I’ve Spent a Lifetime Making Myself Smaller and I HAVE to Stop Before I Disappear (or “How Buying an Oversized ‘Everyday’ Bag Was a Revolutionary Act of Space-Taking Defiance”)

22 April, 2025

I've always yearned to be one of those people who somehow carry everything they need in their pockets. One of those people who can pack for a multi-day trip in a single, below-average-sized bag. (And do so at a moment's notice.)¹

I carry a fuck ton of things with me. (Like physical things—though, if we want to get metaphoric about it—and I'm going to...that's kind of the whole point of this post—yes, also the weight of the world, emotional baggage, blah blah my trauma is heavy blah blah...) And I hate that I do. It makes me feel...excessive. TOO MUCH.

I desperately want to feel ordered, minimalistic, controlled. All the things my neurodivergent brain² has never offered me. All the things antithetical to the chaos and white-knuckled intensity of my formative years.

I've tried dividing my "stuff" into multiple smaller bags and taking only what I actually need with me. (I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I ACTUALLY NEED WITH ME).

I've tried keeping my "main bag" in my car, carrying only a satellite bag or wallet with me—performing minimalism while feeling the "weight" of my things in my car hanging over me, betraying my true excessive, disorganized self. I can almost see the car sitting lower on its frame from the heaviness of my things because they are (I am) TOO MUCH.

And it's not that I've never considered why I fear my own excess—why I worry about being seen carrying more things with me than is necessary. Carrying, bringing, being TOO MUCH.

I know why...TOO MUCH.

The trauma of being too much

I've spent a lifetime making myself smaller for everyone. Making myself the version of me that was most useful and comfortable for everyone around me. The version of me that served their needs. The version of me that had no needs of my own.

I received the message very early in life that there was no space for my needs. There was no space for me.

I needed to make myself as small as possible. Because no one could ever truly have the capacity for the whole of me.

I was (I am) TOO MUCH.

Nothing sticks with you quite like the messages you receive as a child. They take root deeper, parasitically entangling themselves in any beliefs that may try to grow in the future—sometimes choking them out entirely.

And this message (I am TOO MUCH) has woven its tendrils through the very core of me.

In the unrelenting chaos of my formative years, I learned that the only way to feel marginally accepted—and, frankly, the only way to make it out alive—was to subjugate my needs entirely and be the version of myself that was most useful and stabilizing for everyone else.

So, I resorted to reducing myself. I kept myself small. I didn't rock the boat. After all, the boat of my childhood desperately needed steadying—so that became my role in the family: being the eye inside the perfect storm.

The perfect storm of nurture / nature / neurotype

Here's the thing: in some ways, I truly am TOO MUCH.

I feel intensely. I process intensely. The world has been an outright assault on my brain from the start. I essentially take in everything all at once, all the time. I feel everything all at once, all the time. For me, everyday life is often neurologically traumatic. It's EVERYTHING-ALL-AT-ONCE-ALL-THE-TIME. It's...(I'm?)...TOO MUCH.

I used to think I was weak. Other people seemed to be able to successfully navigate everyday life even in the face of the unrelenting intensity I assumed they too were experiencing. It wasn't until my thirties that I learned I am Autistic and ADHD—that my brain actually does process differently.

Apparently, for some people, figuring out what they need to bring with them on any given day isn't an unsolvable formula with infinite variables and unknowns that ultimately results in cognitive gridlock, triggering life-or-death-level terror in their limbic system.

(Who knew!)

If you met me as a child or adolescent, you'd have never pegged me as ADHD (or at least the un-serving stereotypes of ADHD). I was the "background kid" in my family—the one who took care of herself. I was on top of my studies, always on time (15 minutes early at minimum), and pathologically controlled.

But inside, I was holding on for dear life. I was trying desperately to tame the chaos of my own brain and the chaos of my family environment. I had to manage not only my own schedule, responsibilities, and emotions—which often felt like they'd consume me bodily—but also the emotions of everyone around me.

I had to create stability for myself on unstable ground. And keep everyone else stable as well.

What may have appeared as me "having it together" was an unsustainable, profoundly damaging white-knuckling survival response. It couldn't help but give out eventually. And it did. And so did I.

My formative years were a "perfect storm" of nurture clashing with nature in a way that supercharged the challenges inherent within my particular blend of neurodivergence.

And I was the eye of my familial storm—deceptively composed in the midst of utter chaos.

IS THIS REALLY ABOUT A BAG?!?

Yes. This is really about a bag. I will get to the bag.

ADHD on the down low; Autistic under the radar

I was shocked when I was diagnosed with ADHD. Or maybe not so much shocked as incredulous. I’d sought out an evaluation for Autism.

Though I'd flown under the radar my entire life,³ Autism was starting to make a lot of sense to me by the time I pursued a diagnosis at thirty-one. But ADHD? Certainly not.

After all, I'd held everything together so tightly for so long. Sure, I'd broken down eventually. Sure, I was mentally scattered. Sure, I'd never been able to figure out how to structure my day/week/year/life (how. do. you. fit. all. of. life? AND SHOWER???).⁴ But I just needed to regain my vice-like-grip. I'd simply gotten weak and let things slip.

What breaks my heart is that so much of me still believes this. That I can "get back in control" if I Just. Try. Harder. If I just get back to the brutal vigilance of my childhood self.

The brutal vigilance of a broken, terrified child.

The truth is, as much as I enthusiastically embraced my Autism diagnosis (and over time, warmed to my ADHD as well), I saw—and sometimes still see—my executive functioning challenges as personal failures. And I view any externalized disorder (like—say—carrying a ton of shit with me) as a shameful public display of the internal disorder within me that I still feel hopeless to tame.

In so many ways, I am still that broken, terrified child. Terrified of taking up space. Terrified of being TOO MUCH. Certain that if she ever lets go of her death grip, the storm will swallow her whole.

SO I BOUGHT A FUCKING BAG (we made it 🎉)

We've finally made it to the banal action that inspired this entire post: I bought a bag.

I was getting so tired of my fractured-multi-bag strategy—always having to shuffle around my things and think through what I needed at any one time, all to avoid being seen carrying around TOO MUCH.

I'm not really sure what changed...what "permission switch" within me got toggled on...but I decided I’d had enough. I decided to get ONE BIG-ASS-BAG so I could have all my things with me all the time.

When it arrived, I emptied my various satellite bags and began filling the admittedly absurd amount of pockets. As my new bag grew, taking its full glorious form of BIG-ASS-BAG-ness, I felt my chest tightening and my jaw clenching. Surely, this was TOO MUCH.

This may all sound trivial...getting so worked up about a bag. But it's bigger than that. (It's even bigger than the BIG-ASS-BAG itself.)

The permission to take up space

After the first day of hauling that behemoth around while dripping with angsty self-consciousness and donning a perma-apologetic expression for daring to have so much with me, I started to feel...more...safe. More...calm. More...allowed to take up space.

Not much in the world brings me a sense of safety or calm. I've long-known that having my things with me feels safer. And I've long-known the calming effect of reducing the overwhelming mass of "logistical calculations" racing through my brain.

But, I've also long-ago integrated the messages from my formative years—and society at large—that many of the ways in which I meet my needs for self-regulation are "unacceptable." That much of who I am is unacceptable. That I am not allowed to take up space. That I am TOO MUCH.

As absurd as it sounds, for me, buying this bag was a revolutionary act of space-taking defiance and radical self-care.

It was me scooping up and embracing that broken, terrified child, and telling her what I wish she'd been told back then:

• You are allowed to feel safe
• You are allowed to be all of yourself
• You are allowed to take up space.