When Someone Tells You That You Are Too Sensitive

“You are too sensitive, you always dramatize”. This is without a doubt one of the most common phrases that a lot of people hear on a regular basis. Far from being received in an innocuous way, this message is perceived in several ways: there are those who find it annoying and even hurtful, there are those who for their part, come to doubt themselves by wondering if they are actually missing the point.

Words can sometimes do more damage than any weapon, we know that. In addition, there is another no less important factor: the way in which we interpret certain messages. Suddenly, someone drops an unexpected sentence, a series of words that surprise us and that we don’t really know how to process or digest.

“You are too sensitive. We can’t tell you anything. You are exaggerating things too much. ” As curious as it sounds, this message is one of the most present in many of our relationships and, at the same time, one that affects us the most.

The reason why this concatenation of adverbs, verbs, nouns and articles negatively impacts our mind is actually very simple: it invalidates our emotions. A blockage of this caliber even affects our thoughts, making us wonder if we actually have a problem.

So we have to understand what is behind this sentence, what is really thought by those who address it to us and what we should do in such a situation.

“You are too sensitive”, how many times have you heard this in your life?

Ana has just had coffee with her colleagues. In the middle of the conversation, just as I was explaining that over the past few months she was no longer in harmony with her boss and that it was difficult for her to achieve her goals, one of her coworkers told her : “Come on, if you’re her favorite, it’s because you’re too sensitive and you dramatize everything” .

Listening to this, Ana remained silent. But, leaving the decrepit and thoughtful cafeteria, she tries to digest this comment calmly. She knows that he hurt her and that this message hurt her for an obvious reason: the relationship with her boss is very strained, they don’t come together on the same things and her job happens to be wrong. ‘all the more difficult. This comment hurt her because her colleague was unable to be receptive to a genuine concern.

This example may sound familiar to most of us. However, the fact that we come to doubt ourselves can just as easily happen. Is it true that I have such thin skin that I can see things where there isn’t? What if I really lose control? Before reaching this conclusion, let’s think about the following ideas.

What does it mean to be “too sensitive”?

First, let’s clarify an important fact: ” being too sensitive” does not mean being “very sensitive “. The two things can be very different.

• People who interact with others and what surrounds them from an emotional point of view are considered “sensitive” . They tend to take into account the quality of relationships and those little nuances in human interactions. They speak candidly about their moods and tend to value sincerity and respect for others. When this does not happen, they suffer or feel upset.
• According to Tomkins’ theory of 9 affects, each person has their own procedure  for dealing with emotions and  how to understand them. Thus, it often happens that some, far from understanding the internal states of people, consider that they are over-dramatized.
• Likewise, we cannot ignore the idea that there are people who, far from identifying with our emotional realities, perceive them with unease.

Thus, some people see exaggerated behavior in completely normal emotional patterns. In fact, this emotivity or this personality style is not understood by our interlocutors.

Don’t let them hurt your feelings

Each person reacts in a certain way to the same event, each has a particular way of understanding and feeling the world and even, of course, of living it. Whether someone tells us that we are too gay, too sensitive or too emotional is a way to eclipse our personality, to invalidate our way of being.

The word “too much” here has a negative connotation and therefore it would be safer to use more appropriate terms and a different kind of speech. Instead of using this harsh phrase “you are too sensitive”, it would be more appropriate to choose another more useful and above all more productive one: “ I think it affects you, how are you going to deal with it? How may I help you ? “.

Since this last message is not delivered as much as we would like, we need to make a simple personal observation if someone calls us “hypersensitive”. Being sensitive, seeing the world from an emotional point of view, is not something negative and even less punishable. It is what we are, what we have always been as well as we breathe, as we feel it …

Let’s not let ourselves be overly influenced by an incorrect sentence from someone who simply doesn’t yet understand who we really are.

Our thoughts