Throughout my life, I’ve been asked to shrink. To sand down my edges, to soften my voice, to smile when I don’t feel like smiling. People have said it in all kinds of polite disguises—
“Tone it down.”
“Don’t overthink it.”
“Lighten up.”
“Maybe don’t talk about that right now.”

And, my personal favorite: “You’d be perfect if you could just stop being so… you.”

For years, I tried. I trimmed myself like a bonsai tree—tiny, decorative, well-behaved. I smiled when I wanted to cry, swallowed thoughts that might make people uncomfortable, and tried to keep my ADHD, chronic depression, and autism behind a velvet curtain like a stagehand no one was supposed to see.

But this morning, it hit me like a beam of warm light through a dusty window:
If people really love me, why would they want me to be less?

Why would love ask me to carve away pieces of my soul? Why would it require my quiet suffering for someone else’s comfort?

That isn’t love. That’s convenience disguised as care.

Love Doesn’t Shrink You—It Makes Room for You

Real love—whether romantic, familial, or platonic—doesn’t require an edit. It doesn’t flinch at your intensity or roll its eyes at your fixations. It doesn’t sigh when you start another passionate tangent about the thing you care about this week. Real love leans in. It says, “Tell me more.”

Love doesn’t ask you to be less sensitive; it learns to move with care.
Love doesn’t ask you to stop feeling deeply; it learns the language of your waves.
Love doesn’t ask you to dim your light; it adjusts its eyes to the brilliance.

I’ve spent enough time with myself to know that my intensity is my love. My overthinking is devotion. My melancholy is empathy. My hyperfocus is passion. My ADHD, my depression, my autism—they’re not flaws; they’re the instrumentation of my humanity. Without them, I’d play flat.

The “Too Much” Tax

Being “too much” is expensive, socially speaking. You pay in lost relationships, misunderstood moments, and the quiet grief of realizing most people never met the real you—they met your performance.

And yet, here’s the wild part: the people who do love you as you are? They’re obsessed. They’re grateful. They thrive in your presence because your too-muchness gives them permission to be full, too.

That’s the trade-off. Most people want to feel comfortable; few want to feel alive. The ones who want the latter are your people.

So no, I’m not dumbing it down anymore. I’m not sanding my thoughts into soft, palatable edges. I’m not pretending my emotions come with an off switch. And I’m definitely not apologizing for being the kind of person who feels everything all at once.

Love Me in High Definition

If I am loved, I want it to be in high definition. I want love that knows the shadows and still finds the light. Love that sees my patterns, my spirals, my stims, and still calls it beautiful movement.

Because love that asks for less of you isn’t love—it’s fear trying to pass as affection.
And I am no longer afraid of my own fullness.

The Practice: Being Lovable Without Shrinking

If you’re reading this and nodding, here’s your reminder:
You don’t have to be easy to love; you just have to be real to be loved.

Practice letting people experience the full you without the apology at the end. Practice pausing before you self-edit. When someone says “You’re too much,” hear it for what it is: “I don’t have the capacity.”

Then smile, wish them well, and go find someone whose capacity matches your intensity. They’re out there—usually sparkling somewhere in the corner, waiting for someone who finally won’t make them shrink either.

Because real love doesn’t ask you to be less. It looks at your too-muchness, your madness, your melody—and says, “Finally.”