“Stop putting yourself on trial for everything you feel, think, say or do.” That’s something my therapist said to me in our first session. Being an extremely introspective person, it’s strange that I never realised it. I have been ruminating through every waking moment of my life, as if every exchange and encounter requires evaluation, justification and correction accordingly.
I remember my sister and I being loud as children. Every time our voices or laughter were heard across the house, we would be told to keep it down. Growing up, our minds were shaped by subtle messages and narratives that taught us that a woman whose voice crosses the threshold of the house usually lacks character. I remember playing and arguing with my sister in hushed voices, and with that, we learned to equate silence with one of the greatest virtues that a woman can bear.
That fear of being too loud didn’t stay behind in childhood memories; it got carried into adulthood. Now, it wasn’t limited only to loudness but also incorporated other aspects of my personality. I was never a “good child” who obeyed rules and yielded to desires. Instead, I was always the one initiating micro-rebellions among my siblings. But as I grew older and more aware of the consequences, external conflict seemed more disturbing than the inner one. To avoid the tension between my inner beliefs and external expectations and the stakes involved, I started to fake agreement. If sooner I didn’t need someone else to censor me or force me to obey, I would do that myself, by hiding my curious self in a room in the back of my mind and wearing my obedient self as a survival tactic. I had mastered the art of self-censorship to maintain the peace within myself and around me. I didn’t realise when my silent compliance became my preference and eventually my identity.
I had to self-monitor myself to keep myself from entering the territory of being too much. We are taught to shrink ourselves, to make ourselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful; otherwise, you would threaten the man. Too much is not a behaviour but a moral threshold. But one wonders, who drew that imaginary line and where?
That invisible line shapes the mind and limits the vision. The problem isn’t that women are too much but that the space around them is too narrow. The same behaviour gets interpreted differently depending on the gender. In our world, a man is confident, but a woman is arrogant. A man is uncompromising, but a woman is a ball-breaker. A man is assertive; a woman is aggressive. A man is strategic, a woman is manipulative… The characteristic or behaviour is the same… It’s women who are being judged. So it’s not about the behaviour but who’s exhibiting it.
These double standards and narrow-mindedness of society cost women their identity, authenticity, and mental health. Which forces them to form superficial relationships built through a filtered version, a false self. And somewhere along the way, you get tired of keeping up the charade. You can start recognising their intent but can’t really point a finger at why you are complying with them? Because it has been too long since you locked that child in a room that got pushed with time, far back in your mind.
The question isn’t whether we are too much, but why does being one’s own true self feel like excess? Too much is authenticity without apology. It’s a refusal to shrink.
I keep going back to what my therapist said: “Stop judging yourself for everything you feel, think, say or do.
The trial was never fair to begin with. Standards were invalid. The jury was impaired.
Maybe the cost of not being “too much” is remaining unseen.
None of us were ever “too much”; we were just taught to be invisible and accept it as a virtue.