The hardest part of being called too sensitive as a child isn't the label itself. It's the decades you spend afterward trying to feel less, without realizing you were slowly subtracting yourself from your own life - Silicon Canals

"The real damage isn't the belief. It's the decades of small, almost invisible adjustments that follow. The slow subtraction of preferences, reactions, tears, enthusiasms, needs, until one morning, usually in your forties or fifties, you notice you've built a whole life that fits someone else's specifications and you can't quite remember agreeing to any of it."

"I watched myself almost say it. The exact phrase, handed down like a family heirloom: you're being too sensitive. I caught it before it left my mouth, and in that two-second gap I felt something like vertigo. Because I realised how many times that sentence had been said to me."

The word 'sensitive' often conveys a negative judgment rather than a neutral description. The real harm lies not in self-esteem issues but in the gradual suppression of one's true self over decades. This leads to a life constructed around others' expectations. Personal experiences reveal the deep-rooted impact of such labels, as seen in the author's reaction to their child's emotional expression. The realization of how often the phrase 'you're being too sensitive' has been used highlights the generational transmission of this damaging narrative.

Read at Silicon Canals