Maybe You’re Not Too Much

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly wondering whether you are too much.

Too emotional.
Too sensitive.
Too needy.
Too sexual.
Too independent.
Too complicated.
Too angry.
Too attached.
Too distant.
Too queer.
Too ambitious.
Too messy.
Too much.

Sometimes therapy begins with a person who has spent years trying to become easier to love.

Maybe you learned to make yourself smaller in relationships. Maybe you learned not to ask for too much. Maybe you became exceptionally good at anticipating other people’s needs while losing touch with your own. Maybe you’ve spent years wondering why you can’t seem to make yourself want the things you’re “supposed” to want.

Or maybe you’ve done the opposite: pushed hard against every expectation, built a life that looks nothing like the one you were handed, and still find yourself wondering, Why doesn’t this feel better?

I don’t think therapy is about figuring out how to become the most acceptable version of yourself.

I think it’s about getting curious about who you actually are.

What do you want when nobody is watching?

This can be a surprisingly difficult question.

We absorb so many ideas about what a good life is supposed to look like: the right career, the right relationship, the right family structure, the right body, the right amount of ambition, the right amount of independence.

Sometimes these expectations are so deeply embedded that we experience them as our own desires.

Therapy can give you a place to slow down enough to tell the difference.

What do you actually want?

What are you afraid to want?

What have you convinced yourself you shouldn't want?

And what might become possible if you stopped treating your own desires as problems to solve?

I’m interested in the places where things get complicated.

Relationships are complicated. Sexuality is complicated. Family is complicated. Grief is complicated. Becoming an adult is complicated. Becoming a different version of yourself halfway through adulthood is complicated.

I don't believe that complexity necessarily means something has gone wrong.

Sometimes complexity is simply what happens when we stop living according to a script.

My work is grounded in the belief that you don't have to fit neatly into a category to deserve thoughtful, compassionate care. We can make room for the contradictions: wanting closeness and independence, loving someone and being angry with them, craving stability and wanting adventure, feeling deeply connected to someone while also needing something different from the relationship.

You don't have to resolve every contradiction before we can begin.

We can get curious about it together.

Therapy isn't about becoming someone else.

For me, good therapy is less about giving you a set of instructions and more about helping you develop a deeper relationship with yourself.

That might mean understanding patterns that keep showing up in your relationships.

It might mean grieving an old version of your life.

It might mean learning to recognize your own boundaries—or realizing that you have boundaries you’ve never allowed yourself to have.

It might mean exploring your sexuality, your identity, your relationships, your family, your dreams, or the parts of yourself you've learned to hide.

And sometimes it means sitting together in the uncomfortable space of I don't know yet.

You don't need to arrive in therapy with a perfectly articulated goal.

You can arrive confused.

You can arrive curious.

You can arrive knowing only that something isn't working anymore.

That's enough.

Maybe you aren't too much.

Maybe you were in relationships where there wasn't room for all of you.

Maybe you learned to interpret having needs as being needy.

Maybe your intensity was actually sensitivity.

Maybe your restlessness was trying to tell you something.

Maybe your desire wasn't a problem—it was information.

Maybe the parts of yourself you've spent years trying to manage are the very parts that need your attention.

Therapy can be a place to find out.

Not who you're supposed to be.

Not who other people need you to be.

But who you are when you finally have enough room to be yourself.