today i want to talk about something that's been a problem for me for as long as i can remember something that's made it hard for me to have relationships and that's caused me a lot of pain this video is going to be incredibly personal and i'm going to share some things that i've never shared here before so i'm a little bit nervous so please be kind i want to talk about rejection sensitive dysphoria rejection sensitive dysphoria is when an actual or perceived rejection causes an overwhelming emotional response it's an extreme emotional sensitivity triggered by rejection
or criticism it can also be triggered by feeling that you have failed to meet up to your own or other people's expectations it's not an official disorder so you can't be diagnosed with it and it's not a recognized condition i first heard about rsd when i was researching adhd because there appears to be a link between adhd and rsd although it's not officially included in the adhd diagnostic criteria however it is possible to experience it when you don't have adhd and not everyone with adhd will experience it the reasons for the link between adhd and
rsd are unclear at this point but it could be because for people with adhd our central nervous system tends to overreact to things from the outside world so it naturally follows that our brains might be overreacting in this way to rejection also rsd is a manifestation of emotional dysregulation which is a feature of adhd because of difficulties with executive functioning researchers estimate that by the age of 12 children with adhd have received 20 000 more negative messages from the world than their neurotypical peers experiencing all of this rejection just for being ourselves could lead to
a sensitivity to rejection additionally serious trauma like abuse and neglect can make the symptoms even worse something that i can relate to but talking about this would be incredibly private and involve talking about other people so i don't feel that i can do that so all i can say is that i do carry some trauma that would leave me sensitive to rejection and cause me to experience extreme reactions to that emotion when i first heard about rsd it was like a light bulb moment for me i have struggled with painful feelings around rejection and not
being good enough all my life it has been difficult to carry these feelings and the knowledge that i don't react typically has on its own left me feeling less than and incapable i'm going to try and describe how it feels but please bear with me because it can be difficult to articulate these kinds of feelings basically i start every new relationship whether personal or professional with the assumption that the other person is probably not going to like me i assume that my way of being is unpalatable and that this person like so many before them
is likely to reject me for being too much or if they're kind enough they won't outright reject me but instead they'll put up such rigid boundaries that they are keeping their contact with me to an absolute minimum this is particularly the case when it comes to groups of people during my life i've had to deal with group socializing both professionally and personally multiple times starting with school then university then circus school and then the circus community who i worked and trained with for many years next i dealt with parent socializing antenatal groups toddler classes and
school run socializing finally i am now part of a group of people working in neurodivergence and there are professional conferences and work situations that i have to deal with there too and the common thread through all of this is the feeling that i don't belong and i'm not accepted yes even among my neurodivergent peers i feel like the one that people won't like and won't want to spend time with it doesn't seem likely that i've actually been rejected by all of these groups it's more likely that this feeling of being an outsider is perceived and
part of my own internal dialogue so i sit on the edge of groups feeling rejected which is incredibly painful or i throw myself into funeral mode and work really hard to be someone that might be accepted as part of the group and i leave feeling stressed and overloaded and like i've put on a massive performance it's an especially hard feeling when you feel like you're too much for groups that are all about being yourself or about embracing and accepting marginalized people when you feel rejected by those groups where do you go fortunately despite these difficulties
i have managed to form and maintain some close personal relationships i'm lucky to have an incredibly loving and supportive husband and a small group of close wonderful friends those people have managed to break through my anxieties about being rejected and not being good enough i've been able to relax a little bit and enjoy the feeling of being connected to someone but it's never completely comfortable and the feeling that they might reject me in the future doesn't ever go away once i've broken the initial barriers to having that relationship the stakes become even higher i care
more now so the rejection that might come would be even more painful at this point i am extremely vulnerable i'm worrying that once they get to know me better they will realize that after all i am unlikable once this barrier has been passed i worry that they're only spending time with me now because they feel obligated or that they do like me but the burden of being around me will become too much and they will end up walking away this can be frustrating for the people around me particularly my husband mr purple who has known
and loved me for over 20 years now he's told me that by now i should feel confident that he loves me and won't walk away that he's told me he loves me many times and his actions should also demonstrate that and they do and it's not fair on him but i've told him i'm not sure it's possible for me to ever feel completely secure i've certainly never felt that way in any relationship in my life so far even when it comes to coco my service dog which is the easiest relationship i've ever had i'm still
not completely secure dogs are great the love she shows me is incredibly soothing she's super excited to see me when i've been away from her and she's always giving me loads of snuggles and love however occasionally she will choose to hang out with mr purple instead she might want to follow him around for the day or go to him for her snuggles for whatever reason and that's fine or at least it should be fine but that's when the doubt starts to creep in perhaps she'd rather be with him than with me recently i've noticed that
when we are working in our shared office together and she's hanging out in there too if i leave she will quite often stay in the office with mr purple but if he leaves she will nearly always go with him this triggers my insecurities but then mr purple said that it's because usually when he leaves our office is because he's going to prepare lunch for us all and she's following him because she knows this and she always wants to be in the kitchen when there might be food she loves food more than anyone or anything and
i accept that obviously this totally explains why and i feel so silly feeling this way even about my dog these are some of the potential consequences for people experiencing rejection sensitive dysphoria you may become a people pleaser bending yourself into whatever shape you think people want or never saying no to anything for fear of upsetting anyone it could lead to you being overly controlling in relationships to avoid getting hurt having unrealistic and unreasonable expectations of the other person for example expecting instant replies to your texts or feeling stressed when your partner makes social arrangements without
you because it makes you feel rejected having self-esteem which is dependent on what other people think about you so feeling on top of the world because a relationship's going well or feelings of self-loathing because something's gone wrong or you think something's gone wrong post-social interaction catastrophizing for example spending time with a friend and then going home and worrying about all the ways that you might have got it wrong i used to send text messages apologizing for my behavior after nearly every social meetup i've gotten a lot better at coping with my rsd particularly since i
was diagnosed with autism and adhd and i've started to understand why i might be a little bit different to other people partly also due to having some amazing people in my life who are helping me learn to navigate these kinds of relationships in a healthy way and partly because i'm starting to recognize when i'm experiencing rejection sensitivity and i'm able to respond to that now instead of the perceived rejection so this is my advice for coping with rejection sensitive dysphoria recognizing and knowing that you experience rsd might help you to manage things better and as
with all things this will take time and practice one thing that i do is to try and examine my feelings and where they're coming from so for example one thought pattern might be this person didn't reply quickly to my text message that means that they don't like me anymore they're avoiding me and they're probably going to end our relationship soon so i'll look at that thought pattern and think what could the other explanations for their lack of reply be maybe something's going on in their lives right now that's distracting them or maybe they're just really
busy or maybe they lost their phone there's plenty of other reasons for a lack of text i don't need to automatically go straight to they hate me now or perhaps they just meant to reply and forgot i think we can all relate to that one going through the process of considering all the possible reasons to explain the situation that aren't rejection helps me to be rational rather than reactive it doesn't always work and it's not always possible but i'm now much better able to cope with late texts and other perceived rejections in fact it also
gave me permission to deal with my texts when i want to rather than feeling that i have to drop everything straight away and respond immediately understanding that not everyone will like me and that is really freeing some people will like me and other people won't and that is true for everyone sometimes it can feel like you're the only one being rejected realizing that everyone experiences rejection sometimes can make it less of a big deal working on my self-esteem and separating it from other people's perception of me i can like myself when others don't it's a
really freeing idea i'm enjoying starting to look at myself as someone who can be herself and love herself from the inside out without needing validation or approval from others to know that she is enough distraction techniques can be really useful too if i'm experiencing an episode of rsd throwing myself into one of my interests or a nice warm bath or a snuggle with cocoa can make me feel better and make the episode less intense and shorter once i'm done with my distraction i often feel more rational finally while i was researching this video i came
across some medication options for treating rsd i'm not going to get into that because i'm not a medical professional but i mention it in case you want to research that as a potential option for you i hope you found this video useful if you experience rejection sensitive dysphoria you have my full sympathy it's one of the more painful aspects of being neurodivergent and i get it please hit the like button if you did like this video i make videos every week on the topic of neurodiversity and disability so if you'd like to hear more from
me then also please consider subscribing to my channel if you'd like to support me financially as a creator then check the description box for the ways in which you can do that it's what makes it possible for me to make this content thanks for watching goodbye
