You’ve Been Told You’re “Too Sensitive.” Here’s a Better Explanation.
A friend takes two days to answer a text, and your mind starts building a case. A manager sends one blunt line, and you’re certain you’re in trouble. If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably also heard the verdict: you’re just too sensitive.
Dr. Sasha Hamdani, a board-certified psychiatrist, thinks that verdict leaves out the biology. Too Sensitive: Rejection, Resilience, and the Science of Feeling Deeply is her guide to understanding it, and to working with it.
Who Is Dr. Sasha Hamdani?
Hamdani specializes in ADHD, rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), and emotional regulation, and reaches more than 2 million followers on social media as @thepsychdoctormd. In 2023 she worked with the White House and Surgeon General’s team on mental health awareness, and Harvard recognized her as a public health leader. She is also the author of Self-Care for People with ADHD.
A 2026 Texas Conference for Women speaker, she presented the Power Talk Wired to Feel: Reclaiming Your Emotional Sensitivity. Her 2027 National Conference for Women session, Reclaiming Your Emotional Sensitivity, continues the conversation.
What the Book Argues
Hamdani describes RSD as an intense emotional response to real or perceived rejection, criticism, or failure. You may know intellectually that a comment isn’t a big deal, yet your brain and body respond as though the stakes are enormous. She became interested in the pattern because she kept seeing it in her patients with ADHD and recognized parts of it in her own experience.
The book connects brain chemistry, hormones, and culture to explain why emotional sensitivity looks the way it does, and why it can be more intense for some people than others. In interviews she has also discussed how cultural expectations, including in some AAPI environments, can affect how severe it feels.
From there, the book turns practical, with a toolkit of real-life scenarios and research-informed strategies for calming emotional surges, interrupting spirals, and building self-worth and resilience in relationships and at work. Its central reframe is that sensitivity is not fragility but a form of emotional awareness that can be understood and put to good use.
A note worth keeping in mind: RSD is a term widely used by clinicians and the ADHD community, though it is not a formal diagnosis in the DSM. Treat the book as a framework for understanding your reactions rather than a diagnostic tool, and consider talking with a clinician if these patterns are getting in the way of your life.
What You’ll Take Away
- A strong reaction is not proof of a weak character. Hamdani frames emotional sensitivity as a responsive nervous system doing what it was built to do, which is a kinder starting point than self-criticism.
- Spirals have patterns you can learn to interrupt. The book focuses on specific strategies for regulating surges before they take over your afternoon.
- Biology, hormones, and culture all play a role. Understanding the “why” is part of what makes the tools easier to trust.
- It shows up at work. Her CFW session points to everyday moments like a delayed text, a shift in tone, or feeling overlooked in a meeting, and notes an estimate that around 20% of the workforce is neurodivergent.
- You don’t have to have ADHD to use the toolkit. The book draws on her ADHD work, but she writes for anyone who has ever been told they feel too much.
Why We’re Recommending It
Many of the women in this community have spent years being told, or telling themselves, that they feel too much. Too Sensitive offers language, science, and practical tools in place of another round of “just don’t take it personally,” and it does so with real warmth.
Related from the CFW Bookshelf: For the other side of connection, pair this with The Balancing Act by Nedra Glover Tawwab. For the question of feeling valued, try Mattering by Jennifer Breheny Wallace, and for the hormonal piece of the puzzle, Hormone Havoc by Dr. Amy Shah.
Get the Book
Too Sensitive: Rejection, Resilience, and the Science of Feeling Deeply is available wherever books are sold, including Amazon, BookPeople, and Bookshop.org.
Learn more about Dr. Sasha Hamdani on her Conferences for Women speaker page.
