Think about how common it is to respond to sentences like “I feel like I am too much” with phrases like “no, don’t worry, you are never too much”.
That kind of reassurance doesn’t have the intended effect, not on me anyway. If I’m to be completely honest, it has the opposite effect. If you tell me I’m never too much, what I hear is you aren’t ok having boundaries. You think something bad is going to happen if you upset me. That scares me as it either blows up in my face down the line, or you’ll find some passive aggressive way to get back.
Admitting to me being “too much” when that’s actually your perception of me, THAT reassures me.
Some people would argue “too much isn’t a concept, it’s about the level of capacity in the other to meet/receive. If their capacity is limited, of course they will define you as “too much”. Truth is, it’s them who aren’t enough which is causing the perception of you being too much”.
My question is: what’s the resistance towards being “too much”? What if you were, what would be so bad about that?
I imagine the answer has to do with our judgement and/or the attached meaning which is connected to expected consequences (aka: what do I expect people to say and do when I’m more than they can handle).
If you evoke the notion of past negative consequences and judgement in someone, the result is: they feel like a bad person. Unless they’re highly conscious, they will most likely feel like you’re the one deeming them bad. Now you’re in the position of having to reassure them they’re not.
Reassurance if your truth genuinely is “you’re not too much for me right now”, I like that. If your reality on the other hand is “I’ve reached my limit, in this moment you’re too much” – I see the value in acknowledging that. Anything else would be (to me) a denial of reality. Sometimes, in someone’s eyes, we are too much (or on the flip side: not enough).
Maybe the question we should aim at answering is: ‘Will you love me also when I am too much? Will you stay also when I am too much?”.
Gunhild Archer, counselor 