23/04/2025

She Was Always Called ‘Too Much’ — Until She Learned the Truth About Her Anger

(Shared with permission. I would never share anyone’s story without it. My work is grounded in safety, consent, and deep compassion.)

She sat across from me—neat blazer, perfect posture, a calm voice that didn’t match the way her hands trembled in her lap.

“I don’t want to be like this,” she whispered, gripping a tissue with white-knuckled tension.
“I yell. I slam doors. I cry when I’m mad. I hate how I get. I don’t recognize myself.”

I asked gently, “Who told you it was wrong to feel angry?”

She blinked, as if startled by the question.
A long silence. Then came the answer, barely louder than a breath:
“Everyone.”

Her shoulders slumped, the weight of that word pressing down like a lifetime.

She told me how, as a little girl, she was called too emotional.
Too dramatic.
Too loud.
Too much.

When she asked questions? “You’re being disrespectful.”
When she cried? “You’re just being manipulative.”
When she screamed from pain? “Stop being so out of control.”

So she stopped.
She swallowed her voice. Bit her lip. Nodded when she wanted to scream. Smiled when she wanted to cry.
She learned to shrink.

Until one day—
everything inside her snapped.

At work.
At home.
In conversations that started small and exploded out of nowhere.

She came to me thinking she was broken.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said.

But the truth?

There was nothing wrong with her.

Only years of unmet needs.
Of pain pushed so far down it started leaking through the cracks.
Of anger never given a name, never given space to be heard.

I told her something no one had ever said before:
“Your anger is not the enemy. It’s a signal. It’s the part of you that still believes you deserve more.”

The part that says:
I matter.
I’m not okay with this.
Something needs to change.

Week by week, we walked through the rubble:

- The mother who told her to be quiet every time she cried.
- The partner who made her question her memory, her reality.
- The manager who praised her work but never let her speak in meetings.

We named every place she had been silenced.
And then we gave that silence a voice.

And now?

She’s no longer afraid of her emotions.

She speaks with clarity and kindness.
She sets boundaries without guilt.
She says no with grace.
She cries without apology.

And one day, she looked at me with tears in her eyes—not from pain, but from something else.
Peace.

She said,
“For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m allowed to take up space.”

That is the power of healing.
Not to become someone else—
But to finally return home to yourself.