You’re Not "Too Much"—You've Just Been Told to "Be Less"

We’ve all heard it—maybe from a parent, a partner, a coworker, or even ourselves, echoing someone else’s voice in our head:

“You’re overreacting.”

“You’re being too sensitive.”

“Why do you have to make such a big deal out of everything?”

That kind of phrase shuts down a conversation before it even begins. And it doesn’t just silence a moment—it teaches you to silence yourself.

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of those words, then you already know:

How small they make you feel.

How alone they make you feel.

And maybe—how much more reactive they make you feel the next time. Because each time your feelings are dismissed, the need for them to be seen only grows stronger.

This post is for the people who’ve been called “dramatic,” “needy,” “too much,” or “hard to deal with.”

Spoiler: It’s not actually about who you are. It’s about what you’ve had to do to be seen. To be heard. To be taken seriously in a world that taught you your emotions were a problem.

And before we dive in, here’s something I say often in my office: I’m a therapist who believes that self-compassion and self-acceptance are foundational—non-negotiable—pieces of growth. I’m not here to tell you what’s right or wrong, good or bad. That’s not how I work. It’s not how healing works. So I can’t think in black-and-white terms. I won’t. There’s always more beneath the surface. There’s always context. Always history. Always something more worth understanding before labeling. This is not the truth. This is a truth. One way of looking at things. One lens. An invitation to see yourself—and your reactions—through a different frame. Not to excuse behavior, but to understand it. Not to avoid accountability, but to soften the shame that keeps us from moving forward. If that lands for you, I hope you’ll keep reading.

You get to decide if it fits. You get to decide what’s true for you.

Because no one gets to define your story for you. No one gets to tell you who you are—or what your emotions are or aren’t. That power belongs to you.

So, let’s look at this together. Let’s get curious about why some of us are called “too sensitive”…and what’s actually underneath that label.

What Happens When You’re Repeatedly Invalidated

When your feelings are consistently dismissed, questioned, or minimized, something happens inside your brain. Slowly, quietly, and often without you realizing it.

At first, it stings.

Then it is unsettling.

Eventually, it becomes the lens through which you start to question everything about your emotional experience.

You start wondering...

Was that really a big deal?

Am I being dramatic?

Why does this hit me harder than it seems to hit other people?

Is something wrong with me?

You learn that speaking up isn’t worth it if it’s going to be picked apart.

You start to choose silence over risk.

You start to carry your feelings alone—not because you want to, but because experience has taught you that sharing them won’t lead to comfort, only criticism.

And yet your emotions don’t go away.

They sit.

They swirl.

They start to show up other ways—maybe through irritability, over-explaining, apologizing too much, or feeling like you have to justify every emotion you have before someone else decides whether it’s valid or. not.

You may begin to rehearse conversations in your head, preparing for how to say something just right. Or seek out constant reassurance to make sure you’re “allowed” to feel what you feel. Or feel panicky or defensive when someone questions your emotional reactions—because now, your body expects invalidation before it even happens.

And if you've ever found yourself explaining the same feeling five different ways in hopes that this time someone will finally get it, you’re not being manipulative. You’re not being exhausting.

You’re trying to survive emotionally. You’re trying to be heard in a system or relationship that has made being heard feel unsafe or useless.

Let’s also be real: emotional invalidation doesn’t always sound cruel. Sometimes, it sounds well-meaning or logical. It sounds like:

• “I’m sure they didn’t mean it that way.”

• “You’re taking things really personally.”

• “I think you’re just tired/stressed/hormonal.”

• “Try to be positive and move on.”

  
  

When those are the responses every time, what’s the message? That your emotions don’t make sense. That your experiences are inconvenient. That you, somehow, are wrong for feeling the way you feel.

Over time, that doesn’t just hurt. It totally erodes your sense of self.

The Cycle of Amplified Emotion

Here’s the thing: when your emotional needs are consistently unmet, they don’t disappear. They get louder. Not because you make a scene—but because your body and mind are trying to make sense of the pain that’s been ignored for too long.

This is how the cycle begins:

1. You express a feeling—maybe hurt, maybe fear, maybe frustration.

2. Someone responds with dismissal: “You’re being too sensitive.”

3. Your body clocks that moment as unsafe. Your nervous system goes on alert.

So the next time something painful happens, your reaction comes in hotter. It’s not about the current moment—it’s all the moments behind it, too. The ones where no one listened. The ones where you were left alone with your feelings. And when your reaction is bigger, people around you respond with even more judgment. “See? This is what I’m talking about. You’re always so dramatic.”

That judgment confirms what you feared: I’m too much. My feelings aren’t valid. I’m not safe here.

And just like that, the cycle tightens.

Because now, not only are you feeling pain—you’re also feeling shame about how you’re feeling it. And shame is a powerful silencer. It keeps you stuck. It makes you question your reactions, your memories, your very self.

But even when you try to hold it in, it doesn’t stay quiet for long. It sneaks out. In irritability. In panic. In reactions that feel “disproportionate.” In exhaustion from constantly scanning your environment for how people might respond to you.

And this is where trauma often comes in—not just as a past event, but as a patterned experience of not being safe in your own emotions.

The people I sit with in therapy often come in feeling broken. They say:

“I don’t want to be like this.”

“I feel crazy.”

“I'm too much.”

But when we trace their reactions back to the source—when we start connecting those big emotional moments to the early experiences of invalidation, neglect, or emotional abandonment—things start to click. This isn’t about being broken. It’s about never having been fully seen.

And here’s where the cycle can start to shift.

When someone finally listens—not to fix you, but to witness you—it creates a new experience. An emotionally corrective one. The nervous system begins to learn: Maybe I’m not too much. Maybe I’m just a person who’s been carrying a lot.

That moment of feeling seen—especially in the place where shame has taken over—can be radical. It interrupts the loop. It makes space for empathy, for softness, for self-compassion. That shift in the cycle is often the biggest hurdle in therapy. Not learning how to feel less, but learning how to stop shaming yourself for feeling at all.

When we stop labeling sensitivity as weakness, and start seeing it as a reflection of where we’ve been and what we’ve had to do to survive—we begin to break the cycle. That’s the work. That’s the healing. And it starts with understanding that so much of this…was never your fault to begin with.

The Truth Behind “Too Sensitive”

Let’s pause here and ask an important question: When someone accuses you of “overreacting,” what are they actually saying?

They’re saying the reaction you’re having doesn’t match the level of harm they believe you’ve experienced.

In other words: “It wasn’t that bad.” or “You’re blowing this out of proportion.” or “Your emotions are making me uncomfortable, so I’m going to make you the problem.”

Let’s call it what it is—a judgment call. It’s not an objective truth. It’s a subjective label based on someone else’s perspective of the situation. And more often than not, that framing leaves no room for your lived experience, your context, or your history.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been the victim of the phrase “You need to calm down.” 🙋🏼‍♀️ 🙋🏼‍♀️ 🙋🏼‍♀️ 🙋🏼‍♀️ 🙋🏼‍♀️ 🙋🏼‍♀️

There’s something so deeply invalidating about being told to "calm down" when your nervous system is in distress. It implies that your feelings aren’t real and that therefore, your response doesn't make sense. It says—You’re unstable. You're irrational. You’re too much.

This is where the term “overreacting” becomes especially damaging. It doesn’t just critique the size of your reaction—it questions your ability to interpret and respond to reality itself. It teaches you that you can’t be trusted with your own emotions.

Here’s a reframe I want to offer: You never truly "overreact".

At least, not when we are willing to widen the lens.

Maybe your response was bigger than the surface situation warranted. But when we understand the context—your pain, your past, your unmet needs—it almost always starts to make sense.

Let’s take a simple example: You snap at your child over something minor, and immediately label yourself a bad parent. But if you pause and recognize that you’re running on three hours of sleep, haven’t had a moment to yourself in days, and are managing silent anxiety on top of everything else…suddenly, that reaction feels more human. More understandable.

Or...maybe you cry in a meeting when your boss calls your professionalism into question, following weeks of office gossip, isolation, and bullying. You’re then told you're making a big deal out of nothing.

But then you look at the bigger picture—how unsafe you’ve felt at work, how long you’ve been gaslit, how few people have had your back—and suddenly your reaction isn’t excessive. It’s the natural result of chronic stress and emotional betrayal.

These are not "overreactions". They are accumulated reactions. They are your entire system, your brain and your body saying, “Enough.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean every response is healthy, helpful, or something we want to repeat. But that’s different than saying it was wrong. There’s a big difference between acknowledging a reaction is problematic and assuming it’s irrational. When we respond to someone’s emotion without curiosity—when we judge it, label it, or minimize it—we add distress to an already painful moment. And in doing so, we fracture the relationship further.

But when we take a breath and ask, "What else might be going on here?", we open the door to empathy. And when you start asking that question of yourself—not as an excuse, but as a point of exploration—you stop punishing yourself for being emotional and start understanding yourself more deeply. You begin to see that your emotions are not the enemy. They’re messengers. And while not every messenger is elegant, each one is worth listening to.

When you can understand your own reactions with depth and context, you begin to shift how you treat yourself. You become more forgiving, more grounded, more whole. And from that place, your relationships can shift too. Because you’re no longer navigating them from a place of shame—you’re moving from self-understanding.

And that? That’s healing.

What We Actually Need

When someone labels you as “too sensitive,” the unspoken assumption is that you need to change. That your emotions are the problem. That your tone, your intensity, your response—all need to "be different" so that others can be more comfortable. But what if the problem isn’t you? What if the real issue is the absence of support, not the presence of your emotion?

Let’s talk about what people actually need in the face of emotional pain—because it is not shame, not silence, and definitely not correction.

1. We need validation, not dismissal. Validation doesn't make a problem disappear, but it helps us feel connected. “Yeah, that makes sense.” or “I hear you.” or “You’re not crazy.” These are simple phrases, but when someone is drowning in self-doubt and shame, they are life preservers.

2. We need curiosity, not criticism. Instead of “Why are you like this?” try “What’s behind this for you?Curiosity invites connection. Criticism shuts it down.

3. We need empathy, not defensiveness. Especially in close relationships. When someone is vulnerable enough to show you their pain, reacting with defensiveness (“It was a joke” and “That wasn't the intention” and “I didn’t mean it that way”) only doubles the wound. What’s healing is being able to say, “I see this hurt you. Tell me more about it.”

4. We need space, not control. Many people who were silenced in childhood or who have been traumatized by toxic systems don’t need more structure or rules around how they express themselves—they need permission to feel without being told they’re wrong for it.

And if you’re someone who has spent years shrinking yourself to make other people more comfortable, here’s what else you need: You need to be unchoked. You need to be able to take up space—to finally exist fully without fear of being shamed for it.

The more you begin to understand your reactions as responses to unmet needs rather than personal failings, the more room you’ll have for self-compassion. And the more compassion you cultivate within yourself, the more naturally it extends outward.

Final Thoughts

Before you click away from this post, I want to invite you to pause...

Think about a time—recent or long ago—when someone told you that you were “too emotional,” “overreacting,” or “making a big deal out of nothing.”

Now, ask yourself:

• What did I need in that moment that I didn’t get?

• What was I trying to express, beneath the reaction?

• If I looked at myself with curiosity instead of criticism, what would I see?

  
  

And then think about the people in your life. The ones whose emotions sometimes feel like too much. Can you pause long enough to wonder what they’ve been carrying? Can you ask what they might need instead of rushing to fix, label, or dismiss?

Every time you choose reflection over reactivity, curiosity over judgment, you make the world just a little bit safer—for the people around you and for yourself.

We all want the same thing, deep down: To be seen. To be heard. To be understood.

So here’s your permission to feel what you feel. To soften toward yourself. And to stop (seriously, STOP) asking whether you’re too much—and start asking whether you were ever given enough.

🫶🏻