You're not asking for too much, you're just asking the wrong person
Whew, that’s a gut punch, isn’t it? Especially to women like me who have always been told we’re too much. Too loud, too big, too honest, too needy, too emotional, too sad…you get the idea. But what if all of that was truly just the gaslighting (key definition according to Merriam-Webster: psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator) that we didn’t realize was happening and actually we are not (and never were) too much? Holy crap!
Guess who has to believe it? YOU! You have to believe that all of those things that were said to you or not said to you directly, but insinuated with looks and raised eyebrows and nods, all of those, were that person’s own issues. What?! Yep. I think that is true. That when we are truly in our own best self, in a good place, we see that all of those things that we were told that made us feel “othered”were really never about us. They were the fear and loathing of the other person, society, history, etc.
So when I heard that phrase recently, “you are not too much, you’ve just been asking the wrong person,” (ok, it was in a book), especially coming from a male character to a female character, it took my breath away.
And I thought, “you are right, I have just been asking the wrong person or people.” And while the character in the book meant he was the right person for her and didn’t think she was too much, it wasn’t lost on me that I was actually the person that needed to believe I wasn’t any of those things. If I believed it then it truly wouldn’t matter what people thought or said. I would know that I was not too much of anything…except maybe the good stuff like a good friend, a person who asks for help when she needs it, a highly sensitive person who feels a lot, a person with lots of parts that need different things but that none of them are ever “too much.”
If you’ve ever been made to feel like you are too much, you are not alone. But now, I hope you remember that you just may not be asking the right person--YOU!
❤️S