Thoughts on the Fear of Being Found Out

When you worry you’re too loud, too sensitive, too much ... read this.

I keep whispering to myself: I’m not afraid of being too much.
And then I whisper it again. And again. Like maybe if I say it enough times, it’ll finally soak into my skin.

Because the truth is, I am too much. At least if we are going to take back the idea that there is a metric to living human. Like what’s enough? Anyway, I’ve always been a lot. Too loud, too intense, too curious, too emotional, too dramatic, too high, too low (as my dad often says). I’ve been told that my whole life, and for a long time I believed that meant something was broken in me. Something to manage. Something to shrink. Something to reel in. Like I was a leaky faucet everyone was too polite to fix.

Here’s the thing no one tells you: when you start actually looking at yourself—really seeing where your sharp edges come from—you start noticing the parts that grew out of pain. The armor. The quick tongue. The endless word vomit that once kept you safe. And then the shame creeps in. You start thinking, God, I should sand this down. I should be softer, smaller, quieter. I should be a better listener (as if talking a lot and being a good listener are mutually exclusive). I should heal this part out of existence.

But I’ve realized something: every time I try to cut away my “too much,” I cut away pieces of my joy too. I don’t laugh as loud. I don’t light up in conversation. I don’t chase the things that make me come alive. And I’m so tired of believing the lie that I can only be lovable if I’m edited. Palatable. The high-road, evolved human.

Because if I’m always curating my emotions, always managing the moment, always trying to be the perfect version of myself—then I’m not actually living. I’m just playing a part in some performance I never auditioned for. And practicing control isn’t the same as practicing love.

I hate that I feel like not a single person, including myself, really knows me. It’s all masks, managing the moment.

In fact, let’s get reallll honest here. I used to have a formula I developed in college because I didn’t have girl-friends, and I was never the classic, tiny dress, perfect make-up, and high heels girl that all the hot guys flocked to. So I perfected the “cool girl” performance since I was never going to be the “effortlessly beautiful girl.” So I was the easy guy’s girl. The one who shrugs it off, who makes it fun, who keeps just enough distance that they have to chase. Then, when I felt the hook land, I’d drop a carefully chosen piece of my story, the kind that shows resilience but never mess. Just enough vulnerability to make me interesting, but not so much that they’d see how deep the ocean really runs in me.

And it always worked. They’d lean in. They’d want to be the one to hold me, to fix me, to finally unlock me. But they weren’t falling for me. They were falling for the puzzle. The mask. The mystery. Because I haven’t met a guy yet who doesn’t want to get the girl that no one gets.

But then I’d retreat. Because if you don’t know me when I’m spinning out with too many words, or when I’m crying at fireworks on New Year’s Eve because life feels both unbearably heavy and impossibly beautiful, then you don’t really know me at all and eventually this game gets boring and bolting isn’t hard.

So here’s where I’m landing: I don’t want to fix my too-muchness. I don’t want to always reel it back in like a dog on a leash. I don’t want to measure every story, every laugh, every word, in teaspoons, afraid of spilling.

I want to trust myself enough to let it spill. To believe that when I let it all out, when I get carried away and fall into the deep end of my own passion and my own fire—I can hold myself through the vulnerability hangover that follows. I don’t have to trust them to stay. I have to trust me not to abandon myself in the middle of practice.

And if someone can’t handle it? That’s not my indictment. That’s their limit.

This is my one, wild, silly little life. I’m not here to be small. I’m not here to play the game of being palatable. I’m here to live braver, not quieter. To keep tending the fire, even when it scares me. To practice staying soft and loud.

Because when I let myself burn, when I let the “too much” breathe—that’s when I actually feel most alive.

Xx, to the brave thing,
Cait

I’m turning everything I’ve learned about self-trust, heartbreak, and living out loud into my book Braver, Not Fearless, coming November 14 — the day I turn 35.

If you’ve been waiting for a sign to stop shrinking, this is it.