On being too much

I’ve been told that I’m too much by most people, most of my life. I’m a lot. A lot to handle, apparently, a lot to process. I’m a lot of energy, whether it be frenetic or dark. It turns people off. Or, I should say, it has turned some people off.

I can tell when I’m too much for someone, even when they say nothing at all. I can feel it.

For the most part, it’s OK. I get it; I can dominate a conversation, I can steal the light, I can fill up a room of one or one hundred without intention or even knowing it. That can be annoying. In fact, I know I can be annoying, which isn’t exactly the same as being too much, but it’s like a second cousin or something, so I’m familiar.

I’ve been described as being intense before, usually by men I’m dating. Or, maybe more accurately, men who’re trying to date me.

All I know is that sometimes I fear there isn’t enough space in the world for me. I don’t fit. So, I’ll either have to forever make myself small, or be alone. My fear is that those are the only two options for me.

When I was a kid, I had this sense when it came to my friends. I had a best friend in Becky, and I knew that was a ride or die friendship long before I knew what ride or die even meant. Through the years, Becky and I tried out a few versions of “best friends” with another, third friend. When I was young, and it was happening in real time, I always had anxiety about it. I wasn’t jealous, but I couldn’t name the emotion because I didn’t have the vocabulary to express exactly what I was feeling, which was an impending sense that I would be shut out or dropped from the group. And it wouldn’t be because I was a bad friend, or a bad person, or not fun, or unlikeable. What I couldn’t articulate then, but realize now, is that I was worried there wasn’t enough friendship to go around for all three of us. Like, my little-kid mind couldn’t comprehend that things like friendship and love and acceptance weren’t finite. And since I was the one who seemed to be the “most,” I would naturally be the friend pushed out of the group.

Of course, that wasn’t the case in real life. Becky and I were always the foundation, and the “third best friend” was occasionally added, but inevitably faded away. Outside of my deep and lasting bestfriendship with Becky, I’ve made other very close friends over the course of my life. Lots of them. I’m what Malcolm Gladwell calls a Connector. I’ve always had disparate groups of friends, lovingly placed into various compartments of my life – there are elementary school, high school, and then university friends, Girl Guides, various boyfriends’ circles, work friends, of course, in all my workplaces, choir and band, even youth group at one point, and so on and so on. I’ve always made it a priority to create connections between those groups, so that I, selfishly, could hang out with more of my friends at the same time. At least, that’s part of what the driving force was for me. It was also because I genuinely wanted to connect people who I thought should know each other. And I’ve never been disappointed, attempted setups for my brother notwithstanding.

And for that reason, I’ve always, since I can remember, sort of “folded” Becky into my other friend groups because I wanted to experience other friendships with her. After all, she’s the most important friend I have in my life, so there was no way I was going to allow her to fade away. I needed to keep her close, you see.

Also, I knew that everyone would be better for it – Becky’s lovely and wonderful and who wouldn’t want a new friend like her?  Just because Becky is my best friend and has always occupied that position doesn’t mean that other friendships I’ve fostered over the years aren’t just as meaningful to me. I’ve always felt lucky that I’ve been able to forge deep, meaningful friendships outside my bestfriendship with Becky. I think it’s made me a better friend overall and a better person, to be honest.

I’m afraid I’ve scared off friends and even some family because of my too-much-ness. Right now, I’m in the tight grips of a deep depression again. My mom calls me every day just to make sure I’m still alive. That seems to me, like the definition of too much.

Come to think of it, perhaps one of the reasons I’ve always had so many different friend groups in the first place, is because of this feeling of being too much. I think subconsciously I’ve concluded that if I spread myself out between a number of different friends, no one person or group would find that I was too much. This is all just coming to me now. What an epiphany.

As I’ve gotten older, and faced the challenges, and learned the lessons, my friends and friend groups have dwindled. Some have morphed and some have dropped off entirely, which I completely understand. People enter our lives for just a season most of the time. Some of my friendships have changed and transformed into something far more detached than how they started. But maybe that’s how it was always meant to be. Even though I believed it was for a lifetime, it really was for just a season. It just happened to be an unexpectedly long season. And now, in a bit of a full circle moment, I wonder if some of the cause of that is my too-much-ness. Maybe when it comes to being my friend, it’s a lot of work. Specifically, it’s a lot of work when I’m depressed, in need, in the mud, as it were.

When I’m healthy and really myself, I’m a goddamned delight. I’m the life of the party, I’m funny and charming, and gregarious and open and giving and gracious and pleasing and fun and peppy, and sunshine-y, and optimistic. That’s the true me, honestly. But since my depression diagnosis a few years ago, these descriptors can sometimes feel like shadows of who I once was. It’s not that they don’t reside in me, deeply inside me, but what has surfaced now is decidedly the opposite – the dark and twisty doppelgangers of these characteristics that masquerade as me.

Being too fun, too gregarious, accepting, funny, easy-going, peppy, and charming doesn’t seem like a wholly bad thing. But being too sad, too morose, hopeless, defeated, deflated, too self-deprecating, self-harming, too much of a fatalist, and basically an all-around Debbie Downer, is not necessarily a good or welcome thing.

So, again, the curse of being too much strikes.

I’m afraid I’ve scared off friends and even some family because of my too-much-ness. Right now, I’m in the tight grips of a deep depression again. My mom calls me every day just to make sure I’m still alive. That seems to me like the definition of too much.

When I reflect on the romantic relationships I’ve had, if I hold my breath and close my eyes and look at them as objectively as I can, actually dissecting them for what they were, considering the context of all the things, the failure of every one of these relationships can be attributed, in one way or another, at least in part, to my being too much.

I’ve only had one ex-boyfriend actually say with English words: “you’re too much – too emotional, too intense, you want too much, you expect too much…” In a strange way, as much as it hurt at the time, I appreciate his honesty. I’ve never forgotten those words, nor the moment that ushered them into existence.

There was a moment in our relationship when I was having the worst day and was really struggling emotionally. We were on the phone after this terrible day I’d had, and I was standing outside my workplace before heading home. I told him about my emotional crises, the outcome of something I was dreading, and that he know I was dreading. I was crying a bit, and I was admittedly a little needy. I asked if he would come over, for no other reason than to comfort me, and be a shoulder for me. I insisted we didn’t even have to talk about it.

But he said no.

He said that I was “feeling really intense emotions” at the time, and he didn’t want to invite that kind of energy into his mental space. I remember pausing, hearing the thickness of the air reaching a deafening crescendo before clarifying, “You’re saying you don’t want to come over because I’m too emotionally intense right now? So, to be clear, you’re prioritizing your comfort over my needs.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. I said, “OK, I’m going home now,” and I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the night. You know who I did talk to? Becky. Notably, I’m not too much for Becky. That’s the beauty of friends (and people) who love and accept you just as you are.

A note about other ex-boyfriends: none of them ever specifically mentioned my being too much as a reason to not be with me, but in retrospect, it seems to me, that was the crux of the central conflict. I was easily hurt, I wore my heart on the outside, like an exposed nerve, inviting the pain, it seems. I’ve always lamented that my relationships have taught me that I’m hard to love. But I think I’m actually easy to love, it just takes an extraordinary person to love me the way I deserve. And in my experience, especially when it comes to romantic connections, it would seem that none of them were extraordinary enough. Or at least willing to try to be.

Sadly, I’ve realized, as I’ve lived longer and had more and varied experiences, I’m not sure that extraordinary man exists. Maybe he does, and I’m just in a bubble that keeps me from meeting him. Or maybe I’m so “extraordinary” that there simply isn’t a man in existence who can meet me where I am. Maybe I’m ahead of my time? The Outlander of it all is quite intriguing.

And then again, maybe these are things I tell myself to make me feel better about being such an epic failure when it comes to pair-bonding. I’ve reached what is probably the middle of my life (if I’m lucky), and I’m single, childless, and in all other ways, ostensibly, alone.

I always believe the best in people – I give people the benefit of the doubt all the time, even when they don’t deserve it, especially when they don’t. To my own detriment, as it turns out. I’ve been told I’ve expected too much from men in my romantic relationships. Maybe that’s true? I don’t know. I’ve always only expected a partner to match my energy, to love me as much as I love them, to think about me as much as I think about them, to be impressed by me as much as I’m impressed by them. I’ve always just wanted to be a person who is my biggest fan. If that’s expecting too much, then I’m guilty.

During a very honest conversation with a man at the beginnings of a relationship a few years ago – you know that stage, when everything is exciting and you’re the most interesting person in the world, and you’re campaigning to lock in their vote for you as partner – I mentioned this idea of my too-much-ness and how it’s handicapped me in relationships in my past and he said the most wonderful thing to me. He said, “you’re exactly enough.” And in the glass half-empty versus glass half-full metaphor, he said that I’m a “glass full of light.” I’d never felt more seen in my life.

For what it’s worth, he’s now engaged, so there’s that.

They’re lots of moments in life when I thank the universe that I don’t have a partner, and especially, that I don’t have kids. And while those moments are real and valid, they’re balanced by other moments in my life when I ache for a family, for little people who look up to me, who depend upon me entirely, and for a partner to experience this life with.

Maybe I’ll be a stepmom? That would honestly be wonderful. But, the older I get, the less likely it seems that I’d actually fulfill that roll and instead, fill the roll of “dad’s new wife” who I’m sure would be happily accepted into the family and perhaps adult step-children would even be fond of me, but it’s not the same. You know what I mean.

Most of the time, as least lately, I think it’s a blessing that I don’t have children and/or a family because of my mental health. These days I can barely take care of myself – some days just getting out of bed before the day is over and perhaps having a shower are legit accomplishments that I for sure feel proud of – how could I possibly handle the responsibility of caring for others? I’m a grown woman whose mom calls everyday just to make sure I’m still alive. Does that sound like an adult human capable of taking care of others?

On the other hand, maybe if I had different responsibilities in my life, I wouldn’t sink into these deep crevices of despair. Is succumbing to depression an indulgence? Do we indeed, succumb to it, like it’s a choice? Or is it simply inevitable for those of us whose brains are designed to invite depression in, like a lifetime friend, telling it to make itself at home? Cause that’s what it feels like to me. I don’t want to be depressed. I quite like the real me, the not-depressed me, the me who is effervescent and charismatic. But when depression shows up, I do feel that I succumb to it in some way. In fact, it sometimes feels like fighting it just prolongs the pain, it stretches out the agony. And of course, there’s the fact that none of this is in my control at all. It simply just happens.

I don’t know, maybe I’m not that special after all, I’m not extraordinary. I’ve always understood that I’m a true empath because I take on others’ emotions and plights and pain as my own. I put myself in others’ positions to such a degree that I actually take on their burdens, their sadness and trauma. I tell you, when I learned that being an empath is actually a trauma response, it made a lot of sense to me. Of course I’d rather take on other people’s pain than face my own. Of course.

I’m traumatized. I’m a dark and twisty enigma, searching for meaning. I have dark thoughts and frequent out-of-body experiences that make me question whether my being here really adds any value to anyone’s existence. Don’t worry, they’re just thoughts.

Let me put it this way: My mom has no real reason for concern about ensuring I’m alive on a daily basis, but I like that she calls every day.

It’s good that she calls every day.