’t bad, some people choose to feel above you and they want to change you. Or maybe, you’re just not the “right” different. Why should you explain your thoughts when it feels like no one cares anyways? Things that inspire you confuse people. Things that drive you, alarm others. Your common sense disregards the rest of the world, apparently.

Being too weird is looking at your life as an observer and a participator, at the same time. Feeling outside of your own body isn’t abnormal. You exist in a parallel with your steps while also attempting to comprehend the rest of the world. A relentless routine of not feeling or being yourself, even though you are. It causes an internal inconsistency when you try to keep up with everyone else.

Let me tell you about being too loud.

Your excitement is only a burden on the ears of those with indifferent minds. When the pulse of life rings in your voice, it’s an interruption to the daily world. People think you should “calm down” or “relax.” They glorify living a monotonous life. What’s there to be that riled up about, after all. Frequently, you find yourself keeping track of the tone and volume of your voice because you’re afraid. Afraid of who might judge you if you react organically. You downplay your happiness because your reaction to happiness could wake up an entire neighborhood, or so they make it seem.

You pull back from who you really are. It’s a never-ending cycle of attempting to untangle the multitude of life in one voice. You convince yourself that it’s crucial to keep a low status, regardless of your opposing nature. The checklist of what not to do is overwhelming, but you have to keep up.

Let me tell you about being too caring.

“You’ll get hurt.” “You can’t care about it all.” “Why does it matter to you?” No. Stop there. Why does it matter to others that your empathetic nature overrides logic? But they say it’s too painful to care too much. Or maybe they say it’s “uncool.” After all, don’t you want to be one of the cool kids?

When you should love that things travel in your ears and stay in your lungs, allowing you to breathe real air, your mind gets polluted with what other people perceive as normal…which shockingly, doesn’t align with your current lifestyle.

You change your mind. A lot. The fact that what you feel is real is all that matters to you. You fill your mind with your heart, and although it can become utterly overwhelming, you cannot detach yourself from it. But, even if you had the choice to care less, you wouldn’t want to. It’s important for you to work in tandem with your empathetic intuition. Others will try to convince you that you’ll feel better if you stop caring. Sure, it can be challenging to evade their persuasion, but you know you wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilled if you weren’t honest to your caring nature. The battle never ends.

Let me tell you about being too much.

You feel like your being, the particles that make up who you are, your bones, your brain cells, your mind, your fingerprints, everything…. Is wrong. And you can get tricked into thinking that you don’t matter. You’ve consistently been reminded that it would be easier to change yourself than to dive deeper into your truth.

When people give you “compliments”, there’s always a hint of disbelief. Like no one has ever experienced your everyday living. Your passion, your excitement, your involvement, your ambitions… they are all foreign. And not in a flattering disbelief way. But in judgmental disbelief.

Being too much means you should keep to yourself. Or at least that’s what you’ll tell yourself after receiving shut door after shut door the moment vulnerability entered the room. You start to believe it…that you’re “too much” of this or that.

Well you know what I say.

There is no such thing as being “too” anything.

I am sick of being thrown in the 2×2 box of “too much.” People don’t get to label me because they’ve seen one side of me and decided that was my entire character. No one should label anyone, ever.

I am capable. I am strong. I am complex. I am a human being.

I am not too much.

Stop telling me I am.