I’m Too Much — The Lie Trauma Taught You to Shrink to Stay Loved
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Helping trauma survivors feel safe taking up space, not apologizing for it — right here in Phoenix.
If you grew up feeling like your emotions were overwhelming, inconvenient, or difficult for others to handle, you may still carry a quiet fear that something about you is simply too much.
Too emotional.
Too sensitive.
Too intense.
Too needy.
Even now, as an adult, you might notice yourself holding back before you speak, softening your reactions, minimizing your needs, or apologizing for feelings that are entirely reasonable. You might notice yourself saying “I’m sorry” for a human response or laughing off your own needs and desires.
This post isn’t about encouraging you to be louder or more expressive than you want to be (even though I know many peoples goals in the new year is to do just that). It’s about understanding why your nervous system learned to shrink in the first place — and how trauma-informed EMDR therapy can help your body learn that it’s safe to exist fully, without disappearing.
If you’re newer to EMDR therapy, you may want to begin with my foundational guide, EMDR Therapy Phoenix: A Trauma Therapist’s Complete Guide to Moving Forward and Hope, which walks through how EMDR works and what trauma-informed care looks like in practice.
Shrinking Is a Trauma-Adaptive Strategy, Not a Personality Trait
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Being told you’re “too much” is rarely about volume. It’s about capacity.
When the adults around a child are overwhelmed, emotionally unavailable, unpredictable, or unable to regulate their own feelings, the child’s nervous system adapts.
Not because the child is wrong, but because connection is survival.
Think about it this way, not too long ago, our society thrived as an interconnected web of belonging and community (many people are trying to find their way back to that and rightfully so, and some people never left.) Being an outcast, ostracized, or disconnected from the community meant that we could, in fact, face real threats like starvation and even death.
So it makes sense that trauma survivors learned early that big emotional expression created tension, distance, or withdrawal, which was a threat to safety. And over time, the body registers a simple equation:
Expression leads to disconnection ➡️ Disconnection feels dangerous ➡️ Shrinking feels safer.
So the nervous system adjusts.
You may have learned to mute your excitement, suppress sadness, swallow anger, or keep your needs small. None of this was a conscious choice. It was an intelligent, protective response to an environment that didn’t have space for your full emotional experience.
For many trauma survivors, this belief didn’t form in isolation. It developed within family systems where emotions were dismissed, misunderstood, or met with overwhelm — patterns that quietly shape how safe it feels to take up space well into adulthood. I explore this more deeply in my work around family trauma cycles and how these patterns get passed down.
From a trauma-informed lens, shrinking isn’t weakness. It’s an adaptation.
Why “Just Be Yourself” Often Feels Impossible
Many people cognitively understand that they’re allowed to have feelings, needs, and boundaries. They are allowed to need things. But somehow, when the moment comes to express that need, draw that boundary, or have that feeling with another human, the body reacts first. Often out of defense or survival.
You might notice some of the following:
You stop breathing.
Your stomach drops or tightens.
Your throat closes.
You feel an intense heaviness.
This often isn’t just about hesitation. It’s your nervous system remembering a time when something felt unsafe, too much, or too fast.
The nervous system remembers what it once cost to be seen. Even when life looks safe now, the body may still be operating on outdated information. The automatic response is not one that is functioning out of our present experience, but playing the script from the old ones.
This is why reassurance or positive affirmations often fail to take hold. The belief “I’m too much” doesn’t just live in the mind. It lives in the body as an active threat response and survival mechanism.
From the nervous system’s perspective, shrinking is protective. It reduces risk. It preserves connection. It keeps things manageable.
Until safety is felt, not just understood, the impulse to shrink tends to hold on tight.
A Nervous-System Lens on Feeling “Too Much”
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When trauma is present, the nervous system becomes attuned to how much it is “allowed” - meaning, how much space am I allowed to take up? Can I express my emotions? How much can I express my emotions? What is safe? Who can I trust? Who can I trust with what? The brain is then constantly on alert, monitoring others’ tone of voice, facial expressions, emotional range, and the impact they are having on others.
Feeling “too much” often shows up as:
Hesitating before sharing an emotional experience or thought
Apologizing for needs or reactions
Minimizing pain, distress, or outright anxiety
Feeling shame after expressing anger or sadness
Holding joy back to avoid drawing attention
Feeling on edge or alarm systems on go most of the time
These responses aren’t flaws. They reflect a system that learned emotional expression once carried risk.
This is why being told to “take up space” can feel confusing and often unsafe. To a trauma-shaped nervous system, space can feel vulnerable and exposing rather than freeing.
But here’s the thing - healing happens not by forcing expansion, but by restoring safety first.
How EMDR Therapy Helps the Body Unlearn Shrinking
EMDR therapy approaches beliefs like “I’m too much” differently than talk therapy alone.
Rather than debating the belief or trying to replace it with a more positive thought, EMDR works with the memory networks where that belief formed in the first place.
In trauma-informed EMDR therapy, shrinking is never treated as resistance. It’s treated as information. And trust me, being curious about that information serves us way more than judging it or trying to shut it down (often as we were taught to do).
Through a structured, paced process that can be customized to each person, EMDR helps the nervous system process experiences that taught it to shrink back. As those memories resolve, the emotional charge behind the belief often softens.
Clients frequently notice changes like:
Less automatic self-silencing
More ability and comfort expressing needs
Reduced shame around emotions and experiencing them
A growing sense that presence doesn’t equal danger
For many people, this is where EMDR therapy becomes less about “fixing” and more about allowing the body to finally exhale. If you’re wondering whether this approach might be right for you, I’ve answered some of the most common questions about EMDR therapy here.
This Post Is Part of a Larger Series
This post is part of my Unlearning the Lies Trauma Taught You series, which explores the survival roles and beliefs that form in unsafe or emotionally limited environments.
If you’d like to explore the broader framework behind these patterns, you may want to start with The Lies Trauma Taught You: How Survival Roles Shape the Way We Show Up in the World, or continue with I Have to Keep Everyone Happy — The Lie Trauma Taught You Love Is Earned, which looks at how people-pleasing develops as a trauma response.
The final piece in this series, I Have to Fix It — The Lie Trauma Taught You Control Equals Safety, brings these themes together by exploring how hyper-responsibility and control often emerge as last-ditch strategies for staying safe, and how healing can begin when the nervous system no longer has to carry everything alone.
If you’d like to be notified when that final post is published, you can sign up for my newsletter below. I share new posts, reflections, and trauma-informed resources there at a pace designed to support regulation, not overwhelm.
EMDR Therapy in Phoenix for Trauma Survivors Who Learned to Shrink
Working with an EMDR therapist in Phoenix who understands shrinking as a survival mechanism matters. It’s not a threat to the therapy journey; it’s part of it.
In trauma-informed EMDR therapy, sessions begin with building regulation, stability, and trust. There is no pressure to push past your window of tolerance. You are never asked to walk through trauma in detail before your system is ready.
The goal is not to make you louder, tougher, or different.
The goal is to help your nervous system realize that being fully yourself no longer puts you at risk.
If you’re ready to stop shrinking and begin feeling safe taking up space again, EMDR Therapy in Phoenix may be a supportive next step. Therapy can become a place where expression no longer equals danger, and where you don’t have to disappear to belong.
About the Author
Photo description: Kandace Ledergerber, trauma therapist in Phoenix offering EMDR Therapy, smiling in a sunflower field, representing growth, safety, and healing.
Kandace specializes in trauma-informed EMDR therapy and EMDR Intensives, helping clients move out of survival mode and into greater nervous system safety, self-trust, and emotional freedom.
If something in this series resonated, a free consultation can be a low-pressure space to slow things down, ask questions, and explore what support could look like — without any obligation to move forward.
TL;DR
Feeling like you need to shrink, stay quiet, or take up less space is a common trauma response, not a personality trait.
Beliefs such as “I’m too much” often develop in environments where emotional expression felt unsafe, overwhelming, or led to disconnection.
From a trauma-informed perspective, shrinking is a nervous system adaptation designed to preserve safety and connection.
These patterns form at the level of memory and the body, which is why insight or positive thinking alone often isn’t enough to change them.
EMDR therapy helps by reprocessing the experiences where these beliefs originated, allowing the nervous system to update its sense of safety.
As healing unfolds, many people experience less self-silencing, reduced emotional shame, and more comfort expressing needs.
Healing doesn’t require forcing yourself to be different — it happens as the body learns that presence and expression are no longer dangerous.
This post is part of the Unlearning the Lies Trauma Taught You series, exploring how trauma-based survival roles form and how they can soften over time with the right support.
