“You’re too sensitive” framing recasts a person’s legitimate reaction as a personal defect, so that the behavior which provoked it never has to be examined. When you raise a hurtful comment or a boundary that was crossed, the subject is quietly switched: the issue is no longer what was done, but that you reacted “too much.” Variants include “can’t you take a joke,” “you’re overreacting,” “you’re so dramatic,” and “why do you always make everything a big deal.” Each moves scrutiny off the behavior and onto your character.
It is a specific form of invalidation, and its power lies in how ordinary it sounds. Because we all occasionally do react more strongly than a situation warrants, the accusation is plausible enough to make you doubt yourself — and repeated often enough, it teaches you to pre-empt it. People on the receiving end start prefacing every concern with “maybe I’m overreacting, but…” and eventually stop raising concerns at all. That self-censorship is the objective: if your reactions can be dismissed by definition, the other person is freed from accountability. Your feelings are data about how you were treated, not a flaw to apologize for.
The defense is to keep two things straight that the framing deliberately blurs. First, your reaction is valid on its own terms; whether you are “sensitive” is a separate question from whether the behavior was acceptable, and you can decline to let the topic slide onto your character. Second, the pattern is what matters — an occasional “you’re overreacting” is normal friction between people, while a reliable habit of turning your every concern into evidence of your defectiveness is the tactic at work. Reality-checking with trusted others quickly distinguishes the two, and when the invalidation is chronic and eroding your self-trust, support is available.