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“You’re too much.”
These words ended my first relationship with my then-fiancé. She had an affair with one of my closest friends, who also happened to be my boss. I was “too much” because to manage my mental health I was self-medicating and clinging to people I loved, rather than admitting I needed help.
When I was nine years old, I slipped and fell over ten feet. I fractured the back of my skull, suffered an orbital plate blowout, ruptured my right eardrum and was brought back from the edge of death. My recovery took almost an entire year, filled with hospital visits and reconstructive surgeries. Now we know. I should have received more mental health support to heal from this trauma. But all I wanted was to be okay. Everyone I loved just wanted me to be okay. So as a well-socialized young man will do, I tried to “man-up” when what I needed was permission to be vulnerable.
My fragile nine-year-old self could never have understood this was just the beginning of decades chained to sadness. I tried to muscle through with infatuation, codependence, danger, and eventually drugs. Moments that could have been valuable growth opportunities became added trauma. Common experiences of adolescence like being bullied or being turned down by a crush pushed me over the edge. At fifteen I tried to take my own life. Ripped from the alluring embrace of death again tried to convince the world I was okay when I most certainly was not.
At 18, I fell in love. I was miraculously healed of the deep emotional and psychological wounds I was suffering from. I was battling addiction and had abandoned counseling and medication. That summer, I told my closest friend I was pretty sure I was losing my mind. Loving myself was out of the question, on the other hand, her love made me complete. For the first time, I felt happy. I invested everything in that relationship because it gave me a purpose where I’d felt I had none. Inevitably it all crumbled. Today, I have the deepest respect for the bravery it took for her to be honest and tell me:
“You’re too much.”
I was 27 the first time it was my turn to use that phrase. We had bonded over a love of the wilderness and a sense of insecurity that past trauma had built in both of us. Although she might not agree, I remember pouring everything I could into supporting her. Yet here I was, feeling like she was too much. It wasn’t long before I realized the similarities in this relationship and my first, this times the roles were just reversed. Despite my ability to lie about my pain, my ability to be a caretaker for another was compromised by my inability to truly care for myself. Muscling through our problems doesn’t actually get us through much of anything at all. It’s just a mask. Eventually I broke, and to be honest I was proud. For the first time in my life, I had stood up for my own needs. My proximity to her depression could have inspired me to look at myself, but after all, I’m a man. I can muscle through any emotion, no matter how traumatic it is, right?
Not quite, life tends to be more complicated than I want it to be. I don’t like to admit it, but I was only strong enough to leave because another door had opened. I thought because I had been able to support someone else for so many years that certainly I must be stable enough to leap into another relationship. Oh, how I was wrong. I kept up the charade in a new relationship for a year or so, but inevitably, if you’re living in fight or flight, your partner is going to notice. She was a ball of sunshine, the light I needed to see the black hole I was.
She pushed me to pursue counseling for the first time since I had been hospitalized for my suicide attempt. I started online, It was helpful, but it only brought to the surface what I had been hiding from for decades. I started admitting to myself and the people I love that I was not okay and I needed help. I felt embarrassed to ask for help. I was about to be thirty and despite my career, my studies, and so much more, it seemed I barely knew myself. I had spent my entire life defining myself by how other people saw me because it was terrifying to ever even glance inside.
I became more and more unstable, and my relationship followed. The holidays came this year and I was decidedly unpleasant. I was exhausted, depressed, defensive, and miserable. Despite all the love she had for me, my behavior was more than she could tolerate. She pushed me ever so gently and lovingly to pursue more support and I begrudgingly did, but not before we decided to take a break to give each other some space.
I walked into a psychiatrist’s office for the first time in thirteen years. I expected to be reacquainted with Depression and Anxiety, but I was sent reeling when I was introduced to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The language of “trauma” is liberating. I left that day with a prescription and a plan. A week or two later, despite being on a break my partner called. It was over. She couldn’t be in this relationship anymore. Mixed into our painful talk was that haunting phrase:
“You’re too much.”
I was crushed, but this time could be different. I thought surely the work I am doing now would be enough. That soon I wouldn’t be “too much.” I could have let go of everything and just given up. What was the point in doing all of this work if the woman I loved so dearly wasn’t going to be there to share in the happiness I was discovering?
Only a few months later I can definitively say that not only is this the happiest I have ever been, but I am also beginning to understand what it means to love myself – complete with darkness and light. I’m learning what it means to process my grief about relationships past, how to navigate triggering events, and how to live in the anxiety of an uncertain future. I am grateful to all of the partners I have had over the years. When I look closely, I can see they weren’t telling me I was too much, they were telling me I had been through too much.
They were telling me, in the only words left, that I needed help. They showed me that I needed to invest in my own wellness by investing in more than love. The emotional and physical intimacy of love is still an incredible part of my life, but it’s only one piece. Now the words “you’re too much” aren’t as triggering as they once were. On the best days, they are inspiration and motivation because I’m not too much, I’m enough.
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Photo credit: Pixabay
Hi Zac
Thank you for sharing your valuable story! For me, there is one word you mentioned that is they key to unlocking happiness and health for so many men, and that is ‘permission’. What if men had permission from society, and other men in particular, to step outside the Man Box? How would life change for them? What positive choices would they make if they felt they weren’t being judged as unmanly for being real?
Best, Ian.